End Piece
Lucky stars
Jeffrey Bernard
The horoscope for Geminis, in last Monday's Daily Mirror, told us that, 'Some of you will be in a creative frame of mind and taking up art, or music or joining an amateur dramatic club.' Well, I know it's amazing what you can do if you put your mind to it in one day, overnight, and on the spur of the moment; and it's extraordinary to think that last Monday morning, when the alarm clocks owned by a twelfth of the population went off and all those feet hit the deck, that the muse struck and breakfast was eaten behind new barriers — not The Times or The Daily Telegraph, but The Stage, Art News and Music and Musicians.
Incidentally, my skimpy knowledge of astrology makes me thank my lucky stars that the same high flown aspects weren't in the sign of Scorpio. In that house it would have been a case of, 'Some of you will be taking up the rat race, or political couping or joining a branch of the Mafia'. But no, it was harmless old Geminis forming queues outside Windsor and Newton, wrapping lavatory paper around combs preparing to play 'I know that rny redeemer liveth' and enrolling in the Carshalton Beeches dramatic club's production of School for Scandal. As one who likes to believe what one reads in the newspapers I tried to join in with the spirit of the thing, but I realised — in the comfort of my own local dramatic club, the Queen's Arms — that it was too late. I've tried all that already. Of all forms of amateurism including Italian politics, English professional football and Welsh philanthropy, there's not One that fails with such utter embarrassment for the spectator or audience than amateur theatricals. Those involved invariably aim so magnificently high. Some years ago in Suffolk they heard I'd once been involved on the fringe of the theatre in London and they asked me to come along and advise them about building sets. They were rehearsing Private Lives. The butcher, the vet, the butcher's mistress and the local dolly bird and pub tease were starring and you've never seen anything like it unless you happened to be working in the flies of the Scala Theatre with me twenty-five years ago when a branch of Barclay's bank produced an amazing version of The Marriage of Figaro. Coward and Mozart would have loved it, probably, and when I form the 'Gemini Dramatic Society' I hope our production of The Ring and King Lear provoke approving stirrings from the grave.
As for Art with a capital A, I did consider very seriously becoming a famous, fashionable and rich painter when I was in my teens. Observations made in St Johns Wood, Chelsea and Montparnasse led me to believe that, with a palette in one hand and a divan in the corner, I would meet a more obliging and better class of girl. Also, I was very fond of the 'private view' party in those days. You may well sneer at my motives but you would have sneered more at my canvas. Yes, there was one. A still life. A little primitive, but dazzlingly coloured. 'Orange on a Formica Kitchen Table': alternatively 'Notting Hill Gate at Dawn'.
Last Monday morning's directive from the Mirror's resident astrologist, though, did make me consider taking up music yet again. Unfortunately the fourth finger of my right hand was made useless some years ago during an argument in the Colony Room Club and so my renderings of Beethoven are one tenth less appealing than they might be. But, as I say, I like horoscopes to come true. And what other arts are there? Well, according to a whole series of hand books I saw in a shop the other day, you can have the art of just about anything. Rose growing, basket-weaving, topiary or bee keeping? I don't know. They sound a little dull. Perhaps the art of astrology. How nice to tell the readers, 'Today, some of you will be in a lethargic frame of mind and taking up sleeping, or loafing or joining the staff of a national newspaper.'
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