Low life
Party spirit
Jeffrey Bernard
The past few days have been a bit of a thrash and it's got to stop. Starting tomorrow it's all going to be different. But my birthday party and my friends thereat quite overwhelmed me last weekend and I'm finding it hard to settle down again to
the smooth, quiet old routine of screaming at Norman and writing my pieces in the bet- ting shop. The weekend began badly though. My broken hand started to swell up alarmingly for a man with sugar in his bloodstream so I took it up to the Mid- dlesex Hospital at closing time where I was quite unnecessarily and childishly rude to a charming nurse in casualty called Sheila. Half an hour later I went back and apologised to her and then said, 'You must get some terrible people in here on Saturday nights; much worse than me.' She said, `No. Not worse. In fact you're the worst I've seen for weeks.' I find that pretty hard to believe but it could confirm my guess that being drunk is being temporarily in- sane. (So is falling in love but that's another story and not a very nice one.) But all was well the next day. I assaulted Del Monico with a cheque and dear Nor- man added to the booty by giving me a pre- sent of a bottle of Smirnoff — why don't these people get their own bloody PR? — and the party began before moving off to a friend's flat for the party proper. Being a geriatric 52 suddenly didn't seem too bad at all. Friends brought presents into the Coach — books mostly — and it was all very mov- ing. Irma Kurtz gave me something rather unusual, a gold and enamel money clip con- sisting of the seal of the President of the United States and engraved with the signature of that contemptible shit Richard Nixon.
And, speaking of Nixon, a lady friend taped the talks during that session in the Coach. I played it back again today and it really is quite extraordinary to hear the nonsense most of us utter when we're holding a glass. The subject of sex cropped up immediately of course and one group of us were going on about just what turned us on. One woman actually said she was once excited by a man carrying some fenugreek seeds about his person. Very odd and it reminded me of the night years ago in the Pickwick Club when someone poured an entire jugful of sauce tartare into my jacket pocket because they thought it was a good idea at the time. But I must try fenugreek although I should have thought that money would be more sexually exciting to most women. And speaking o
the other morning and found my left shoe half full of the Bolognese variety. It makes you wonder what on earth happens in the middle of the night. SfP sauces ul act :sr 2 I June woke e19u8P4 Anyway, the party went very well. No one hit anyone and if they had done it wouldn't have mattered much anyway , both Doctors Finlay and Who were in er tendance. Old fans of Finlay's Casebook would have been stunned and delighted see him dance a few Highland reel rvieYd chicken cooked in tarragon and annoin with lemon and cream sauce went do' pretty pretty well and the drink actually he d o The next morning I was served beau du cold bubbly in a bubble bath. I stron recommend champagne in the bath as a w to start the day but you can find your, is t s: ye; waitress. The contrast between "'" temperatures of the bird, bath and chain: pagne can be very invigorating and, as Isl°t/ man said, I've had the punishment, Ow, want the nourishment. Bubbles apart, I ern, also recommend drinking very cold u; Martinis in a very hot bath as a way or, p—As ceeding through the afternoon toward dinner. Well anyway, the party's over and we now have to tread rather gingerly thr°11g, another year. Epsom beckons on wedne_s day and it just might be a very good Veil indeed. I can't back odds-on favourtres,s,, El Gran Senor won't have the added buroe"t ofm. money. Norman, as usual, will gthat.at e
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