Low life
Going to Golders Green
Jeffrey Bernard
By the time you read this I will be in Portugal. Whether I shall be dead or alive though is a matter of conjecture. I had another nightmare last night about falling off the gangplank I mentioned last week and closer inspection of a photograph of Michael Elphick's cabin-cruiser reveals that the width of what you could laughingly call the deck between the superstructure and the deep blue sea is about a foot. This has to be negotiated to reach the cabins. Anyway, so as not to inflict anybody with unnecessary expense I have taken out an insurance policy which not only pays for Portuguese hospitals but which pays for the repatriation of my corpse. All roads lead to Golders Green. All week people have been telling me to get some water-wings and wear them all day, That would look good. It would drive the women into a frenzy. A skeleton encased in foam rubber. But I have been thinking. If the worst comes to the worst I do hope someone fixes me up with a memorial service. I intend to speak at it myself and I am about to record a tape which starts off, 'I am sorry I can't be here with you today but due to very obviously foreseen circum- stances . . .' etc, etc. It should be mod- erately spooky. Do come. But Elizabeth Smart's memorial service last week went well — if anything to do with death can go well — for everybody except for a few of us who made addresses or read poems. It is a very nerve-racking business. For one thing you are facing friends and it is a little embarrassing. Speaking at strangers is easy. Furthermore just what do you say? There's not a lot to add having said you loved the person. But Elizabeth would have approved of the timing of the service which gave us 30 minutes in the Red Lion before to summon up some Dutch courage. Accompanied by Beryl Bainbridge, Alice Thomas Ellis and my brother Oliver, I managed to squeeze in four doubles which was just about right. I have found three doubles to be right for television and the same number stiffens the sinews sufficient- ly for appearances in magistrate's and county courts. Beryl spoke splendidly after one lousy single measure. Mind you, she knows what she's talking about.
Talking of talking, the annoying thing about the timing of this Portuguese jaunt is that 1 was asked to appear on Choices (BBC1) on Thursday to discuss marriage with Julia Neuberger. That would have been fun and being the clever lady she is she might have been able to explain to me just why it is I have been to the breach four times. It is something that has certainly puzzled me during the past five years of pondering the business. What is odd, having spoken of Dutch courage, I can walk headlong into a marriage registry office without a drop of encouragement from Messrs Smirnoff. There's something really rather jolly about weddings, espe- cially other people's. I have also been to some fun funerals. For some reason or other which I suspect may be rather sinister I have noticed that women are often quite susceptible on these black occasions. It has made me feel needlessly guilty but I have, over grave and furnace, twice caught the eye of women and we have gone on to better things. Perhaps the very nearness of death arouses in them an unconscious desire to keep the world going. But isn't it odd just what turns people on? I know a man who is sexually aroused at the sight of a vast amount of ready cash such as you might see in a casino and I know another who is even turned on by Joanna Lumley. Which reminds me. I was looking at a very attractive woman in a pub the other day and she suddenly got up, came over to me and said, Would you please stop sexually assaulting me.' It wasn't as though I was drooling, I was just looking at her with admiration. You have to be so careful nowadays between the latitudes of Cam- den and Camberwell. Which is why I sup- pose Golders Green is so cunningly placed.
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