Low life
Snakes and ladders
Jeffrey Bernard
antas got me out of bed at 5 a.m. yesterday to go to Heathrow to meet my daughter who was arriving from Sydney potless, baggageless and passportless. 'Be there at 7 a.m ,' they said. I was. What bloody inefficient people. Her flight land- ed at 6 a.m. and, unbeknown to me, she had gone. I searched for her for three hours with one short break for fainting at about 9 a.m. Having got up so early and having had no breakfast or insulin I crashed out on the floor. When this hap- peps to diabetics people always assume that they are pissed. Normally they would be right but even I am hard pressed to be drunk before the bill for lunch is pre- sented. I haven't felt so ill for years. Eventually I got back to the West End. (I am far too frail to use crowded public transport any more). So I spent £50 on taxis alone before 11 a.m. Thank you Qantas. So now the said daughter needs to be helped. The old house she was living in in Sydney was gutted in five minutes. It is a miracle that she and her flatmate went out for some coffee minutes before. They were living on the top floor and there would have been no way out. Now, of course, she has no clothes or anything else. Back to square one. What with her situation and my warrants from the Inland Revenue I must conclude that this life is a game of `And I keep telling her — Goodness me, Vanessa, teenage puppy fat is nothing to worry about.'
snakes and ladders with the snakes being a shade of odds on. Still, we deserve it. From what I saw in the arrival lounge — while I was conscious — at Heathrow I can only say that about 99 per cent of the human race is disgusting.
To my great 'surprise I discovered that I am a racist. I wouldn't dream of naming two countries whose aircraft spewed up hundreds of would-be assassins but what a revolting lot they were. They had faces that covered nasty minds. There were also parties of English lager louts. The Amer- icans were using the luggage trollies as battering rams. There is no more pleasure to be had from travelling. Air traffic control strikes and go slows by immigration officers have made flying a slow death. The next time I go to into Europe it will be by train and I suppose that will be derailed. I won't know it. There was an American fighter called Billy Petrolle who was billed as 'Derailed But Never Stopped.' Perhaps you know the feeling.
But Isabel's return from Sydney has had me thinking more and more about that city. How I wish I was back there. They can have the Ashes with my blessings if they buy me lunch at Doyles. Actually I am quite glad they have beaten England. England have become an irritation, like a pimple on a buttock. But even more useless. David Gower is so laid back he might be dead. Someone should check. Alan Border speaks like a sportsman and a gentleman. And now that the Australians have also found culture, I expect them to be sending us their convicts soon. It would certainly cheer this dirty country up a little. No wonder Harold Larwood didn't come home again. He is probably in Doyles at this very minute tucking into a lobster descended from one eaten by the great Don 50 years ago.
I told Isabel to stay in Australia for as long as possible — for life if possible — and now she is back in this rubbish infested city. We will be taken over by rats soon. Any Ozzie wanting to come and live in a dump like Earls Court should be certified. How odd that a mere ten days in Sydney should have made me love the place. In those ten days I did not meet one single bore. When I go to the Coach and Horses in ten minutes' time I shall encounter a cluster of the bastards. The only thing that is keeping me going at the moment is the prospect of the first night of Keith Water- house's play at Brighton on 26 September and then at the Apollo on 18 October. I still can't quite take it in. Stagehand at the Apollo 30 odd years ago and name outside the front of house in 1989. This time the ladders beat the snakes.
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