Low life
Daily
Jeffrey Bernard
One of my more famous friends recently received a strange letter from a publishing house who intend to do a book based on the idea of the Sunday Times magazine's series 'A Life in the Day of. . .' but condensing the time involved to the first 45 minutes or so of the day. I quote a paragraph from the letter: `To state the obvious, the kind of thing that might be mentioned could include response to alarm clock (if any), also to companion (if any), bathroom routine, music/radio, average state of morning mind, exercises, breakfast, getting dressed, newspapers, post, attention to household chores, animals and children (if any), activities or neglects, or anything else that tends to be part of your early morning (or whenever you tend to wake) habits.' At the end of the letter there's an amazing pine of impertinence and again I quote: 'as Payment for your work, may I suggest a flat fee of £25 or a champagne breakfast — whichever appeals to you most?' But this is the real gem: 'PS. You may prefer to write about the last 45 minutes.'
It's unbelievable. The last 45 minutes? How can anyone write about the last 45 minutes of the day? For years now my friends and I have been trying to solve the mystery of the closing stages that precede the final curtain, but no one has yet come up with an answer. Many theories have been put forward but none yet to my satisfaction. We know we go home and we know we wake up in bed but between those two events there's a black abyss that man is not yet ready to understand. It's rumoured that some women have actually witnessed the mysterious process of levitation that enables a man to conquer two flights of stairs but most of them are unable to speak of it being quite shaken by the experience and can only say such things as, 'I don't want to talk about it. I'm sickened to death/my stomach/up to here.'
No, anyone interested in contributing to this silly book must kick off with the morning, and if they do they've either got to be incredibly vain or very stupid to offer anything to a publishing house for the insulting, patronising sum of £25 or a champagne breakfast. But they will, they will. Kenneth Muir, for example, has more than likely already given them 10,000 words on the subject. Hundreds will follow. But it's going to be riveting, isn't it? I can't think of more compulsive reading than the revelation of how the likes of Lady Antonia Fraser respond to an alarm clock. Women, in fact, don't respond to anything. They relate. (See Guardian women's page, 4 October 1947.) But response to companion (if any) could be quite interesting. 'Hallo, what's your name?"Melissa, don't you remember?' Of course. We met at . . 'The Jonathan Cape party. We commissioned you to write a novel."Yes, I remember now.' Do you remember hitting that poet in his wheelchair?' etc etc.
But, of course, the real challenge in this business is to describe average state of morning mind. Again, this would be difficult if you chose the last 45 minutes of the day. No, it would have to be the first. Now you can be sure that very nearly all the celebrities contributing to this book are going to be pretty pleased to be alive and, in fact, this state of mind will persist throughout the day. As far as I'm concerned waking up at all is a daily miracle so I lie there for a bit trembling at the wonder of it all, retching with remorse, and then put out a tentative hand hoping to discover a Melissa only to find a half full ash tray in her half of the bed. The irritation at the obscurity of the music on Radio 3 helps rid me of the remorse and the bathroom routine consists of soaking out the guilt in a bath with my clockwork plastic frog. Morning exercise is getting downstairs, and by this time a ray of hope, unfounded optimism if you like, is creeping into state of mind. I give Radio 3 another chance only to find that this week's composer is Delibes. For the last five of the first 45 minutes I sit at the kitchen table sipping tea and gloomily wondering why it is that publishers never ask me to contribute to ridiculous anthologies. I think I'll bring out the end of the day book, though, with my friends. It'll be completely blank and will make an ideal notebook or sketch pad. Payment will be a choice of £2 or six luncheon vouchers.
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