Low life
Back-scratching
Jeffrey Bernard
Up until this week, the large vodkas in Wiltshire have been as few and far bet- ween as Bernard Levin's full stops. Only the most appalling withdrawal symptoms have forced me to turn over an old leaf but at least I'm sleeping again at night. Could you believe an itch so bad as to drive you almost to tears? I had it once before in the Middlesex Hospital when the nurses bathed me from head to foot in Calamine lotion
and then, when that didn't work, held me under too hot and too cold showers. That didn't do a lot either and eventually they filled me up with tranquillisers. You'd think that these people would carry vodka for medicinal purposes which is just what I've now had to resort to although I'm a gregarious drinker. Speaking of which, the Flat Racing season is with us again thank God and I've never seen as many people fall off the wagon as they did last Saturday in the Members' Enclosure at Salisbury. It's good to see the old faces again and it's amazing how well they wear considering the battering they get from April till November. Apart from the activity in the Members' Bar it was backing my first loser of the season that stopped my back itching. By the third race it had sweat running down it but the afternoon ended well enough when my man in Compton, Gavin Hunter, tipped me his 7-1 winner. But Salisbury Racecourse is to be recommended anyway being as it is a damned sight more friendly and attractive than a London betting shop. Now, it really is high time they did something to tart up betting shops. With 3 million people out of work you couldn't really say that a comfor- table shop would discourage the workers from going about their business. What you should be able to get in the ideal betting shop, apart from a nasty fright, is a drink, a snack, a cheque cashed, every single race televised on a new channel and a free taxi ride home if you lose.
But, as I say, civilised racing is back with us until November and don't the most extraordinary things progress from that contest at 2 pm? After Salisbury last Satur- day, I went to Lambourn for a splendid dinner and then finally put paid to the dreadful back itch with several Sunday lunchtime cocktails in the Swan at Great Shefford. Nothing to it really. A jolly nice day with lunch at the Lords, with the Sun- day Express literary editor, and then home on the rattler sharing a carriage with a Spare Rib reader who threatened me with violence. God knows what I've written to offend her and God only knows how she recognised me. Anyway — and this is what I mean by strange things happening as the result of a day at the races — I woke up the following morning wearing a pair of ladies knickers. Any transvestite tendencies I may have unconsciously harboured over the years have been well suppressed and I really can't think how this could have happened. As I have already reported to the Sporting Life, the removal of ladies knickers in the Lambourn area has to be power-assisted and where it doesn't have to be power- assisted it's no surprise and nothing to be grateful for. Nevertheless, I awoke in the old Great Portland Street Academy for Young Ladies on Monday morning, beheld myself in the wardrobe mirror, and thought I was looking fairly attractive. But before asked myself out for lunch I suddenly saw, who I was. (And 'she wasn't going to PO' the bill.) I fear it's going to continue in a like vein for quite a while. We have Newbury th15, weekend and the promised appearance 0` El Gran Senor. The owner, R°hert, Sangster, one of the few men I've ever rue' with money who is not as tight as a drum, I'd like to see win although he doesn't ae• tually need the prize money. It's his trainer: Vincent O'Brien, who bugs me a little. A, man who was too nervous to talk to C1: onel Mad in the old days is simply too ne.r. vous for anything. And, talking of not win. ning medals, Dave, the guvnor of the Spec t tator pub, the Duke of York, tells Me tha,, new. Spectator employees have been seek': buying their own drinks with money Phic d ed from purses. This is rock bottom a% such men should be shot or working for the Sun where I'm told they're paid by tat purseful. At least you don't meet their a the races during the balmy months.
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