Life-swap
Jeffrey Bernard
To begin with I felt flattered by Neil Mackwood's letter in this journal (30 June) suggesting that Taki and I should swap columns if not places. For a moment there I fell like a Sugar Ray Robinson late flourish and was reminded of the sudden reversal of form that can come about when a champion's back touches the ropes. That and the old boxing adage that class always tells in the end.
But it wouldn't do, you know. Apart from the paradox that you meet a better class of person in low life than you do in the high variety, I simply couldn't go to all that boring trouble and expense to step into Taki's Gucci shoes.
The trappings and the paraphernalia I'd have to acquire make a pretty silly shopping list. Two dinner jackets— one white and one black — skiing equipment, a chemically induced suntan, membership of Regine's in Paris, Annabel's and Tramps in London, a course in disco dancing at the Arthur Murray school, a pilot's licence, a Panamanian Passport, an elephantine tolerance to Sloane and St Moritz rangers and — impossible without an adoption certificate — a rich father and/or mother. As it is, the equipment needed to be a low life correspondent comprises only a pair of jeans and a jersey, one suit, shirt and tie for court and racetrack appearances, a wristwatch to tell me when I've outworn my welcome, a packed lunch and the goodwill of a bank manager, bookmaker, publican and wife. As for winter sports, no equipment is needed for skating on thin ice: I am already a member of the Colony Room Club in Dean Street, La Cave in Gerrard Street, Richard Ingrams's cricket team and the diabetic clinic at the Royal Free.
I'd feel even more uneasy about the swapping of friends than I would columns and, on the same score, I'm sure Taki would be like an olive out of a Martini. I may be wrong but I doubt his ability to savour the ignorance, bad taste, vacuity and frightened togetherness of some of my best 'friends. You may be able, as I am, to imagine me driving a Ferrari, but can you imagine Taki catching the 106 bus from Newbury to Lambourn loaded down with 6 lbs of potatoes and two deck chairs newly obtained on credit and carrying a truly cherished bus time-table? I don't think it's on.
Then of course, the one thing I'd have to own eventually to missing is that very discomfort, anxiety and penury that keeps us low-lifers on our toes. To wake up as imagine Taki does with no bigger challenge to face all day than a lunch with Bianca Jagger, a shirt-fitting at Turnbull & Asser and a charge account at the Cavalry Club must indeed be soporific. To run with the fox is far more invigorating than hunting with the hounds. There may be no thanksgiving service for us at the end of the day but we sleep sweetly knowing that tomorrow will very likely be far worse than today.
No, I often feel sorry for the likes of Taki. Fancy backing a winner and only having the satisfaction that you're right, not even appreciating the loot. Imagine the infinite variety of things his custom must stale. How he must crave cod and chips after making a meal of caviare. I can see him now dining in the Mirabelle, a ravishing beauty opposite eating out of his hand and him knowing he's on a winner. But can he, like me, look back on those pioneering days when seduction was like the conquest of Everest, a Chinese takeaway and up four flights to a grotty bed-sitter with an old boot and dodging the ever hungry landlady on the way?
And what is he like in a tight corner? What good could his karate expertise do him when trapped in a tight corner of the French Pub? Suppose Alan Brien came in one door and threatened him with a monologue while.a Cosmopolitan writer, a Guardian Woman's Page journalist and an investigative Observer hack came through the other promising to drop names on him, lash him with feminist scorn and deafen him with self-congratulatory prattle? He couldn't get out of that. No, Taki is better equipped to take the high road. I'll take the low one.
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