Low life
I am not Michael Foot
Jeffrey Bernard
Four or five years ago, I was sitting in the Groucho Club one afternoon wiling away the time with a vodka, when one of the few men I've every seen paralytically drunk in that club lurched over to where I was sitting and punched me in the face. He was too drunk for it to be very effec- tive and, anyway, I was very resilient in those days, so I just said to him, "What was that for?" He said, "You're Michael Foot, aren't you?"
I have always admired Michael Foot, duf- fle coat and all, and he is an excellent writ- er. So, in a way, I felt quite flattered but also quite irritated, considering that I am just over twenty years younger than he is. The mistaken identity cropped up again last week when another customer came over to my table with a large vodka saying, "That's for you." I said, "That's very kind of you, but I don't even know who you are". He said, "Maybe, but I know who you are. You're Michael Foot, aren't you?" If Michael Foot happens to read this, I hope he isn't too upset. As for myself, I'm get- ting slightly fed up with mistaken identity, although thanks to it I have brought con- siderable happiness into a couple of lives. Quite a few years ago I was having a drink in the Queen's Elm in Fulham Road, standing near a bit of a look-alike when a woman suddenly screamed at him, "You're that shit Jeff Bernard, aren't you?" and promptly threw a pint of beer at his face. He ducked and I got the lot which gave me something of a drenching. When the mis- understandings, all of them apart from whatever it could have been to make her think I was a shit, had been cleared up, the angry woman and my look-alike fell instantly in love and are, to this day, living happily in fairyland castle that I can see in my mind's eye surrounded by sunshine and cherry blossom.
There was a time when I would tell book- makers, bailiffs and the police that I was my twin brother but both of my brothers have two legs each so I can't get away with that any more. What I do pu7zle about is what on earth I could have done to the beer-throwing woman in the Queen's Elm. It certainly must have been more compli- cated than going to bed with her and then not telephoning her the next day, otherwise I'm sure that I would have remembered her, but I must admit that my memory started failing me years ago and has done so frequently ever since. Perhaps I was born with premature Alzheimer's syn- drome. There is usually some way of talk- ing oneself out of such messes but I am still trying to think of an excuse to offer my wife of twenty two years ago who, one Sunday, came into our village pub wearing a black wig which someone had lent her for fun. She looked rather sensational and I'm afraid that I started talking to her - and I have never been in the habit of talking much to women without having had a for- mal introduction - when she pulled me up short by suddenly calling me one of the rudist words in the dictionary.
Lunch was difficult to swallow that day and another pint of beer in the face would have been more welcome or even some of the whisky I used to drink before I was mistak- en for being Michael Foot. Probably the worst one, although happily they kept it to themselves at the time, was a man in the pub who thought I might be Herbert von Karajan. Now there was a shit of the first order and I don't think that Taki would be pleased to have seen and heard a man looking at a picture I have on the wall of the two of us who said to me, "I didn't realise you knew Bob Monkhouse". I won- der where the next punch on the nose or large vodka is coming from. Perhaps I should try getting up in drag. That could spread the rumour that Dame Edith Sitwell was still alive.
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