Low life
Well informed
Jeffrey Bernard
By far the most interesting book to be published so far this year is Persistent POI Offenders: Home Office Research StudY No 66 (Stationery Office, f3.90). Like all °Y. other information this week I learned abc/a.' it from the pages of The Times which is something of a snip at 20p. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday with my head buried in the paper only averting my gaze from it to see the racing on television from Cheltenhara and to watch the incredible Norman Bal011 of the Coach and Horses attempting to bang a candelabra from the ceiling of his sleeP,Y saloon bar. All these things are connecte.0, with the probable exception of the electric ity in the Coach and Horses. First, Tuesday's Times. The science report about how rhesus monkey motherst decide when to conceive their next really hit home and proves that women not men are certainly descended from Vas' In a nut shell, where it belongs, the mothers test the progress of their infants by trying t„" reject them and seeing how they respon°' Does that ring any bells Yet? All right, hove about this? 'As the infants. bec°111 older their mothers tend to reject them more frequently, They hit or bite them more oftert„,a1low them to suck at the nipple and cuddle less often and push them away more • . . When the infant is rejected it may move away on its own or it may keep trying to gain attention and cry until the mother gives in and comforts it.'
Well, well. They're bloody amazing these scientists, aren't they? They mess about with rats to find out smoking's bad for you When they could simply put an ear to my bedroom door at 7.30 am, and they spend fortunes on watching rhesus monkeys when they could have saved them and me some money by watching and paying for the meal
had in the Brasserie du Coin on Monday Where, over coffee and brandy I was cuddled not at all while crying and trying. to gain attention from my guest not the waiter. The report went on to say that when a mother rejects her infant what she is really doing is seeing if it protests, thus testing how independent it is able to be. Well, it certainly clears up a few mysteries for me. Judging by a spate of recent rejections I'm obviously a lot more independent than I thought. Not only am I a lot more independent than I thought, I'm apparently a persistent petty offender. The Stationery Office book has revealed yet another hero of our time. (Booker and Levin heroes 'liberal' heroesshould hide their faces in shame to ponder mine). It seems that a prisoner in Pentonville had 60 convictions in 30 years for ordering and eating meals in restaurants without paying. Ile man should be an Egon Ronay inspector and probably is. The Persistent Petty Offenders book also Cites a Pole who has lived in Hyde Park for 12 years and who has survived by begging. 431 course, he doesn't have to pay any rent, Probably has a credit account in the summer with the deck chair men, but he must have to keep up appearances somehow if he is, as 1 think, the same man who eats out without rHyde My hunch is that he lives out in que Park and pops over to the Connaught When he's feeling peckish and then just
knocks them,
Next week sees, thanks and praise be to the Lord, the start of the 'Flat'. Piggott will save us all, 1 had planned, reading The Times, to move into St James's Park, eat all year at Langan's Brasserie without paying and beg in Soho while watching the cabaret in the Coach and Horses, but life must go on now that proper horses are about to grace the Turf again. I only wish I had a little less confidence in Messrs Michael Phillips and Michael Seely who write the racing columns of The Times. They cost me £30 on Tuesday rild on Wednesday I got so drunk watching Norman Balon doing his Fawlty Towers act in the Coach I actually lost a winning betting shP, Normally betting shops pay out if you present them with a duplicate. This year the betting shop isbeing managed by a real shit. I only wish 1 could broaden his mind by giving him a year's subscription to The Times.
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