Low life
Bored by the box
Jeffrey Bernard
Thank God, the tennis at Wimbledon is over and the place can get back to normali- ty and running what I consider to be the best greyhound racing stadium in London. It is still a pleasure to watch someone like Pete Sampras deliver the goods, but I can't bear the way top tennis players have become such stars. Everybody has to be a star these days and, for example, chefs should be heard as little as they are seen but even they pop up on television to pon- tificate about how to boil a potato. There seem to be so many of them, you probably can't get a decent meal in France any more. And my God, don't these people take themselves so seriously. My mother was an excellent cook — much more diffi- cult to be during a world war — but I can't remember her ever talking about it.
It's a pity to start going off sport espe- cially since I fell in love with and married my television set, but there it is. It was bad enough when the Americans turned out to be such bad sports in Atlanta, and Wimble- don is going the same way. Horror of hor- rors, the crowds at cricket matches seem to be nearly all beer yobs but if you can sell the stuff you expect people who buy it to have better heads. Of all spectator sports I can think of, the best behaved are the rac- ing fraternity. Boxing fans are now beyond contempt but they were led on by the fight- ers themselves, a few of whom actually used to have gentlemanly aspects and used to be vegetarians. The likes of Mike Tyson and the days of lousy fights started at about the same time as Marvin Hagler began the ridiculous and childish business of staring eyeball to eyeball at opponents before the fight began when they met in the middle of the ring to listen to the banal instructions from the referee.
Another sport that has become fantasti- cally boring on television is professional snooker. No one seems to make mistakes any more. As for soccer, it is 25 years now since I lived near Ipswich and I still give them a mite of support, but I wouldn't cross the road and pay to watch them for more than 10 minutes. I am still slightly revolted to have discovered that a good 90 percent of professional footballers vote Conserva- tive and that their idea of an evening out is still an Italian job with fishing nets and waiters trying to look like sailors.
Much worse than the playing and watch- ing of games being played by lunatics is the trouble I'm having with the DHSS. It is six weeks now since I was 65 and became eligi- ble for a pension but, like all institutions loaded with money, people who work there treat the money as though it is their own and seem almost to refuse to part with any. I haven't even got my pension book yet and all I've had are letters asking for forms and information which even a non-invalid would find almost impossible to get hold of. From a wheelchair it is impossible. You would think it would be enough for me to prove my identity and age which I have done by sending them a copy of my birth certificate. But for some inexplicable rea- son they want to know about the dates of marriages and divorces. That has been the only compensation so far, talking to the old girls on the telephone.
I remembered that one of them is 11 years younger than me, but I was shocked and surprised to be reminded that my most recent piece of plunder is just over 20 years my junior, so I must have been something of a dirty old man when I was a mere stripling. But to hell with the DHSS. I first bought a stamp to stick on an insurance card in 1949. Obviously, I missed a few weeks when I was a layabout and first bum- ming around Soho but what I have paid them must have come to a fortune. And now the man from the DHSS who is going to help me has just phoned to postpone his visit. Wouldn't you know it? I could scream. No, cancel that. I will scream.
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