Low life
Matinees only
Jeffrey Bernard
By the time you read this I shall be in Edinburgh on behalf of the powers that be here in Doughty Street. Are they sending the right man? There can't have been any low life in Edinburgh surely since Burke and Hare were at it.
But what a delightful change it will be from the daily grind of Soho. Make no mistake, loitering in the West End is hard work and it has been going on for far too long. Forty years with occasional paroles. Can you imagine having been in The Mousetrap ever since its first night? God alone knows how it is that we're still playing to packed houses especially since, like The Mousetrap, we all know how it's going to end.
Yes, I look forward to this long weekend in Edinburgh although I dread the journey. I used to love trains but now that British Rail are up with the front runners in the race to persecute smokers I find railway journeys something of an ordeal. Just you wait for when British Rail introduce pro- hibition to the restaurant cars. It will be hell. It's a pity that you can't get every- where by luxury cruise liners.
So anyway, my Grand National fancies ran like pigs. I missed the race. I fell asleep as they approached the first fence and didn't wake up until they popped over the last. I rather gather that my brother, sitting next to me, was equally weary at the time. I don't back National Hunt horses any more and I still don't know why I broke the rule for last week's National. Flat racing is my game and to get on that cruise liner this summer I need to repeat last year's great win on the Derby.
It has been awful trying to get to Epsom this year. For the past two weeks I have been drumming people up for seats on the Groucho Club Derby Day coach, taking their money from them and then spending most of it before going in to the club to give them a personal cheque. Same thing, but where has it gone? I woke up one day last week with about £500 in readies on me and I don't see much trace of it although the face in the bathroom mirror offers clues.
But why do we only do it once a year? Derby Day is an event, of course — it used to be a public holiday and Parliament didn't sit — but I would very much like to see the revival of the picnic, weather permitting. Picnics have their disadvan- tages, like wasps, too strong a breeze and running out of ice, but I like the contact with grass. Also the business of staring at the sky or simply lying on one's back with eyes closed does make people murmur strange things. Not drivel always but I have heard surprising things coming from peo- ple chewing bits of grass. Supine in the sun can be like the last moments of conscious- ness after having been given a general anaesthetic. (So can listening to some people in the Coach and Horses expressing and airing opinions on everything from Ian Botham to the quality of Marks and Spencer's food. Guilty here.) The last place I picnicked in was Re- gent's Park. Not the best of London's parks — I prefer St James's — but I was mesmerised by the view up one of my companions' skirt. Never before had I seen purple knickers with gold edging. Rather imperial, I thought. But you must look at food on a picnic before you put it in your mouth. I still shudder to remember the woman at the Muthaiga Country Club who swallowed a hornet.
Well, there's not much danger of swal- lowing anything at the moment in this eyrie
so I shall now walk round the corner to Soho to take part in yet another matinee. I don't do evening performances any more. Five or six times recently I have popped my head around the door of the Coach at about 7 p.m. and the sight of the crush of young people in there — understudies for old troupers? — has driven me straight to the Punjab Restaurant for a soothing kip in the chicken korma. No, this has become a strictly nine-to-five job now. What ever happened to evenings? The last one I can remember was with my second wife watch- ing an episode of Maigret in 1962. Odd how the stamina dwindles. It did on Grand National day with nearly all of my fancies.
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