Low life
Busybodies
Jeffrey Bernard
Iread in the Times last week of a ghastly new group of busybodies who call themselves Action on Alcohol Abuse. They want to make the price of drink almost pro- hibitive and they claim all sorts of nonsen- sieals such as alcohol causes something like seven million working days being lost per year I lose 365 working days per year but seven million is a slight exaggeration. What these people should be concerning them- selves with is the appalling alcohol abuse also reported in the Times, that goes °n in Brazil. Apparently 50 per cent of the cars in Brazil are run on alcohol. That's abuse if you like. new group of busybodies who call themselves Action on Alcohol Abuse. They want to make the price of drink almost pro- hibitive and they claim all sorts of nonsen- sieals such as alcohol causes something like seven million working days being lost per year I lose 365 working days per year but seven million is a slight exaggeration. What these people should be concerning them- selves with is the appalling alcohol abuse also reported in the Times, that goes °n in Brazil. Apparently 50 per cent of the cars in Brazil are run on alcohol. That's abuse if you like. But I do wish various 'bodies' of people would leave the likes of me alone. Doctors Pontificate on practically everything but they don't really need to spend thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money on setting up councils, committees, boards and research teams to tell me that smoking is bad for me. The ridiculous Clement Freud once knocked a cigarette out of my mouth
at Towcester races. If I didn't value my Jockey Club press badge so much I would have hit him back a little harder. And yesterday I had to walk out of someone's flat because they wouldn't allow me to smoke. It's the first time I've ever left a woman for a cigarette and now I'm having an affair with 20 Players. Just don't tell me what not to do. I've made my choice and I've survived 50 winters of the greatest severity.
My friend Conrad had a strange ex- perience the other day on the Woolwich to Charing Cross train that he commutes on every day. His experiences on the Woolwich train have become almost cult listening in the Coach nowadays. Anyway, he got into a non-smoking compartment alone and at the last minute was joined by two young men who proceeded to light-up. Conrad pointed out that it was a non-smoker and one of them said, 'Do you mind if we make love then?' Conrad said, 'I don't mind what you bloody do as long as you don't smoke.' Thereupon they removed their trousers and proceeded to 'make love' for want of a worse phrase. When they arrived at Charing Cross they got out and said to him, 'You are an officer and a gentleman.' On another occasion he couldn't take his eyes off a very attractive woman seated op- posite him. When they arrived at Charing Cross she said, 'You've spent the whole journey undressing me. Now dress me.' Yes, it's all happening on the Woolwich train. Last week he offered his seat to a woman who snapped back at him, 'Sit down, you male chauvinist pig.' But what I did think was pretty typical was his story of the graffiti on the Woolwich train. 'Gas all Wogs' said a slogan facing him. He got up and obscured it with a pen and turned to the other passengers and said, 'We're not travelling all the way to Charing Cross with that filth, are we?' There was a stony silence and they all hid behind their Daily Telegraphs. I'm not quite sure whether that's typical of commuters or Daily Telegraph readers. Probably both. No doubt readers of the Sun would have beaten him up.
Every day now we ask Conrad, 'Anything happen on the Woolwich train this morning?' We like to get our bulletin. there's something about the phrase 'The Woolwich Train' that smacks of a Sherlock Holmes short story to me. 1 said as much to Conrad and now he's got the idea of per- suading a brewery to name all their pubs after Sherlock Holmes short stories. I like it. I'd very much like to be able to say to someone, 'I'll just have the one in the Three Gartidebs and then I'll meet you in the Engineer's Thumb. The beer's much better there than it is in Wisteria Lodge.' And, talking of brewers, Norman tells me that a Yorkshire brewer came into the Coach the other night asking to meet me. Apparently he wants to fly me up to his brewery to par- take in a piss-up. Norman told him that I didn't drink beer but the man said they had the hard stuff in the directors dining room. It's quite a long way to go for alcohol abuse
but I do think the Spectator readers for the most part should have respects paid to them. I got a nice letter from one this morn- ing saying, 'Please stay as disgusting as you clearly are. There is a comfort in the strength of sin.' I've never thought of that. How very cheering.
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