Low life
Disgusted by drunks
Jeffrey Bernard
Tis is my fifth week without a drink. I would like to stay sick of it, as I am, and bored with it, as I also am, but there is no telling, unfortunately, as to how I shall feel about it in the weeks to come and even tomorrow.
It is a strange business and one day last week I had a sickening time when I was vis- ited by an old friend who was drunk. That's the way it takes me. Apart from loathing horribly jolly people who think that they are the life and soul of a life-long party, I am also bored with pubs and the people who go into them. In my past experiences of going on the wagon, and two and a half years has been my record, it inevitably leads to a void of loneliness since nearly all my friends are boozers and, therefore, unspeakable. What particularly irritates me is the fact that I am supposed to go to Dublin soon, and that city is one large bar in which the wagon would be damn nigh impossible a vehicle to stay on.
So, if I last long enough, I shall be a pris- oner once again in this flat, and the coming week is going to be hell because Vera has got another week off. It appalls me that I have come to like her and rely on her as much as I do. Her substitutes are a very pedestrian bunch who try as hard as they can to do the job, but without Vera I would probably slide into a state of permanent unconsciousness, punctuated by painful and frequent stays in hospital. I am visiting HMS Victory this week. God knows how I'm going to cope with those steep companionways, particularly as I might have become addicted to rum. Nel- son's body was brought home from Trafal- gar in a barrel of brandy which apparently the sailors drained after his body had been removed from it. That must have been real love.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, I wonder why my old friend, the late Charles St George, called a racehorse Saumarez which was the name of one of Nelson's captains and an animal that won the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at 20-1, thank you very much. Poor Charles sold the horse just before the race but he was very, almost nobly, philosophical about it.
Which reminds me, it hasn't been a very good year for punting, neither has it been a very bad one. All in all, I think that, for a change, I won more money during the sum- mer on cricket than I did on horse racing. But the odds about this winter tour of Aus- tralia are in no way tempting. My book- maker goes 1-2 on Australia, 3-1 against England and the same price against a drawn series. I'm certainly not tempted to back Australia. It is extremely doubtful to me, but it is still just possible that those two geriatrics, Gooch and Gatting, may come good.
A better bet would be that I don't last much longer on the wagon but then there would be no takers. Unless I met someone drunk every day which would keep me feel- ing fairly disgusted. And now we are at that ghastly time of year when thoughts turn to what we'll do at Christmas. How awful to think that people working in Christmas cracker factories are already thinking up their dreadful jokes and that my occasional visitors are already thinking up their awful menus for the day itself. I might go to a hotel like the one I went to for The Spectator ten years ago where I was surrounded by Arabs drinking Perrier water, and then jump into a brand new reincarnation, this time as either land- ed gentry or an orthopaedic surgeon like Mr Cobb. We do, after all, both have a lik- ing for spare ribs. In 1966 I was in hospital lying underneath a `nil by mouth' sign and the ward sister asked me to carve the turkey for the entire ward. It was not the punishment she expected it to be for me. What was, was the singing of carols by the Salvation Army and even that was better than those Arabs on Perrier water.
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