Low life
Cards
Jeffrey Bernard
It's been a perfectly dreadful week relieved only by the reappearance of Tom Bakei who's finished his stint in Treasure Island and survived the dreadful parrot and I ve decided to definitely give up playing Poker on Thursday nights. Everyone thinks they can play poker. It's a sort of Mitty thing' The green baize, the cigar-smoke haze, the occasional clink of ice in the glass breaking the tense silence or the flick and snap of a card and the superb feeling of filling a straight before pulling that pile of moon towards you. Well, my Thursday nig", games haven't been quite like that. For once thing we have a Spanish waiter who's quite mad and who can turn a pair of fives int° a drama on a par with Aida, and for another thing there's a tendency for people to turrt, up at 8p.m. far too smashed to make arl) game in so far as we all start with a lousy '10 worth of 10p pieces but where's the romance in winning — no, losing — £10? I felt so ghastly the morning after the last game I thought I would go in search of one Card who could cheer me up, Peter Langan. Sadly WY he wasn't in his little Brasserie — he's driving the population of Los Angeles mad at the moment — but I had a drink at the bar and reflected on what an extraordinary HI. an he is. He has style you know. Some time ago there was a fire in the kitchen. l "eY dialled 999 and sent for the Fire b 'rigade. While they awaited the firemen "4ogan tried to keep the fire under control With champagne. I'm not claiming that it ,was Louis Rocderer Cristal Brut, neither is he, but it does indicate a certain amount of imagination and a healthy contempt for Wine with bubbles in it. Which reminds me of the story I heard of another card who shall have to remain timeless, but a restaurateur as well. This aan arrived home at six in the morning bu ter a night on the tiles, totally legless and sting for a pee. He fell out of his taxi and just as he was about to urinate in moesi Aeration into the gutter he spotted a dear ,dYeir Coupl doge for an approaching morning trot. A decent of decorum prompted him to do the thing and he turned away. As the seconds Went by he became more desperate tie stumbling up the steps to his front door aimed his keys at the lock which he miss- ek' and missed again. He was now at his wits no great distance to travel — and he hl'erred his member through the letterbox. it so happens that at that precise mo- i;lent his landlord, an angry man who had tieing trying to evict our hero for some time' was walking down the staircase with nl,s, dog, with the perfectly reasonable inten- a"11 of taking some exercise. You may im- frg,Lne his and hid the horror when envelope but not with the terror of a buff hound but with our man's member. The landlord backed snarling and steaming, the tits — one can only imagine — clasped tills fluttering heart and our man politely alined his head to say 'Good morning' to ofef Couple he had originally tried to -avoid wnerlding. There has to be a moral some-
ere but I'm damned if I can see it.
Yes, the Soho cards are a lot better than sthe ones I've been dealt at the tables recent- ' Which reminds me. Brian's just been dPidrung after 16 months inside. I hear he Put have too bad a time of it since they the 111411 in charge of the kitchen — surely, nicTu'ibrarY apart, the cushiest job in the th-: and the best place in which to fiddle fsi`rein. It'll be cheering to see him again. d_eanwhile, here in the Coach and Horses "Ilielpression sets in again. As I write to you at atY desk in the saloon a Maltese gentleman nlY side is actually studying the Crayford an,
Bristol greyhound racing cards in the
n. I ask you. Dogs — Crayford — Bristol the Sun. Is this the end of civilisation as we know it? You could slam the letterbox on the member of such a man.
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