LITMIR.BIZ

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as she accepted the prestigious Der Meisteroktoberbergsteinerrosigpreis for her George Clooney Perpetua, named after her favourite film star.

       She popped in to the famous and elegant German spa town by private …

      ‘Thank, you, Farringdon.’

       … jet, made a brief speech without using a single word of German, and popped out as fast as her long but no longer quite so slim legs could carry her.

       Gisela informs me that Christina did not endear herself to her hosts by wearing her Remembrance poppy throughout.

       Can it be that the former confectioner’s assistant and beauty queen – she was voted Miss Lemon Drizzle in 1980, Miss Danish Pastry (West Midlands) in 1982 and Miss West Bromwich in 1983 – was anxious to show her husband that she shares his fanatical xenophobia, or was there perhaps a more personal reason for the brevity of her visit?

       Did she feel that she needed to get back to find out what Sir Gordon was up to?

      Sir Gordon smiled. She would hate that. She would be furious at the slur cast on her famous legs. She would loathe the references to her days as a beauty queen. How the world would mock. Didn’t she have the sense to see that the whole point of their lives was that they had gone up, up, up and so it was great publicity that they had once been down, down, down? Even Miss Lemon Drizzle can dream of leaving the world of cake far behind and breeding world-class roses. Christina could have been a heroine for our times, a walking representative, in her high heels, on her long but no longer quite so slim legs, of the social mobility so loved by prime ministers who had been to Eton.

      And, to his great surprise, he felt a distant flicker of sexuality at the reference to those legs. He even felt stimulated by the thought that they were no longer quite so slim. Few men are turned on by perfection. You couldn’t believe what was in the papers but it might be rather exciting to check on the accuracy of the observation. Good God. Was it possible – was it? – that this year his birthday dinner with her would not be an ordeal?

      But … this apparently trivial diary entry also worried Sir Gordon just a little as he ate his exquisite, always exquisite, bacon and scrambled eggs. He didn’t like that phrase, ‘what Sir Gordon was up to’.

      What he had been up to was Francesca Saltmarsh. He had taken the rare opportunity, while Christina was abroad, of staying the night. They had made love three and a half times. That half haunted him. Was he beginning to grow old?

      Could the press possibly have known about Francesca? No. It was just a shot in the dark. No! If the worst they could come up with was a snide suggestion in a little diary piece, he had nothing to worry about. He was invulnerable, as his fellow ‘Sir,’ Jimmy Savile, had been, because the great British public would not allow him to be attacked. They loved him so much, just as much as he in his turn hated them.

      No, his concerns were exaggerated. A second cup of good old British tea, and the world would be fine again.

      But as he turned to the third article about himself, his world felt not quite so fine.

       Climthorpe United’s challenge for promotion to the Premiership faltered when they were held to a goalless draw by lowly Barnsley at the Coppinger Stadium in yesterday’s late kick-off.

       The Gordoners missed a hatful of chances, the best of which fell to taciturn Bulgarian striker Raduslav Bogoff. The fans in the Abattoir Stand have started to boo him every time he touches the ball, and the same message comes from the increasing number of placards being paraded around the ground. Their message wouldn’t be shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, but it gets its point across clearly and simply: “Bogoff, Bogoff.”

       Manager Vernon Thickness continues to defend the moody target man from the Black Sea resort of Varna. “He gives us different options, which the punters can’t always appreciate,” he explained in his post-match press conference. “He’s creating the chances, and the goals will come.”

       Does Thickness really believe this, or is he no more than a mouthpiece for owner Sir Gordon Coppinger’s ideas? And why does Sir Gordon persist with the surly Slav, when it is his express intention eventually to turn Climthorpe into the only all-British side in the Championship, and, whatever his motives may be, we have to applaud that intention.

       Sir Gordon has stated that the clumsy seasider gives the team a dimension of subtlety which brings out the best in his British teammates. “I am British through and through and have got rid of no fewer than eight foreign players since I bought the club,” Sir Gordon explained recently, “but I haven’t yet found a British striker who gives me exactly what Raduslav offers.”

       The eponymous owner was not present in the Sir Gordon Coppinger Stand yesterday to see his Eastern European protégé miss yet more chances. Nor was Bogoff’s lovely wife, the svelte Svetoslava.

       Could it be that her presence in Britain, and her absence from the match, has something to do with Sir Gordon’s continued faith in her hapless hubby?

      Sir Gordon loved to read about other great men, and he knew that all truly great men had to be vigilant in their examination of themselves for traces of incipient paranoia. He was honest enough to wonder if there was a touch of the disease in his suspicion that there might be a connection between this story and the diary piece about Christina. Had the press decided to go on the offensive against him, albeit slowly and carefully, putting their toes into the ocean with little hints? Well, they were hopelessly on the wrong tack with Svetoslava. Apart from everything else, he didn’t know when he had seen a less svelte Slav.

      But even this very gentle rumour and tittle-tattle made him feel uneasy, and he wasn’t used to feeling uneasy. He’d have liked a third cup of good old British tea, but it was out of the question. Great men can’t be seen clambering out of their Rolls-Royces for a quick pee at the side of the Kingston By-Pass, or taking a bottle with them just in case. To be seen by Kirkstall performing awkward manoeuvres into a bottle on the back seat, it was unthinkable. The urination of great men – and indeed of great women – must be hidden from the world.

      Through the huge picture windows of the dining room he could now see that an unlovely dawn was creeping shyly in over the lush Surrey countryside. Dawns didn’t break, they arrived mysteriously. As a boy he had sometimes stood by the window in the dark in that little house in Dudley, stopwatch in hand, waiting to record the exact second when it began to get light, in order to enter it into ‘Coppinger’s Almanac’, his life’s work. He had always failed, and the failure had made him furious. He never failed now, and he was rarely furious. Fury used up energy that needed to be stored for more important use.

      He was pleased that it was such an unappetizing grey morning. What was the point of being driven to work by a chauffeur in a luxurious Rolls-Royce if the hoi polloi in their ghastly clothes were standing at their bus stops in warm sunshine? He hoped it would chuck it down this evening, so that all the trick-or-treaters would get soaked.

      He turned, reluctantly, to the financial pages.

      Insecurity grows. House prices fall. CBI wants tax breaks to help young unemployed.

      What? Tax breaks? Help for the young unemployed? He almost choked on his last sip of tea.

      China: Don’t count on us to help you.

      Bastards. Who was ever naive enough to think they would? He’d boycotted Chinese restaurants for five years now. That had shown them.

      In a sudden surge of temper he flung the papers to the floor.

      He clambered slightly stiffly out of his chair. That wouldn’t do. He was only fifty-six, and fifty-six was the new forty-three.

      He picked the papers up, smoothed them down, and put them in a neat pile.

      Thank goodness nobody had witnessed his brief rage. He never lost his temper. He was always cool and collected. Nobody ever saw him ruffled.

      He

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