Low life
Over the top
Jeffrey Bernard
'really would be interesting to know what 'really took place in India just before Geoffrey Boycott took a powder and came home. The lines written by various press men on the subject were so cagy and cir- cumspect that it was difficult to read bet- ween them but I've a hunch that, bad feel- ings between him and his team mates apart, Mr Boycott has had a severe attack of fame and stardom. I know I've mentioned it before but the business of what success does to people is a source of constant fascination to me. It's said that a cliché is simply an oft repeated truth, but to say that it's tough at the top stinks of codswallop as far as I'm concerned. Mind you, I know that I've never been to the top but I've had frequent clear views of it and it's always puzzled me a little that 90 per cent of those sitting there go a little mad.
Jacqueline Bisset appeared on the Michael Parkinson Show last week — a right win double, these two — and rarely have I seen anything quite so serious out- side of a magistrate's court. The fact that she gets a mite more publicity than a plumber and earns ten thousand times more money than one isn't actually important. As Francis Bacon once said to me: 'The on- ly way you can possibly survive is to regard everything as being totally unimportant.' He was exaggerating of course, but I think we know what he meant. Take George Best. I had to meet him for lunch one day and he turned up in the restaurant with three dolly birds. Three! Wouldn't one have been enough? I knew he had a good left foot and I never doubted any other part of his anatomy. Then there was Mick Jagger who once spent half an hour crying on my shoulder in a dreadful afternoon drinking club. I asked him what was the matter and
he said, 'I've got all this money, all these girls and success. I can't take it.' Of course I offered to relieve him of some of it but that sort of thing's all crap and I don't think he bought another round that session. A man who doesn't improve as a result of an injection of £1 million has got to be very suspect. Now Tom Baker, without doubt the most competent doctor I've ever met, advocates prescriptions for the sick in the form of large cheques. And, incidentally, there's a man with the sense to enjoy success. Yes, such prescriptions would lift Lazarus. But a very rare success illness that is more under- standable is self-doubt and I once spent an entire day on the booze with Tony Hancock assuring him that he was a brilliantly hinny man; unconsciously too. When I put him in a taxi at the end of the day he made the final gesture of handing me his card as he collapsed on to the floor of the cab. 'Phone me when you're in trouble,' he said, 'I think you may have a drink problem.' I even once earned the gratitude of Sir John Gielgud, and three large armagnacs with it, in Wheelers one day when I assured him that he was a very fine actor; and my old friend John Le Mesurier needs a reassuring hug and a cuddle from time to time.
Oh that Miss Bisset, that very important ice queen, could meet some of these rare creatures. Parkinson himself has met so many it has brushed off on him. But then Ms Bisset, being a woman, has to contend with two lots of importances. Not only is she rich and famous, she's female, and it can't have escaped your notice that newspaper and magazine editors will run profiles and features on women simply because they are women. (Have you ever seen men's problems discussed on the printed page?) Yes, of course, applause is very heady stuff and it removes people from the human race. Like money it's addictive.
Is all this sour grapes on my part? Of course it is. The last time I was recognised by a waiter was last week when I walked in- to the Jubilee Dragon. 'No eat any more in here please. Last time you fall to sleep at table.' The last time I was recognised by a Spectator reader in the street he said, 'Why don't you write something sensible instead of filth and rubbish?' But I did get a fan let- ter of sorts yesterday and even if it hasn't gone to my head it has touched me deeply and goes thus: Dear Jeff, After reading your article in Cosmo, which I loved, I'm compelled to of- fer myself on behalf of my sex to restore your faith in women. I wish to apply for the position as new victim. I am not violent and I include this fact feeling that it will ob- viously be in my favour. If you wish to in- terview me for the position I can be reached at 244 4341. I am 36, divorced, 5ft gins, at- tractive and adore men with a sense of the ridiculous. Barbara.
Well, of course, I'm not going to contact her. I haven't got a sense of the ridiculous. I'm far too important and hope to be ap- pearing on the Michael Parkinson Show any day now.
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