Low life
Punch-drunk
Jeffrey Bernard
discovered many years ago that I'm particularly susceptible — wide open in fact — to a right cross. Consequently I've tried to avoid violence, except the selfinflicted variety that is, and I've managed quite well having only been duffed up half a dozen times in the past 20 years or so. Last night was positively my last public appearance and I'm hanging up the gloves for good. They can join my riding boots and the mounted head of an old flame. Yes, if this column seems a trifle lop-sided, dear reader, it's because I'm writing it with one eye. The other is black, damn nigh closed and a trifle cut. The damage was freely donated by two Indian taxi drivers who run a charming bijou mini-cab firm for dropouts, stop-outs, ne'er-do-wells, whores and late-shift lounge lizards. As far as I can remember we were discussing certain geographical aspects of London and I'm led to believe the curtain fell finally outside the Dumpling Inn on Gerrard Street when mY language became stridently obscene. I don't believe a word of it myself. Bad language doesn't raise eyebrows in Gerrard Street — have the Chinese got eyebrows by the way? — and 1 think it was simply a case of the drivers being slightly miffed and put out by being the only two Indians left in Europe never to have won the Booker Prize. At any rate, I can't congratulate them. It wasn't really very clever to hit a standing duck who'd had a very hard day.
Yes, it started early and accidentally when an actor friend, Edward Judd, dragged me out of the coffee shop in Old Compton Street, put a head lock on me and forced me into the Coach and Horses. And then what happens? I'm approached by a charming man called Vince who tells me he likes this column and he's come all the way from Paddington to buy me a drink. One minute Eddie's holding my mouth open while Vince is pouring substances into it and the next minute they swap places. Have you ever swallowed an ice cube? It's extremely Painful (the usual £10 to any reader who can find a publican to substantiate that he has). Yes, that's how it started and that's how it went on.
In the early evening I went to the Duke of York over the road from the Spectator for a tea break so to speak and got immediately conned by our Peter Paterson for eight measures of whisky in the one bloody glass. Which reminds me, and I must digress here. On the way to Newbury races last Friday I had to change at Reading and kill half an hour there which I did in the buffet with a bookmaker I know. Behind the bar a truly remarkable lady — from Nigeria I'd say — dispensed the stuff, and I'd guess for the first time in her life. I asked for a large vodka and watched spellbound as she filled an entire wine glass. When I asked for a tall glass she just tipped it in. Nine measures for a quid. Then the idiot bookmaker said, 'Come along Jeffrey. We'll miss our connection.' Miss our connection? How a man with so little brain can make a successful book on the rails at all the major meetings is almost beyond belief. I shall always change at Reading in future.
Anyway, there I was in the Duke, five hours before my appointment in Samara With the taxi drivers, and Dave, the govnor, was regaling me with stories about taxi drivers, and I'll pass one of them on to you. An attractive young lady got into a cab being driven by an old Jewish driver and asked to be taken miles away to somewhere like Harrow. When they arrived she told him she had no money and he said, 'We'll have to go to the police station then.' Don't do that,' she said, 'hop in the back and we can come to an arrangement.' Do me a favour,' said the driver, 'I'm 74.' After a While she prevailed upon him though and he stumbled into the back with her. She titillated and teased him. She did everything to him. For an hour and a half she stood the Kama Sutra and The Perfumed Garden on their ears and after an hour and a half he Sighed and said, 'It's no good. We'll have to go to the police station.' Well, it's nice to know that some taxi drivers are all right, but never trust a taxi driver with an outsize signet ring on his right hand.
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