Low life
Cooking my goose
Jeffrey Bernard
he lead up to Christmas was even a lit- tle worse than the celebration itself. A few days before my goose was cooked I was given a particularly unpleasant hors-d'oeu- vre by the BBC who telephoned me to ask me would I be willing to go on This Is Your Life. The subject on this occasion was Ned Sherrin, a good man who I got to know when he directed Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell. I thought it might be a lot of fun and that there would be a load of interesting and amusing people on the show. The car that came to pick up me and my niece who was looking after me that day was late, which gave rise to some anxiety, and it was late taking me home after the fiasco at the TV Centre. When we did arrive we spent just over an hour hanging about waiting for them to start shooting. They carried me up some steps and sat me down like a puppet without strings and never even bothered in the end to ask me anything about Ned although there was a film clip of Dennis Waterman — but nothing to speak of about Peter O'Toole, Tom Conti or James Bolam in the role. It was a complete and infuriating waste of a day. The producer, Malcolm Morris, should get his act togeth- er or disappear. As for Ned, he was as cool and urbane as he always is but I wonder if he might have been a little disappointed with those who did turn up to bear witness to his talents. And where was Keith Water- house? Apart from Ned himself, the only relief from the amateurish episode was meeting Elisabeth Welch and Alan Whicker.
Still fuming with anger and at the same time yawning over that balls-up, Christmas was upon me. On Christmas Eve, the Inland Revenue sent me a demand for £14,000 and Vera collected a goose, far too big for me but my favourite meat. On Christmas morning, I opened two marvel- lous presents from Vera, one from my daughter and two from my nieces, one of which, a box of exquisite chocolates, the niece gave me because I had once told her that I liked nearly everything that has always been forbidden or bad for me. Vera bunged the goose in the oven — I had some red cabbage to go with it — and three or four hours later, I found it too heavy to get out of the oven with one hand, the other being used to support me. I turned the oven off and sunk into a bowl of soup. I had more soup that evening. Mean- while the goose went on cooking slightly behind the oven door which I had slammed shut in a fit of temper. I felt so depressed I even watched five minutes of Mary Poppins in the hope that a glimpse of Julie Andrews would brighten the day but only the sight of Joanna Lumley could have done that.
Anyway, the television debacle still ran- Ides but I am busy devising my own pro- gramme which will not only get me on the box but which will surround me with some dreadful old friends and acquaintances. It is to be called This Is Your Wife. In my own case, they are as far flung as Bayswater, Cambridge and Spain. Seething in Spain must be a hot business but probably keeps the cold out in Bayswater and Cambridge. I shudder to think of the witnesses they could produce to give evidence as to my harmless eccentricities. One of them is still smarting about a Christmas lunch we had together some years ago in the Hilton of all places. We sat at the next table to an Arab family and when the yashmak, or whatever it's called, slipped off the face of the oil sheikh's wife I turned to him and said, 'No wonder you people keep your wives' faces covered.' And now, with the Inland Rev- enue in mind, and knowing my luck, I won- der if last week's goose wasn't one that laid golden eggs.
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