Low life
Martyred
Jeffrey Bernard
when you dream, as I did last night' that you've been picked to open th.ie batting for the MCC against Australia allu come the great day you can't find your bat' you don't really need Freud or the Maudsley Hospital to give you clues as to the balance in your mental account. What( makes it worse it that the current state 0' anxiety — it's raining buff envelopes, the, sheets are soaked with sweat and I dare!' ; close my eyes for fear of obscene visions putrefaction — was precipitated by the y news brought to me by none other than out old friend, everybody's friend, Richard u r West. In previous incarnations I would have been tempted to behead the bearer such ill tidings. Anyway, last week I walked into the Coach and Horses and there was all ashen-faced Richard quite obviously in 11, state of deep shock. His Perrier water wasdribbling down his chin and I supposed
some disaster had befallen him, such as the Pigs, which I presume he and Mary keep in the kitchen of their Holland Park flat, hav- ing run away. It was worse than that. With
a tremelo in his voice that reminded me of the Fritz Kriesler I knew in my nursery days he said, 'They've just hanged a man in Teheran for drinking.' No more, no less. A man executed for drinking. Richard wiped the mist from his spectacles and continued with his story; not trippingly off the tongue as a teetotaller might mouth it, but as a man visibly shaken to his roots. It seems that Abdullah Whatsit had been whipped on two previous occa- sions for drinking and that furthermore When he was in his cups he had the unfor- tunate habit of staggering around Teheran shouting out such slogans as, 'Fuck the Ayatollah Khomeini.' Well, as you may im- agine, I sat down with one hell of a thump and several vodkas to ponder this tragic s,E°rY. At first I thought Abdullah's Behaviour naive and foolhardy. It put me in Mind of Jemima Puddleduck gathering the sage for her own stuffing. But the more I siPped it over in my mind the more convinc- ed I became that here truly was the son of Allah or whoever. Now there is no doubt whatsoever. Abdullah must surely have been one of the greatest men of the century. I have already sent a strongly worded Message to the Vatican insisting that he be canonised when they next sit down to pick a tea, B) for the next tour of hell. Why shouldn't drinkers have a patron saint? I think St Abdullah's Day would be a lovely festival. But, not being a Catholic, I am making overtures to Runcie to instal a tomb to the 'Unknown Drinker' in Westminster Abbey. I am also suggesting to the Secretary for the Environment that a statue, something on the lines of Nelson's ?-°11.1mn, discreet but imposing, be erected 1,1I a quiet backwater of the metropolis like 'oho Square. In such a place could derelicts PaY their homage to Abdullah. As for the spin-offs I'm still at the drawing-board stage, but I have seen several promising sites for souvenir shops where we intend to skell Wine glasses made in the shape of tur- vans and plastic swizzle sticks in the shape of Whips. There will also be Abdullah dolls for the daughters of the imbibing classes the rubber blow-up Abdullahs to console "le widows of alcoholics. These life-size, rilbber Abdullahs are going to be fitted with tape recordings of such sublimities as, 'I'm sorry I'm late, darling,' and, 'Honestly, starting tomorrow it'll all be different.' The doll can then be kicked and punched and at the press of a button situated at the b ack of the rubber turban real tears will fl '_10N from Abdullah's eyes and the tape will ',,witch to a recording of the famous aria from Verdi's oratorio 'Closing Time', 'Give ''lino e One More Chance', or ' Chancey', sang by Jack Doyle. , Sadly, plans for a tomb for the Unknown Hack' have had to be shelved. I ]bought I saw a corpse in the Sunday Times writer week but it turned out to be a feature writer on the magazine hard at work.
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