Low life
Birthday bores
Jeffrey Bernard
Here I ' am celebrating yet another birthday I never thought I would see and one which must be a source of great irrita- tion to the medical profession. I hope there is no more to astrology than there is in medicine because I see, to my horror, that I share a birthday with Dr Henry Kissinger and that vampire, Mr Christopher Lee, to say nothing of that monstrosity, Paul Gas- coigne.
I'm wondering how it is that my birthday should still hold a sort of fascination for me and I suppose it is a kind of hangover from my schooldays when it was almost a wondrous occasion. Even during war-time rationing my mother always contrived to send me a parcel of sweets, a cake and a postal order for the princely sum of 2/6d. At first, I longed to be a teenager and then I longed to be 21 and have a vote. On my 21st birthday the painter, John Minton, took me to the Venezia for lunch. What a wonderful change it made from the coal mine where I had just stopped working in Stoke-on-Trent. I remember having just discovered scampi and thought I was in heaven in that nice old restaurant.
Another memorable birthday was my 50th when my friend Philippa Clare gave a party for me and a photograph album full of pictures of it which I still browse through from time to time. Poor old Bill Simpson, Dr Finlay, is paralytically drunk in a couple of them and another doctor, this one Who, played by Tom Baker, is well on the way. Some people have strayed in from the Coach and Horses and some of them I wish would stray back.
Two years ago, I shared my 60th birthday celebrations with Deborah Bosley who has now seen fit to become Lord Gnome's companion. She could have been mine but love is blind and, anyway, she was a mere 29 yesterday. And speaking of astrology in passing, there may be something in it after all because I noticed to my amusement that Edward Heath and Barbara Cartland share a birthday. How very appropriate. I looked for the Anniversaries column in The Times this morning to see if I shared a birthday with anyone as noble as those two old bats but they didn't print one and instead print- ed a fascinating column called 'Calls to the Bar.' I haven't been called to the bar since the illustrious Mr Cobb ran away with my leg. I now get waiter-service from my wheelchair.
Which reminds me, Norman has asked me to open the new lavatories in the Coach and Horses next week and I hope to God he doesn't expect me to hang about and watch them being christened. What an awful ceremony. The man will do anything for publicity, even shit on his own doorstep. I'm glad to say that the Ladies is being made larger, The last time I was called to it was to rescue a very fat woman who had passed out in there. Getting her out was damned nigh impossible since she was wedged firmly between the lavatory itself and the door which opens inwards. What he is doing to the Gents only he knows but I hope he takes the opportunity to clean off the graffiti concerning myself from the back of the door. It is not what they say that offends me but that the thought of me should cross their minds when the bastards are sitting there. I once persuaded a woman in the Coach to write something very nice about me on the wall in the Ladies and, for a while, I received some very strange, quizzical and almost unbelieving looks from the women who had just been in there. My own favourite bit of unob- scene graffiti in the Gents was 'Reality is a delusion caused by a lack of alcohol.' It can only have been written by a drunk. So happy birthday to all Geminis.
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