Low life
Poetic licence
Jeffrey Bernard
Iam a little disappointed that the prop- rietors of this distinguished journal didn't have the wit to send me to Sydney for the Australian birthday party. I heard on the grapevine that they fear I might drop dead out there and so put them to the added expense of having to fly a body back to England. That is nonsense. It would cost very little to post a few ashes to London if the great umpire gave me out.
The thing is I have a hunch that Sydney might be my cup of tea. I like the Austra- lians I have met, although an Aussie editor did once phone me up and literally said, 'If you're late with your copy I'm coming round and I'll break your bloody thumbs.' They don't talk to you like that on Vogue or the Literary Review.
But the weather must be lovely in Australia and at this moment I am sitting here in the eyrie waiting for the hurricane that has just been forecast on the radio. The man said not to go out if you're 'shaky on your pins'. I am and got blown over in revolting Lanzarote two years ago. But I must risk it and go out to get my daily fix of people. The awful ones can be so reassur- ing. You wonder how some of them can get through 24 hours without coming face to face with thinking, an articulated lorry, hunger, thirst and blind panic. And, dear God, they are so happy. I could point you to simpletons who look positively serene, like Labrador dogs.
And speaking of animals, I haven't been able to stop thinking about P.J. Kava- nagh's humane mouse-trap (life and let- ters', 6 February). What an amazing machine to operate. Fieldmice are all right in their place but why such concern for a house mouse? They leave nasty little drop- pings in the kitchen, eat the bread and frighten the ladies. Is a pub a humane person-trap?
Mind you, I'm not surprised that a poet should have such an instrument. On the same day that piece appeared my brother and poet, Oliver, sent me a cutting of an article from the Listener in which it was written that 50 per cent of poets are manic-depressive. I would go further. I would say that 50 per cent of poets are quite potty. I don't mean the delightful P.J. or Oliver, but I have met a lot of oddball rhymers in Soho since 1950.
I think it's an odd thing to do, write poetry. On the other hand, although one is immensely glad the deed is done, I think it is pretty bizarre to write novels. Colin Haycraft says it is a substitute for living. That's as may be, but poetry puzzles me. Much as I love a lot of it I can't bear public poetry readings. I think poetry should be private as is going to the lavatory. I wish to God I could write the stuff, though. To have penned Don Juan or That's Why the Lady is a Tramp must have been very satisfactory.
I suppose a humane mouse-trap is a very decent thing in its way but it does smack of Lord Longford a bit. (I haven't been asked to a Spectator lunch ever since, halfway through the claret, I told his Lordship that he was a wrong-thinking nut.) I can't see a man like Vernon Scannell with a humane mouse-trap, but I would like you, P.J., to tell me your feelings about mice. I particu- larly love barn owls, and mice are their staple diet, so I suppose you're doing them a favour, but it is an odd concern.
Anyway, Norman's humane money-trap is ringing away like mad. It takes them about half an hour to empty that till every night after closing time. I used to be something of a humane woman-trap years ago but I have run out of all plausible and palpable bait. But I suppose that P.J.'s trap shows that poets are generally pretty nice.
I wish their hangers-on were. I went to a reading by dear George Barker at the Poetry Society where they had nothing but wine to drink — I don't drink it without food — so when I produced a hip flask I was asked to leave. Now that is very bloody fey and twee. I'm sure George wouldn't have minded. Positive. But what disapproval. Bards must have been turning in their graves.
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