Low life
I want to be alone
Jeffrey Bernard
Ithink I owe readers some sort of expla- nation as to the paragraph last week which attempted to explain the absence of a col- umn. It was a nasty business. The girl who was supposed to come here to take my dic- tation, like everyone else, was not allowed into or out of Berwick Street by the police because they had sealed off the area and were investigating a particularly nasty dou- ble murder that had taken place almost next door to me the night before.
Two young men who always slept in cardboard boxes outside a fairly well- known shop, Simply Sausages, had their throats cut by who knows?
Apparently they were a civilised couple and popular with the market stall-holders whom they helped from time to time with odd jobs. Anyway, two policemen came up to my flat supposedly to question me about the fateful night before. They were not in the least like show-business detectives being neither the country bumpkin types or the tougher television variety. All they asked me was the date of my birth and then, having spotted a framed poster advertising Peter O'Toole in Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell, they rabbited on about the play. It is a useful poster and has stopped even a bailiff in his tracks.
There were other aspects of the week not as unpleasant as murder, but still things that made it unforgettable. I am thinking, of course, of the Derby. In the end, I didn't have a bet although the horse I mentioned here ran a very good second. But what bugged me most is that I am old fashioned `I've told you — I don't want to buy any onions!' enough to think that there ought to be a law against people who give noble crea- tures like the thoroughbred the most awful names like Benny the Dip. We could have run out of classical names for horses years ago but the idea of, for example, Benny the Dip beating Hyperion quite simply appals me. And I see that the rather unpleasantly named The Fly — a very good horse — is a stable companion to The Glow Worm.
Barry Hills who moved in one afternoon from travelling head lad to trainer in his own right landed the coup that enabled him to do so with a Lincoln winner called Frankincense which is a nice enough name for a racehorse. Had he landed his coup with a horse called Benny the Glow Worm, I hope he would have had the good taste to continue in his more humble capacity as a travelling head lad.
Anyway, I am slightly off racing at the moment and, in fact, I have hardly had a bet since my favourite animal last year, First Island, trained by Geoffrey Ragg who was kind enough to send me a colour pho- tograph of it because I wrote something nice about him, hurt himself so badly on the gallops the other day that he will never race again.
Which reminds me that my own health is now so bad that I have finished tearing about but without the compensation of going to stud. I did everything in the wrong order. But now my main worry is that the district nurse this morning told me that they are planning to give me some extra help since I can hardly do anything for myself any more. It is a kind thought but one that makes me slightly nervous. What if the extra help, who will probably spend an hour a day here, turns out to be serious- ly stupid and boring? On top of that she might be called Lysistrata the Ladybird in which case it is hoped that she will be rid- den by one of Barry Hills's sons Michael or Richard. I just want to be alone.
Previous page
