Low life
Down and out
Jeffrey Bernard
It's nice to be able to welcome Alice Thomas Ellis aboard the Skylark or is it the Titanic? Anna, as she really is. runs one of the best lunch and afternoon drink- ing clubs in London. in the kitchen of her house in Camden Town. Sometimes she even jots down brilliant novels on the back of shopping lists between meals. How her husband manages to put them together and edit them is a mystery to me. A couple of weeks ago. Anna gave me a houseplant and yesterday I poured what I thought was the dregs of a glass of water over it. In fact it was vodka and the plant is still blooming. Could she be a witch? I have seen Beryl Bainbridge and Caroline Blackwood in her kitchen so I suppose the answer is yes. Some coven. I backed The 27th Kingdom at 5-1 with Ladbrokes to win the Booker Prize two years ago and have subsequently lost interest in that bent event. Anyway, it's good to be rubbing shoulders with her in the Spectator.
Meanwhile, Norman has barred me from the Coach and Horses for life. Last night, a barmaid refused to put any ice and soda in my. vodka. Not couldn't be bothered to, simply refused. I squirted the contents of a soda siphon over her and I think we should both be barred. Staff problems being what they are, though, I suppose she'll be back there tonight refusing to put lemon in the gin and tonic. Which reminds me, pubs have been absolutely ghastly recently and people who drink only in December should be shot. And the office party isn't a very pretty assembly either. I went to one given by a publishing house just before Christ- mas and, at the last knockings, asked the barmaid for another drink. She said no, the bar was closed. There was quarter of an inch of vodka left in a bottle and she still said no and insisted on throwing it away. And yet such people are against abortion. And speaking of parties I wonder what would happen if you sat down to lunch in a restaurant in May or June and put on a paper hat? You would be asked to leave probably. The only person I can think of whose appearance would benefit from the addition of a paper hat is Lord Longford. The one I saw Auberon Waugh wearing the other week didn't suit him at all.
But what's really bugging me is the fact that the editor didn't ask me to name my favourite restaurants and books of 1984 in this journal along with the other hacks. When I read that, according to Geoffrey Wheatcroft, the best sardines on toast are to be had in a restaurant that only he and the proprietor have heard of in an obscure fishing village in Italy I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Predictably most people went for the Gay Hussar. I took a girl there to lunch last week who wants me to write the preface to a book she's just written about men. I ask you. Anyway, not only had all the roast goose gone by 1.10 p.m. but Roy Hattersley was sitting oppo- site. Thirty years ago, I used to wash dishes for Victor when he had a cafe next door called the Budapest but this has to be a parting of the ways.
No, my favourite restaurants are ones I don't use because I can't afford them. The Clermont Club does a jolly lunch and I like sitting in the Ritz. I like any Italian restaurant so that I can get the waiter to deliver a note to a pretty woman on which I've written 'Although I am only a humble Italian waiter I think I am desperately in love with you.' It's really fascinating to watch the reactions to this. Another favourite is a kebab house in Cleveland Street called Tokkos. When the woman who runs it has had a couple of disgusting retsinas she tears up my bill. She loves me although I keep falling asleep there. As for books of 1984, don't talk to me about books of 1984. This subject is just a platform from which journalists can show off every Christmas. Quite frankly I'm far too busy to read many books but I did read a good biography of Jack Dempsey when I was on the Mississippi the day my travel- ling companion refused to speak to me because I lit a cigarette in bed. The only other books I read with pleasure were Shiva Naipaul's Beyond the Dragon's Mouth and the Personal Memoirs of General ti.S. Grant. I never trust or read a Booker Prize finalist, with rare exceptions like Anna and friends. My cheque book is a constant source of delight and wonder- ment and I can't for the life of me see why people write books at all. I suppose it makes up for living. My favourite cartoon was the one in which a man says to another, 'I'm writing a novel.' The other man replies, 'Neither am I.'
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