High life
Big bang theory
Taki
After Beverly Hills, the Wiltshire countryside seemed more beautiful than ever. Like eating an apple after weeks of a steady candy diet. My new ancestral country seat is a rented cottage on a large estate, and I look onto a beautiful Palla- dian house from which I expect Don Giovanni to emerge any moment. Until last weekend Monsieur Jeffrey Bernard was helping to give my new cottage a lived-in atmosphere. Very successfully, I may add. There is nothing more boring than brand new chintzes, brand new carpets, and brand new curtains, especially in an old house. After three weeks of Jeff, however, the house was no longer boring. There were some very smart cigarette burns in the carpet, a really beautiful red wine mark on the sofa, the curtains had been adequately drenched by the rain, and there were enough vodka bottles around to keep a Cossack regiment happy. Jeff, needless to say, was nowhere to be found. Strange man, my low life colleague. I couldn't help wondering about him while inspecting his shaving kit. I don't really go in for that sort of thing, but in my haste not 'The trouble is, I can never get fit enough to use the equipment'. to miss my flight I left most of my things behind. The first thing that struck me was that his kit contained no less than three shaving brushes and two large shaving tubes of the instant foam type. The markings on the tubes were foreign, mostly Spanish and Italian. There were no less than five dif- ferent sun creams, with one, the Hawaian Tropic, which features a little nude girl on the outside, neatly scratched out. There was also a bedroom slipper (left foot) with the picture of the nude girl inside it. By the time I had finished looking at his 'toilette', I was too scared to look anywhere else. For all I know Jeff could be running a black-market suntan-oil operation right from my ancestral country cottage, or worse, indulging in black magic. The only thing that is obvious he's not doing is writing. His desk mine rather — was as pristine as Beverly Hills.
On Sunday I woke up late and went for a long run. Then I sat down to read the Sun- day papers and nearly threw up. There was that man Knightley writing about sex again in the Sunday Times, an exercise as useful as writing about snikasnaka, which for any of you still unfamiliar with this ancient art is Californian close gardening. If any of you missed it, here is a brief example: 'Ac- cording to our survey, a typical Alliance woman will have had her period at about the same time as women from the other two parties.' Ye Gods, what a discovery. Upon reading it I flung myself on the bed and screamed out loud with frustration at not having thought of that before the ghastly Knightley. But let me give you another ex- ample: 'Alliance women enjoy 2.21 sexual acts a week, compared with 1.82 a week for Labour and 1.65 times for Conservatives. Alliance women and, surprisingly, Tory women enjoy sex more than Labour women.' That, needless to say, did not shock me at all. In fact I knew it before Knightley, although I must admit I thought that Alliance women did it 22.1 times per week, rather than 2.21. Ditto as far as the Tories are concerned. In both cases I had my period in the wrong place.
MORI to the point, however, is the fact that Tory and Alliance women enjoy it more than Labour ladies. And it's not sur- prising either. If I was a lady I certainly wouldn't enjoy making love with, say, Scargill or Livingstone, or that dreadful Welshman with red hair and the freckles. But enough about sex, Knightley dreams, and MORI polls.
All that afternoon I wandered around the property looking for some Alliance women, but to no avail. I did run into a couple of Tory girls but they were both reluctant to raise the Tory average. I suppose it has a lot to do with the size of one's house. When I was still living in my grand ancestral seat I had no problems with the fair sex. That is probably why my estimates were so far out.
Now that I live in a cottage I realise that my figures were inflated. Show me the house you live in and I'll tell you how many girls you'll have each week, says an ancient Greek proverb. No wonder that Jeff is nowhere to be found. When he last stayed with me at Bruern Abbey I had to call two heavies to evict him. I guess, like blondes and the rich, people with big houses have more fun.
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