Low life

Think or swim

Jeffrey Bernard

Ater a surprisingly good party upstairs in the Coach and Horses to launch the wretched book last week, certain people have made some rather snide remarks about me. Atticus said I was 'a man who has learned to live with drink, and earns a living by writing about its causes and effects.' Now let's get one thing straight. I haven't earned a living since I got the sack from the Sporting Life in 1971, and anyone who'd like to swap earnings with me is entirely welcome. What I have got, and it's like something out of Hans Andersen, is an ex- traordinary pair of jeans. Every morning, I pick them up off the floor and find a fiver of loose change in them. It's not a lot, I know but it gets me off to a start.

Another dig came through the post this morning in a copy of Sandy Fawkes's new book, Health for Hooligans. At the top of my small contribution — written for nothing, so where's this living 1 make? she says that I'm 'the only man ever heard to apologise to the landlord of his local for being five minutes late'. Well, it's bad man- ners to keep people waiting, especially if • they're 'anxious types. Then it's cruel. Once when I was 18 I waited for three hours

outside Swan and Edgar for a girl. My little heart was banging away like a tom-tom. Pathetic, isn't it? No, why should I keep Norman waiting? I'm told he fiddles ner- vously with a blank till roll if I'm late.

But what I'm trying to get at, somewhat laboriously I'm afraid, is people's odd at- titudes to those who have the occasional public gargle. The Atticus remark is a put- down and Sandy's is friendly but patronis- ing. I am a kettle in a world of black pots. The fact that I like drinking is purely a mat- ter of fact and not something that should concern, shock, disgust, frighten, harm or particularly amuse anyone. Of course, if I was really clever like many of my col- leagues, then of course I'd write about things I know nothing whatsoever about. As it is, I'm not actually hurting anyone at the moment, but outsiders see it all as being very strange, as though one was publicly balancing six wine glasses on the top of one's head, or molesting children, or talk- ing to oneself, or picking one's nose, or be- ing cruel to women, or working as a freak in a fairground. There's really nothing to it. You choose to sit in an office and I choose to sit in a pub. Life is short and we're only here for 'the one'.

But, if you insist, I'll turn over a new leaf. I'll start writing about the Warsaw Pact, or computer programming, or Henry James, or VAT. I doubt whether it'll work but I may as well begin now.

Last week, I was on my way to the British Museum to do some research on the works of Henry James when I thought I'd

The Spectator 20 November l9>''• pop into the Museum Tavern for jug 1.11e one. I ordered a drink and the nosy bairn' asked me, 'Off to the BM I suPP°5e' squire?' I told him I was.

`Research?'

`Yes.'

`Go on. Watcha doin'?'

'If you must know, I'm biography of Henry James.'

'Trumpeter, wasn't he? Married to Betz) Grable.'

`No, he was an American writer.' „f

`Oh, American was he? I like a drop bourbon myself. What you interested in f° today then?'do 'I'm going to look up something t-r, ,i with a book he wrote in 1888 called Reverberator.'

vibrators in 1888.'

had

`Cor, stone me, I never knew they `No. Reverberator.' 'Oh yeah. Same again then, squire?' `Well, maybe just the one.' He poured me the drink and started agaili. "Ere, funny thing last week, guvrItjr,lell geezer came in abaht opening time dressed and talked a bit posh like Pla come all the way from America to havene butchers at your Elgins. So he's had the ad and then another and at closing time We P to pour him out of the door.'

`Really.'

`Yeah, we get some comedians in 'a a,: Last Monday, tell a lie, Tuesday, ther,e this computer programmer in anui. in• started a row with another face, a VA et. spector I think, abaht your Warsaw r—it: Fuck me, I've never seen a punch up like.0 No, I'm afraid I'll have to stick to wriiiaal about drinking and the low life., ;.01, knowledge is too heady for me. I'll let colleagues do the thinking. writing a