My day
Jeffrey Bernard
I have in front of me an amazing article by William Rees-Mogg which appeared in the .October edition of Vogue; and is called 'My Day'. In it, Mr Rees-Mogg describes an average day which starts with waking at .7.30 am, being given toast and tea by his wife Gillian and then being taken to catch the 8.57 train from Bath to the big city. At this point I was beginning to yawn, as indeed Mr Rees-Mogg must have done at such an early and pedestrian start to a day, but a couple of hundred words on he became utterly compulsive. You see he's selling his house and when he starts getting what we rough types call 'coffee in the lounge', then it's really fantastic. I quote: 'I enjoy dealing with Knight, Frank and Rutley. They give the feeling of very superior service that one is supposed to get in firstclass hotels. It is rather like lunching at the Ritz in Paris, a pleasant contrast to the normal workaday world.' I mean, you just can't top that, can you? Not even Humphrey Burton's boring day in an equally horrendous and boring series contained on the back page of the Sunday Times colour magazine can. He too — wait for it — has a wife, a cup of tea and a slice of toast. Furthermore, and this is fantastic and probably pretty messy, occasionally, he says, his au pair presses an egg on him. If all this isn't enough for you then you can get hold of Punch and read about, not Katharine's Whitehorn's day, but her wretched week.
I now see so clearly why I've never been asked to contribute to any three of these series. I have to admit that, if they made it worth my while, then I'd write about my wretched day, but really it's something to be rather ashamed of.
I get up at 7.30. 1 run a bath, get in it, wash, get out of it, shave, iron a shirt, make a cup of tea, dress, listen to an obscure bit of nonsense on Radio 3 — usually written by an unknown and best forgotten pupil of Liszt's — brush the dandruff off my jacket, check to see that I've got my keys, address book, money, fags and lighter in pocket, pull my trousers down, give myself my morning shot of insulin and then leave the house. I know that this is all quite riveting and that you'll stay with me while I take you up to opening time. Well, before the pubs open, I go to a café in Old Compton Street, have a coffee and cheese roll, study the Sporting Life and The Times and pop round to the office I work in, which is Private Eye. There I make a phone call or two in the hope of getting something for my column, gossip a while, moan to my colleague, Martin Tompkinson, about women, the state of my pound and yesterday's results and then at 11 a.m. sharp I go into the Coach and Horses or Swiss Tavern for a refreshing gin and tonic.
In either of those pubs there's half an hour of recovery accompanied by clichéridden chit-chat about the nights drawing in, or how the Government are doing a lousy job, or how the favourites keep getting stuffed and then, at midday, par is reached. Par is the six or so drinks that I was born under and, now, equal to other mortals, I began to be completely dynamic. Suddenly, the world is my oyster. I walk with tremendous verve and determination to the York Minster and have an in-depth conversation there with a Spanish barman before going off for a working lunch with a couple of boozy journalists. I write for five minutes in the office after that, sometimes go to an afternoon drinking club and watch a race or two on television and then it's opening time again.
In the evening I frequently try to pull the wool over some poor girl's eyes. Failing that, after an unwinding drink or two, I go home, skint, depressed and alone, eat some rubbish and fall asleep on the sofa watching the television. I wake up at 3 a.m., to go bed, sleep until 7.30 a.m. and then it all starts again.
I'd frightfully like to get up to tea and toast and be driven to Waterloo or Victoria by my loving wife, but no, I can't be. Mind you, not every day is so fascinating. On Sundays, 1 go to the launderette and, of course, I don't go to the pub until twelve. The compensations on such days are Poidark, roast lamb and the employees of the local County Court having a day off. Oh to live like a Rees-Mogg or Humphrey Burton. ,
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