Low life
Not so good
Jeffrey Bernard
The quality of life is plummeting at such a rate that I confidently predict piped music in the London Library and Space Invader machines in the British Museum any day now. It's my belief, by the way, that the beginning of the end of the world as anyone over 40 knew it dates from the birth of pop. Anyone as ghastly as Yoko Ono would have been gainfully employed waiting tables in a Lyons Tea Shop when I was a lad, and those were the days before people began to use the fountains in Trafalgar Square as dumping grounds for empty Coca Cola tins. No, I'm sorry, I feel quite sick. Various disgusting facets of the human race were prominently on show in Richmond of all places last Sunday and I've been brooding ever since.
A friend and I took my daughter there last Sunday which was, as far as the weather went, a glorious day. Came opening time and daddy was kindly given permission to have 'the one' before lunch. We picked on a pub called The Castle overlooking the towpath and in a lovely position. we went in and I ordered my usual plus two Cokes. Now get this. I had the two and only two nips left in the house, they hadn't got any ice and they hadn't got a drop of soda. The only person serving was a foreign girl who hardly spoke English and she'd never done the job before. I still can't quite believe a pub running out of vodka, ice or soda at closing time, never mind opening time, but anyway we took our warm and loathsome drinks upstairs to a terrace to sip in the sun and look at the view. There were a few dirty tables made out of a plastic-looking wood, the terrace itself was sprouting with rather ugly weeds and some broken furniture had been slung on to the roof on one side along with a dead pigeon. Of course, there was no service.
Now imagine what could be done with a place like that. Imagine how they'd do it anywhere else in Europe, a potentially super building in those surroundings. After that we lunched and I rowed for an hour, it nearly killed me, and then we took a stroll along the towpath and then we sat and watched the people.Have you seen any people recently? They're absolutely revolting to look at and the mystery of it is how and why do they allow themselves to get like it? The country's going to fat. Great big white lumps of it garnished with the most dreadful clothes and induced by an insatiable greed for buns, hot dogs, fizzy drinks, sweets and crisps. Presumably such people don't possess mirrors at home. Maybe they just don't care but, by golly, you can be sure that they think pubs like The Castle are the real McCoy and last word in catering. Also. I'm afraid to report that 99 per cent of the people we saw were pretty obviously English. Next 'access' day we're going to the seaside to take the opportunity of getting beaten up by skinheads before the weather breaks.
I suppose I could always learn to speak American and go and live in the States but I fear there's a lot I'd miss. Things like the 15-minute-long queue in the Post Office to buy a stamp, the appalling pig-ignorant rudeness of London taxi drivers, British Rail catering, the tourists and rubbish that litter the streets of London and, oh, I could go on. But there are, of course, some good things I'd miss. My flat for one, in spite of the smell of cooking fat that ascends from the basement. If I could afford it I'd throw a bucket of Joy or Arpege down the stairs.
No, I suppose we English are well and truly lumbered with each other. I know I'm certainly lumbered with some very strange friends and acquaintances, like Nicholas who not only thinks the SDP will save us all and put the country back on its feet but who actually and sincerely believes that Sons and Lovers is the greatest English novel of the century. That one has to drink with such people is regrettable but fractionally better I suppose than going to work every day at The Castle in Richmond. My God, I hope I feel better soon.
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