Low life
Saturday fever
Jeffrey Bernard
It seems to me that the League Against Cruel Sports only opens its mouth to Change
step. One expects a load of horse
manure during Grand National week but if these people were really concerned about cruel sports you'd think they'd be venting their concern on such cruelties as getting Married, having a family, eating in Trust House Forte establishments, the licensing laws and editors who cad do without me. One horse, Duncreggan, did get killed, hav- ing received the kiss of death the day before When I drew him in the Spectator sweep, but if he'd got killed at Southwell or Plumpt on on a Monday afternoon you wouldn't have heacl a dicky bird. And oddly enough, talking of getting killed, I nearly died laughing on the morn-
ing of the National when I read in the 'Notebook' (9 April) that our old friend, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, spends his Saturday mornings doing a little work in the Reading Room of the British Museum when he's stuck in London. Pull the other one. I know for a fact that when he says he's off to a recital in Smith Square he is in fact off to the Savile Club to play snooker. But don't think I'm getting at Geoffrey. I remember well just how important this sort of thing was before I had my own library, record collection and games room. Mind you, I was lucky enough to have been steeped in culture and scholarship from the word go so it's all water off a duck's back to me and hardly worth mentioning, suffice it to say that my mother left me in a Fort- num's carrier bag on the steps of the Lon- don Library when I was an hour old. That was a Saturday morning in 1932 and I believe my mother had been browsing in Hatchards when she gave birth to me in the poetry department. At the same time, my father was preparing for the event just up the road, browsing in Cogswell & Harrison for a pair of 12-bores.
Yes, Saturday mornings have become one hell of a problem. Geoffrey went on to say that after the literary grind he goes on to shop in Soho and then to do some drinking in El Vino. Luckily for me I was brought up by my foster parents — my foster father was the chief librarian of the Bodleian — to make my own pasta so I've never had to join that precious throng of BBC Talks Producers who walk up and down Old Compton Street on Saturday mornings clutching sprigs of fennel and would-be bedside lamps in the shape of chianti bot- tles. Not that you see much of that sort of thing nowadays. What's screwed up Satur- days in London, deadened it if you like, is the fact- that nearly everyone now has a weekend cottage, or invitation to one. If you haven't been invited to an 'in' county for the weekend by a Tarquin, Rupert, Cassandra or Candida you can count yourself dead or dead drunk in El Vino. This is, of course, a large helping of sour grape juice on my part. There's nothing I like more on a Saturday morning than sit- ting on Jasper and Letitia's sofa sipping a stingy bloody mary, scratching myself and my last two 10p pieces together and listen- ing to them saying that things have got so bad they can barely pay the gardener, the bill for the logs, Eton, keep the second Range Rover and that they're very much afraid that lunch is lamb and not beef. But to go back to the League Against Cruel Sports for a moment, it's on these weekend occasions that they're conspicuous by their absence. Letitia and Jasper always have six children — they're either practising Catholics or they conceive in .post Badminton Horse Trial euphoria — called Sebastian, Benjie, Magnus, Samantha, Arabella and Sabrina. At weekends, start- ing on Saturday morning when Geoffrey is pretending to read Pascal in the original but in fact making out a Soho shopping list, these children completely take over the house. Darling Bashy knocks your vodka out of your hand, Benjie stands on your balls, and Magnus sticks his fingers in your eye. Letitia, vaguely spotting all this, stirs herself and says, 'Oh do come along darl- ings, I'm sure Jeff doesn't want you doing that.' These children should of course be put down like Duncreggan or put out to grass until they're 21. They throw jam at you at tea time, cheat at Monopoly, cry when they lose, have epileptic fits at bed time and they know at a glance that the clothes you stand up in are the only ones you've got or very nearly.
On reflection, Geoffrey Wheatcroft has it right. Saturday mornings can be well obliterated in the British Museum and, as he admits, there's no need to tarry after opening time when Pascal gives way to Man on the Spot, Augur and The Scout. But I have and always have had my doubts about a Saturday drink in El Vino. Imbibing with hacks and solicitors is another thing the League Against Cruel Sports should look into. Meanwhile it's back to bed for me for another week where Saturday is much like any other day.
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