DIARY
A.A. GILL There's no avoiding it any longer. I don't like any of my friends. I've just flicked through my address book, a thin volume, and was filled with irritation, distaste and an overwhelming sense of boredom. One of the great boons of living in a city is that you don't need friends. There are 11 million people within walking distance, a thousand new people every day for the rest of my life and no need to repeat anyone. Friends are only necessary in the ghastly country, where You have to have them, along with rubber boots and a barometer and secateurs, to put off bucolic idiocy, a wet brain, or eating the 12-bore. Old friends are the worst, peo- ple who once shared an office or a dormito- ry; the ephemeral reason for liking them is lost in the mists of time, but convention and habit insist that you remain interested in their fat wives and unspeakable children and endlessly thwarted careers, while their hair recedes and their jowls and stories pro- ceed with all the excitement of declined German verbs. No, I like acquaintances: a Wide circle of faintly familiar people who smile and wave but whose names escape me. An acquaintance has all the expecta- tion, desire to please and vivacity of a first date- They flash wit and compliments and don't expect you to call or go to their chil- dren's weddings.
Coincidentally, two old girlfriends have called to tell me that I make absolutely no effort to maintain their respective friend- ships. I'm contrite, it is true, but in mitiga- tion I don't think retired lovers count as friends. The most foolish thing we have all said in the wreckage of an affair is, 'I hope we can still be friends.' None of my ghastly friends has ever heard my rendition of the Queen of the Night in the shower or seen me check my bottom for pimples in the mirror. It's like people who say that their Parents are their best friends, a chummy solecism that is supposed to be endearing but is actually a putdown. I am struck by the thought that I've never actually fallen out of love with anyone. Many have fallen out of love with me, of course, but I just acid new names occasionally. I still love everyone I ever loved. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, or if I want any more.
I took Archie to the Motor Show. Archie is eleven and a half, and a perfect compan- ion. Small boys have an immensely sensible attitude to friendship. He doesn't pretend to be remotely interested in anything I have to say and would rather have his teeth Pulled than talk about himself. A couple of quid for walking-around money and Jeremy Clarkson's autograph and he's perfectly content. We stroll around in comfortable silence. I hadn't been to the Motor Show for 30 years; I remember it then as being all about speed and pulling totty and perfor- mance — 0-60 and torque and stuff. Now it's all about comfort and carpet and sound systems and nappy buckets. Car-makers don't even pretend you are going anywhere in their motors; they're just glossy metal sheds, or perhaps follies, for sitting in in traffic jams. I feel smug: nothing here makes me remotely regret giving away the Jaguar four years ago and taking taxis. And my dear, the people! Earls Court is stuffed with people who wouldn't be allowed into third division football games on grounds of taste. These are people who don't know what chassis are for. They walk around with slack faces and avaricious eyes, breathing through their mouths, nattily dressed in clothes apparently made of the carpet and seat coverings of their favourite marques. A passion for motor-cars is the very nadir of culture, so lowbrow it's technically cheek- bones. The last time I was here I saw Stir- ling Moss and, would you believe it, he's here again. Running into Stirling Moss twice in a lifetime is more excitement than a body can stand.
Oh, you know, I've been up to here book-signing.' I've just said that for the third time today, accompanied by an 'all me, this cross I must bear' sigh and shrug. It's pathetic, a little trumpet of self-aggran- disement. Like name-dropping, you know it sounds pretentious and risible, but you can't help it. Saying, 'I've been signing books' is worse — it's dropping my own name. The truth is I love it, sitting there with a big pile of hardbacks, but I keep for- getting my signature. I get to the middle and cannot remember what I do next, which is peculiar seeing as I have only four letters to remember, two of them repeated. How William Makepeace Thackeray or Algernon Charles Swinburne managed, heaven alone knows. But then they was giants in them days. Lord Thomas Babing- ton Macaulay, I'm told, did a thousand in ink, with a dip pen, before breakfast.
Arecent survey confirmed that the Internet is used primarily for onanistic pur- poses. Seven out of the ten most commonly called up words are sexual. Oddly, 'clitoris' wasn't one of them. I'm reliably informed that 'clitoris' is the safest password for com- puters — no hacker would have the slight- est idea where to look for it. This gem comes courtesy of the deputy editor of the Sunday Times, who spiked it from my col- umn last week as not fit for a respectable newspaper. Well, it will do for The Specta- tor then.
Ihave just received my first Christmas card from someone called James. James who, what, where and how? Everyone in the country must know at least a dozen Jameses. Why on earth don't they start using their surnames or numbering them- selves like the Apostles? Anyway, his wife and children are fine and he hopes I can get out to stay with them soon. The post- mark is Pittsburgh — fat chance. I haven't knowingly sent a Christmas card since I was forced to sprinkle glitter on glue when I was six, but this year I think I'm going to get one printed. It will have a photo of me looking ho-ho-ho-ish and a questionnaire saying: 'You appear in A.A. Gill's address book. Due to pressure of life we are reor- ganising it. If you wish to continue to be included please enter reasons below. (No more than 50 words.) From our records we see that you haven't been in communica- tion for over six months. Are there extenu- ating reasons why our friendship should not lapse? (Block capitals, no exclamation marks.) Would you rate your friendship as (a) bosom, (b) mate, (c) Colonel Pickering, (d) just bloke I know, (e) unrequited love, (f) never liked the bastard anyway, (g) I fancy his girlfriend? In the future do you wish friendship to be continued on the basis of (a) shared family holidays in Tus- cany, (b) occasional lunches which we take turns to cancel, (c) only when drunk, (d) only when broke, (e) only if wife leaves me or if you contract cancer, (f) only by Christ- mas card?'
The Ivy, A Restaurant and Its Recipes by A.A. Gill (Hodder and Stoughton, £25) is published this week and a good many copies are signed, apparently by three or four differ- ent hands.
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