Low life
Move over, Harry
Jeffrey Bernard
Another one has left the company. Harry died last week. It was not a surprise and he had long been heading for a fatal accident staggering home all the way to Crystal Palace as he did. He was 75 and he had already survived two muggings by the skin of his teeth. Well, last week he fell off the bus, hit his head and never regained consciousness. He was last spotted stand- ing in the middle of Oxford Circus at midnight directing the traffic and shouting out 'Order, Order', as was his wont after a skinful. He used to shout that in the pub too after a couple of pints and one can only assume that a magistrate or judge once made a deep impression on him. He was a nice old codger even though he spent his working life with the Customs and Excise people. So we close ranks yet again. I am beginning to feel like the Coach and Horses resident obituary writer. Harry and I were only drinking acquaintances but it is another reminder. I doubt there was a single person at his funeral, poor sod. And here's an odd thing. A paradox. For the past week, ever since the Inland Revenue served me with their enormous writ, I have been worried about living too long. The bastards will be sitting by the deathbed.
There was an old boy of 90 who lived around the corner from here who has finally escaped. Last year he had a heart attack and was taken to hospital as quick as can be. The doctors fought like mad to keep him alive and when he did regain consciousness he was in a terrible state. He was in tears and saying to the medics, `Why, oh why didn't you just let me die?' Why does this government want everybody to get to be 110? And, to go back to the question of the Inland Revenue writ, why have successive governments since 1945 seen fit to persecute the self-employed? Oh, I owe them most of what they are claiming all right, but the government actually hates the self-employed. I wonder whether to get the last bus to Crystal Palace but I don't think I could. I hate public transport. Move over, Harry. Room for one more?
So now it is Monday and if a certain lady doesn't show up at lunchtime in the pub with my ticket for Barbados and the hotel reservation then I shall go to Brighton, stare at the sea and sulk for a week. The only good thing that happened last week was getting a belated birthday present from my niece, Emma. She gave me a small teddy bear. He has a pink ribbon around his neck and in his right paw he is clutching a card which says, 'My name is Byron and I want to be your friend'. Barbados might be too hot for a bear — if I get there, that is but he is soothing to look at sitting on this desk.
Perhaps the Inland Revenue will take him when they exercise distraint proceed- ings, along with the tortoise paperweight. And I would be obliged if they emptied the ash-trays when they get here. When I moaned about the tax collector in the pub some half-witted sheep said, 'Well, some- one has to do the job.' Has to? Why? I don't have to work in a sewer or have to be a mortuary assistant or a prison warder. But I would very much like to see the application form dished out to people whose burning ambition is to collect taxes. It is probably as stupid as the form dished out by the South African government to people applying for a visa.
And now I see that my brand-new telephone that I waited weeks to have connected has remnants of cauliflower cheese on it. Is God trying to tell me something? I think I'll go out and have one for the road.
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