COMPETITION
Low and unlikely
Jaspistos
In Competition No. 1520 you were in- vited to provide an extract from an imagin- ary column by Jeffrey Bernard writing in highly untypical circumstances.
You gave me a lot of laughs. Martin Billingham's piece beginning, 'I knew it wasn't a wise decision to accept the Arab Orange Marketing Board's invitation' was Wittily headed 'Abu Abdabs'. C. J. D. Doyle almost deserved a prize for one sentence: 'I spent last Saturday night in an igloo and I've never been so cold, not even in number three cottage with number four wife.' And I enjoyed Fiona Pitt- Kethley's fantasy of Jeff being entertained by her: 'Fiona wore green silk — down to the navel and up to the thigh . . . . She is a very nice woman and not at all castrating — she told me to say so.'
The prizes tended to go to those who didn't bang on too much about vodka, horses and Norman, but captured the side of our columnist that has been called 'the acceptable face of male self-pity'. £15 go to each winner, and the bonus bottle of White Horse Whisky, presented by United Distil- lers Group, falls to Veronica Pond, a newcomer — or is it the Old Devil himself in drag? Either way, it proves that he's not a bit inimitable.
The last time I had a baby was 1970, so God knows why the National Childbirth Trust's Edgware branch invited me to address their AGM. Ever been to Edgware? I shouldn't bother. The pubs are ghastly and the architecture would make Rod Hackney and Richard Rogers fall weeping into each other's arms.
But these NCT women are a queer lot. Their leaderine thrust a thimbleful of wholewheat sherry into my hand and urged me to address her gels on the pros and cons of epidurals. I spoke, rather movingly, on the unanaesthetised birth of a foal at the Cecil stables in '82, before being womanhandled off the platform.
After a full and frank exchange of views, it emerged they'd mistaken me for some obstet- rical cove of the same name. Red faces and apologies all round. The leaderine invited me back to her condominium for rosé and quiche. I declined. Real men don't eat quiche and neither do I.
(Veronica Pond)
When the Coach regulars clubbed together to fund a long weekend for me at a rural retreat, my crap-detector was on the blink. I should have guessed it wouldn't be a five-star hotel with draught Smirnoff and obliging waitresses. Still, they do a very tasteful plainsong here, and Brother Norman (no, I couldn't believe it, either) is an attentive minder, refilling my water jug each morning, insisting that Vespers is voluntary, and the knotted scourge is for Satur- day nights only. Though why he thinks copies of the Guardian will keep me in touch with the real world, God knows.
Hell isn't an eternity in El Vino, by the way: it's an unremitting diet of bean soup. Odour of sanctity, my arse! And not a steak pie in sight, though the monastery guvnor (a dead ringer for Michael Parkinson) tells me that on a clear day they can see Newbury. . . • (Watson Weeks) I must have been pissed when I signed up for this 'Marbella for Senior Citizens' nonsense — quite apart from lying about my age. If you're asking and you're the blonde who gave me that 20-1 winner at Sandown last Friday, I'm 39. What a miserable querulous ungrateful bunch these OAPs are. One old codger spends all day whining that his pension isn't paid in pesetas into the local post office, another calculating how much he's saving on his central heating in Hatch End. The women are even worse. One old prune, with a frontage unseen since the dear dead days of Greek Street's Vera the Verandah, told me I ought to join in more, and did I dance the Veleeta. Dance it? I can't even spell it. At least, I got second prize in the Fancy Dress — as Edwina Currie. The only trouble was, it was meant to be the Pope.
(Martin Fagg)
This is looking less and less like a freebie. Never again will I complain about the heating in the Middlesex. The only drink is melted snow. For horses we have the huskies, and they show little sign of racing. And the human race is reduced to me and Sir Ranulph. Not that I object to his company — he actually allows me to drop the 'Sir' — but I could do with a spot of variety. Even Norman would do. I'm coming to appreci- ate Ginnie's attentiveness On the radio tele- phone each evening, but her name reminds me too much of what I'm missing. I gather some readers wonder what I'm doing on a Fiennes trip at all. Well, our revered editor thought frost would at worst speed up the arterial damage that vodka and diabetes are working. He may be right, but I prefer Christopher Robin's approach to polar expeditions.
(Brian Ruth) Of course it has been a perfectly dreadful split second so far. Those golden steps are boring. From my host's terrace I can survey the Uni- verse but the view has been overrated. The Guvnor is richer than Sangster and has reliable information but after the first million winners you become nostalgic for loss. Cheques don't bounce any more, the glass is never empty, every deadline is infinitely flexible and nobody here knows Taki.
Oh for a bowl of lukewarm porridge with a hair in it on a wet November morning down the Middlesex! I quite miss the VAT inspectors and the music of Norman's till. Sex wasn't actually all that rotten. I wouldn't mind getting married a few more times. To tell you the truth, I'M beginning to think that on the whole I'd really rather not be dead.• • (J. 0. Thomas)
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