Low life
French fancies
Jeffrey Bernard
Last weekend in Paris was delightful, exhausting and extremely expensive. I was driven there via the Dover-Calais ferry by two friends who brought along a blind date for me. It was the first time in my life I have ever been on a blind date and it was the last time. Normally I forage for my own
truffles. It's extraordinary how so many people have such good looks wasted on them though. She was a very attractive woman who spent a lot of her time sitting up in our bed wittering inconsequentiali- ties, added to which she was frigid. There is a God, you see, and she has a diabolical sense of humour. Mind you, it was a situation that paved the way for me to do some very serious drinking. But what a waste of a buckshee hotel room, always an erotic site for me.
But that's enough of her. We had a good day on Saturday and took a picnic to the Pere-Lachaise cemetery which I have nev- er visited before. I found it utterly fascinat- ing and cursed myself for not having brought my camera with me. The French really care for their dead and some of the mausoleums are extraordinary monu- mental follies and monuments to the dying art of stone masonry. It felt a little odd to lean against one while spreading camem- bert on bread and drinking wine out of a bottle. But it is not a religious burial ground. After the picnic we went to pay our respects to Chopin, who is kept in his place by a charming statue of a young girl — or possibly angel. (His stone was adorned with fresh flowers which was rather touching.) Then we walked across the cemetery to see Oscar Wilde's tomb. It was a pretty sad sight. The stone had been defaced by people scratching their names on it and the rather boring Epstein figure of an Egyptian, maybe Aztec, man had
been vandalised, a leaf and his genitals torn off. Oscar deserved better than that and I poured some champagne over him. I hope he might have liked that. Then We took a stroll down the rue St Denis and beheld the prostitutes that line the street. The exterior quality is extremely high and puts our Kings Cross and Shepherd Market to shame. One girl was quite stunning -- she should be in films — and I would have been sorely tempted had I been on lay own, but I banished such thoughts in a bar by the Pompidou Centre with several vodkas. Coals, I thought, but in my case ashes, to Newcastle. Later that night I found a pubic hair in my watercress souP and went to bed puzzling as to whether that was high life or low life.
The next day was certainly high life. Before going to Longchamp for the Ate, my bookmaker, Victor Chandler, enter- tained us to a superb buffet lunch in his hotel. Langoustines, crab, rare roast beef you name it. He had about 35 guests including his workmen and they were lovely. They aren't all shits in racing as they very nearly all are in Fleet Street and the law courts. Victor gave us tickets fo.r grandstand seats and we lost our money al great comfort while he watered us 011 champagne. Between every other race my friend and I visited the Trusthouse Forte suite where we were also splendidly looked after by Charles Spencer-Churchill. They sponsored the race, of course, and I hope they got their money's worth. It was In their suite that we fell in with three girls, an Astor, a Guinness and, would you believe, Miss Isobel Goldsmith. Last time it was a Guinness and a Niarchos, but the Gold- smith was an added bonus and it gave me enormous pleasure to inform her that I also write for Private Eye. She rode my punches Pretty well but I could see by her choice of milliner that it was more from naivety than dignity. My friend asked Miss Astor if she had ever been out with a poor man. She sighed and said, 'Only twice and they both bounced cheques.' Dear God, how these People suffer. .Yes, it was an odd day. I backed three winners and still managed to lose money by Pushing my luck too far. Still, we did it in some style thanks to Victor and Charles Churchill. My 'blind' date kept well to the background, which was as well. Peering at her over my steak that evening, it occurred to me that such people ought to be born With instruction books as to how to operate them, rather like videos. The trouble is !tt!Li so many of us never bother to read instruction books. On the way back to London, I barely spoke to her. There's not a lot of point in talking to a microphone . that's switched off. Next year, I'll take a friend. An old flame for warmth.
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