High life
The man who has everything
Tali
Not that I have anything against the two beauties. Waugh once wrote that he knew me when I was waiting on tables in a Cyp- riot restaurant — an obvious compliment `Please — I come here to forget my troubles.' because it means I've come a long way and Brown I've never met. And I do envy their writing talent. But somehow I suspect the green-eyed monster plays a role in their criticism of Alan 'Bongo-Bongo Land' Clark. He's smart, attractive, rich, upper- class and right-wing, a thoroughly unac- ceptable thing to be in today's egalitarian society, and he attracts birds to boot, young girls, that is. And his wife loves him. Oh dear. Let's bring him down a peg or two.
I believe it was four years ago, at the Speccie's summer party, that I told Paul Johnson that if Margaret Thatcher one day had to go I wished Alan Clark would suc- ceed her because he was the only one with balls enough to do so. 'Well, you can't have it, old boy,' said Dr Johnson, and he was of course right, but looking at the mess today perhaps the poor little Greek boy knew a thing or two.
It's called instinct, and Papa Hemingway used to call it his `sh— detector'. If the American press and people possessed some of it (the sh— detector, that is), the draft- dodger would not be President, but then neither would most of the bums presiding over us.
And speaking of the word that precedes Papa's 'detector', isn't it amazing that trained seals are now given regular political and environmental briefings by the White House? And that Barry Diller, once head honcho of Paramount and later Fox, now part-owner of QVC, a television shopping channel, is consulted by the clowns in Washington? I was once on a cruise with Diller back in 1975 on board the Atlantis, the great Niarchos boat, and a Brazilian offered me a smoke I had never tried before. The moment 1 took a drag I began to hallucinate, and suddenly saw Diller's head (he is completely bald with fleshy fea- tures) as a giant penis. Alas, I told him and the rest of the guests what I was seeing, and he has never spoken to me since. Oh well, I guess I can take it for a while.
Otherwise it has been a terrible week. Having trained like a Trojan for the last two months for my veteran tennis tour, I suffered a stress fracture in my left ankle, but did not realise it until my leg began to resemble Diller's head. My coach, Freddy Field, sent me to a doctor who prescribed rest. By that he meant Tramps and Annabel's. It was Annabel's, and the arrival of Linda Evans back on these shores, that made me do the unforgivable. Having been invited by the Praelector of Jesus College, Cambridge to a lunch in honour of my old friend Alistair Home, and having accepted with alacrity, I realised on Saturday around midday that I was still sitting up in my drawing-room sipping from a bottle of vodka. It is then I decided it was better to be rude than an embarrassment. So I take the opportunity to apologise to all con- cerned, especially to Alistair whose book, A Bundle from Britain, is the best of the year.
Jeffrey Bernard has had a fall.
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