Low life
Nothing doing
Jeffrey Bernard
My typewriter keeps giving me re- .proachful looks and obviously thinks m having an affair with a pub. What dear Monica Electric de Luxe can't comprehend Is the fact that it's she who's driving me to drink. She sits there on my desk buzzing With energy and simply aching to be touched and all I can think about is how much I need a holiday. Now you probably think how the hell does he need a holiday since he does damn all anyway, but you do need to get away from nothing sometimes. Doing nothing is a drudge. Anyone can
cover innocent pieces of paper with words but doing nothing requires a mite of imagination. You don't really think I'm actually listening to those bores in the Coach and Horses do you? Good God, no. I'm sitting there trying to conjure up dreams out of thick air.
Take this morning so far. It's been hell. I lay there in the bath a while back listening to a concerto for two pianos by Max Bruch.
The announcer said the score had been lost but some twit obviously found it and handed it into whoever you hand in lost scores to, which was a big mistake. After that, I lay on my bed and went through an
instant replay of 1978. That wasn't very pretty and the script was awful, especially her lines. Then I burned my hand on the steam iron and made a cup of tea but the milk was sour. You're with me now. Beginning to get it? You see how much better it would have been this morning if I'd simply got up at 6 a.m. and raped Monica Olympia immediately. It's going to get worse though. They don't open for another hour and a half, then when they do I've got to do nothing until they close. I suppose someone will tell me how they spent the bank holiday, there will be the usual ribald remarks about the England cricket team being a load of wankers, Norman will tell someone to piss off and his mother will give me the meteorological details of the situation in Harrow-on-the- Hill early this morning. Now, wouldn't you rather have a job than have to go through all this and that? Of course you would. I don't want to over-excite you but after the Coach closes I have to go to the Sporting Life to write a column the deadline for which is 5 p.m. when the White Hart opens, and in there I will have to listen to a lot of hacks telling me about the scoops they got years ago. After that I will probably have to go to a Greek kebab house in Charlotte Street where I will lose my reading glasses and then be asked to leave. And you think you need a holiday.
Even the forthcoming trip to Barbados in four weeks isn't going to be a holiday. Firstly I've got to keep a diary of it for a travel magazine and secondly that means I've got to remember what I did the day before when I sit down to write the daily entry. And the party I'm going with is a very rich mixture. Apart from trying to make sure that Richard West doesn't drown (not an easy task for a non- swimmer) you should see the ladies we're with. Have you ever taken four Dober- manns for a walk? Don't. Yes, I've got to get away from it all. But what's on the other side of nothing? I'm seriously think- ing of getting a job as a computer salesman or something of that ilk. Ugh. The only There's no need to be so defensive!'
thing that's keeping me going at the mo- ment is the thought of filming Opinions for Channel 4 in a couple of weeks' time. The director already says — smirking at my script — that there will be a lot of complaints so we will go out out at 10 p.m. after the children have gone to bed. It is actually quite' interesting and rather ex- traordinary how upset people can get over other people's life styles and I wonder why. I think maybe they think your grass is greener than theirs, but heaven knows I'm living in a rubbish dump. I don't mean to offend Norman by saying that but let's face it this isn't a formal garden at Blenheim, more a Dig for Victory allotment we're in.
Which train of thought leads me to the war. I read a remarkable thing the other day in a book which is the history of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. Apparently when war was declared a steward of the Jockey Club said, 'It is unthinkable that in a sporting country like England we should declare war before the St Leger.' Of course, the St Leger was called off — it's run at the end of September — but only an Englishman could say something like that. It's also rather overrating the Leger even though it is a classic. And he had planned his holiday to coincide with the race too. Well, my little holiday will coincide with the Arc in October and I shall be well pleased if Reagan can keep his finger off the button until they pass the post. With All Along passing it first, of course.
Previous page
