Low life
I blame the father
Jeffrey Bernard
Acouple of kind people have recently wheeled me to the Grouch() Club which has been a marvellous change from being in what is now almost solitary confinement, since my visitors have become few and far between. The Grouch() would have made an even more refreshing change if it wasn't for the fact that they now allow in some of the most dreadful and boring men I have come across in recent years. These people are almost all the advertising mob who apparently have no offices to go to. One good new rule they have in the Groucho is that people are not allowed to use mobile telephones in the bar, but I sat at a table last week and was immediately joined by six Americans talking bollocks about a tele- vision commercial and then going on for over an hour about money which is not a fit subject for conversation in a social club or almost anywhere else apart from maybe a bank.
I wonder if anyone has ever laughed at the absurdity of making a television com- mercial. Many years ago, the Sunday Times sent me to Spain to write about the making of one. The product was Del Monico tins of fruit. It could have been shot in a studio in front of an appropriate backdrop but the director insisted the film should be shot near Rosas in Spain where he said there was a 'meaningful' sunset most evenings.
The cast consisted of a pretty blonde girl and a baby that was trying to get his paws on the tinned fruit. The entire film crew and the advertising men made complete fools of themselves in their attempt to get the young woman to bed. For some strange reason, film crews and advertising people have always thought that it is their right to go to bed with whom they like on location.
Anyway, as I say, such people are begin- ning to spoil the Groucho club. The staff remain incredibly kind, to me at least. Four of the girls who work there are so attractive that I hardly dare speak to them for fear of behaving like the monstrous advertising men on one of their wretched, meaningful sunset locations. The thing that puzzles me about one of the Grouch() employees is that, in spite of being one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen — and I don't exaggerate — she is always in a valley of sadness and gloom. We know that looks aren't everything but surely with hers the occasional glance into a mirror might wreath her in smiles.
It is usually assumed that such sad girls and women have been screwed up by some awful boyfriend or lover. My own theory is that fathers have a lot to answer for. I was once married to a woman whose father went to a local shop one day and was never seen again. My wife was seven years old at the time and from time to time she is still an active volcano of anger.
I sometimes wonder what my daughter makes of me. Not a lot. I don't think that my past escapades have exactly put her off young men but when I look at some of them I almost wish they had. She might even look up to one of those advertising yobs that are spoiling the Groucho club, and mistake him or her for an intellectual.
Meanwhile, this week I have been over- come with a stultifying melancholy myself. But I can't blame my mother for that and more's the pity, since I would like to blame someone or something for a depression that is alleviated neither by Prozac, Absolut vodka nor a princely royalty cheque for £41.90 from Zimbabwe.
And now, Vera is on holiday and the quality of the food here has slipped steeply since her substitues don't know where to shop. All of that is trivial if only I could make the sad beauty in the Groucho club smile, I would feel I had done a good day's work for a change. Perhaps it was nothing to do with her father, after all. Perhaps she simply dislikes those meaningful advertis- ing twits as much as I do.
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