Low life
Running out of friends
Jeffrey Bernard
Week eight. I am still counting and this trip on the wagon is still a far from smooth ride. My visitors get fewer and fewer and 1 suppose I am now what Dr Johnson would call an unclubbable man. I even sank s° low as to buy a lottery ticket in the belief that something in the region of eight or nine million pounds might entice a new friend or companion. And last week the Inland Revenue sent me a demand for £40,000. I don't think that they are mad, but I think that they take no trouble whatsoever with getting their work right. But it is ridiculous to be asked for more in tax than one has earned. My accountant will doubtless sort it out, but at what cost? At least I know where my right leg has gone and I think I know where 1t came from, but the Inland Revenue don't care or bother about anything since you are merely a number or a name in a file of some sort.
And now, as bad as taxes, we have got we the stage, or at least some people have, 0' continually asking, 'What are you going to do for Christmas?' The answer usuallY needs some consideration because you mg always get an invitation that you might not want and an embarrassing one to get out of, but whatever you say there is great diffi- culty over the matter. As far as I'm con- cerned, Christmas is like a long Sunday and it makes very little difference to me apart from having to watch The Sound of Musi,c and The Magnificent Seven for the 1000 time. I have to admit to some fairly awful sentimentality when it comes to Christmas since it nearly always was a time when It was almost fun to be married.
I wonder what the ex-wives will be doing this year. One of them I am sure will be pretending that it just is not happening' another will be making a traditional fuss and is probably already decorating her house with a Christmas tree in every rooln — I might even get a card from that one -- and the third one will be getting as pissed as a pudding in her kitchen. I feel more sorry for them than I do for myself. . Presents are a tricky business especially if you have to go shopping in a wheelchair, but I suppose Marks and Spencer has the answer to everything just as Harrods has for people with a bit more money. Vera presents a slight problem in the line of pre" sents as does my daughter, Isabel. I all remember in the war years buying nlY mother the most ghastly perfume ever invented from Woolworths called Evening in Paris and it cost about a shilling for a bottle of it. I expect it was a gigolo repel- lent but I wouldn't know. For myself, I stole Mars bars. This year I would steal olive oil if I thought I could get away with it. On Boxing Day years ago we would all take our hangovers to Kempton Park races to drink champagne and clear our heads. Now that I no longer get much in the way of kicks from watching National Hunt rac- ing I stay away and if I sat motionless in a wheelchair I would freeze to death. But at least there is a Test Match, in Brisbane I think, so I shall be awake to listen to that at 6 a-m. In the past, I have driven women mad by listening to Test Match commen- taries from Australia while it is still dark before dawn here. But if they had had radio nearly 200 years ago you couldn't blame a man for sitting up and listening to the ball by ball commentaries from Trafal- gar or Waterloo. As one who likes to boast that he bets with his head and not his heart, 1 think I would have done my pieces by backing Napoleon at Waterloo although he claimed that he only fielded his 2nd Xl. Blucher's timely arrival could be matched maybe by the late inclusion of David Gower in our little army.
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