Low life
Barred
Jeffrey Bernard If thI had a pub, and perish the thought, ere would be a wide category of people I'dautomatically bar from the premises. Ye said before in this column that we must un all we can to discourage tattooed readers ?I' the Sun who wear digital watches, but here are still many more twerps about than Most ,„ of You probably realise. There is the '"an with the tin briefcase who wants to tell 3P°11 Jokes all the time. He is madly in- terested i in car registration numbers and is tall too willing to tell you the best way to get the M6 from the A24. He says he likes .s.i°tnen, nudge, nudge, but he hasn't a gle woman friend including his wife. On "'clay he has been seen wearing socks with sandals and he has returned with a doll ciniatador. He admires Mrs Thatcher tremen- dously and he tells you that you can say what YOU like but that you have got to hand :
t.° her.
He saturates himself with after- have lotion in the morning but never ashes his hands when he's been to the ava,lorY. In his office he has a calendar depicting nudes, given to him by his local mr,age. He likes stag parties and any all- die function. The happiest time of his life
was when he was doing National Service.
In the country his counterpart is a rung or two further up the ladder, He wears green wellington boots. He went to a second-class public school and he affects what he thinks. is an upper-class accent by saying `yarse' instead of 'yes'. He most pro- bably has coach lamps either side of his Georgian front door or, if he has a bijou cottage, he'll have the name of it burnt on to a polished log. His wife is almost an identical twin. In fact they could be called Hermes and Gucci. They dress down on Sundays if they're going to the pub for pints of bitter and wear jerseys with holes in them. They condescend to the working- class idiots in the village who do odd jobs for them but keeping up appearances is their religion. Don't make waves is their motto. When I mentioned them in this col- umn last year some shit-stirrer showed them a copy and they said I was perfectly beastly to come down to the country and then write about them. They can dish the dirt but they can't take it. They are squeamish, and out- side of their cocktail-party and dinner- swapping circuit they simply flounder. In London they'd probably drink in the Phea- santry. They're stupid enough to think I'm mad, bad and dangerous to know. It's ter- ribly flattering and I only wish it were true.
So just who the hell do I want to serve and welcome in this imaginary pub of mine? I suddenly see it as a pub in a small town in a Hollywood western movie. Every so often the good guys ride into town and have a• three- or four-day session. There's good old Tom Baker who's just rescued a woman from the Apaches and here comes Francis Bacon who's just won a million on a Mississippi riverboat. And Keith Waterhouse who once put a publican's chihuahua in a French bread roll and began to. eat it, he's there. So is Dan Farson. Calamity Jane is not in the bar. Ever since she started writing a column for the Guar- dian she's been barred along with all the people who write for Spare Rib. In fact no woman who dislike all men willy nilly are allowed in.
But, talking of westerns, can anyone tell me what on earth is going on in English schools? My daughter told me at Brighton races the other day that history is her favourite subject. When I asked her from what date English history was taught she said, 'Oh, we don't do English history, we're doing American history'. So I asked her to name someone concerned in the Civil War, thinking she must have heard of Lin- coln or Ulysses Grant and she said, `General Custard.' That's bad enough but this week's access day has been screwed up because she can't come to lunch today. She was up, I've just been told, until 6 o'clock this morning watching a wretched rock or pop concert on the telly. It's dreadful. She spends more time in front of the box than Richard lngrams does. I know that's not much, he's on it too much to watch it, but it's a dreadful start in life. If she doesn't pull her socks up I shall stop taking her to the races and the Coach and Horses.
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