Low life
Inside out
Jeffrey Bernard
To Ken, H.M. Prison, Stanford Hill, Sheerness, Kent.
Dear Ken, Just a line to let you kW; that the Russians gave an `outspoken feminist four years in the nick last week' Personally, I think the sentence is a ton' steep for simply talking drivel, but there you go or at least there she goes. AnywaY, It made me think that your nick would be bursting at the seams if ever they sent the fraud squad down to Fleet Street, not to mention the office at the Arts Cotille,,1 where they dish out grants to people w..„011' have so much talent that they need £5,t)rt to prove it. Thank God all my feminist friends are 'inspoken' and in no danger c) having their collars felt. It also occure4 to o me that you may well be envying me fr°,,,, your retreat, surrounded as I am women, but if it's any consolation to You they're a very disappointing lot. Two weeks .ago — and this is fairly typical — I became besotted at first sight with a clairvoyant Who lives with a 40-year-old film producer 111 Mayfair. I'm no stranger to optimism, but faced with that sort of competition I realised how Kuwait must have felt at the start of the World Cup. There was another one too. This one is a senior hack who lives With a 25-year-old who not only holds down a good job in the city and looks like a Greek god, he also waits on her hand and foot and does all the cooking and cleaning up. Are the courts dishing out four year sentences to the wrong birds?
The paradox is odd. Your good woman is counting the hours till you're sprung. There You are, you and your mates, dressed in clothes covered in arrows, your breath smelling to high heaven of porridge and cocoa, and here I am, wallowing in the Morning bath before dressing up like Beau orummel to go out on the town to see what's buzzing, and I'm here to tell you that nothing's buzzing. Yes, Eva's counting the hours while my lot are hoping to see rigor mortis set in to what they obviously consider to be a disaster area. She came to lunch on Sunday, by the way, and I served 11,1) some roast duck. Incidentally, if they don't think it too presumptuous, you might tell the kitchen blokes at your nick to start duck off breast down at Mark 31/2 for half an hour, keep turning it for another hour and then give it all hell at Mark 8 for the o s og stages. After that we watched 'vteEnroe v Connors and although, like the 'elates of Stanford Hill, I think prison stinks for almost everybody and for most offences, I'd be fairly happy to see McEnroe join your working party for a while.
Dear, oh dear. I always seem to be moan- 'n8 about my lot when you're far deeper in the shit. But still, if you're daft enough to fall for a clairvoyant — and mustn't she see bound coming? — then I suppose you're `,(3ond to feel that it's a trifle unfair. But alaglow won the Eclipse Stakes at San- ,i'M'yo like a good 'un and he looks as t u°ogh he'll get another quarter-mile. If You want any of the 8-1 on offer for the „Mg George let Eva know and I'll arrange ;`,. Other sporting news concerns the Rus- sian feminist. Charley said she should be locked up in a room with 100 navvies from County Kerry but how many of them would come out alive? They were also betting even money that the tipstaff would take me r,Ight off to Pentonville last week but the 'wegistrar was very OK and all I have to do, tnIth my life expectancy being what it is, is
PaY the court £25 a month till I snuff it.
b ye worked out that I can save that much e,.1' turning up at the Coach and Horses civerY day at 11.30 instead of 11.00. Well, htn)n't try to escape. It really is ghastly out o're and I'm desperately trying to get 4role to go to Newbury races for a couple et_daYs. Sadly, and particularly fore joining
such an
vasion the clairvoyant won't b e. '
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