Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A journalist best known for writing the 'Low Life' column in The Spectator.
On the island
Eight records
Introitus from Requiem in D minor, K. 626Favourite
Favourite disc. Reason: 'It's a magnificent piece of music. … I think that Mozart is divine and Mozart is divinity as far as I'm concerned.'
Andalucía (from Spanish Dances, Op. 37)
Reason: 'When my mother was in a good mood, she made it a special treat for me in the evening… she used to play me this tune and I it mi it touches me and because it reminds me of her and the nice times.'
Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39
Philharmonia Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy (conductor)
Reason: 'The thing about Sibelius that fascinates me is that it's all about Finnish landscape… I think he's absolutely marvellous.'
Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488 (opening)
Reason: 'When I first left home, they used to call it running away from home in those days. The very first records I bought were the seventy eights of Mozart's Piano Concerto number twenty three. It it stuck in my mind so much that when Keith Waterhouse asked me for some music for the play at the Apollo I suggested that when the curtain went up… the opening bars of the Mozart twenty three.'
Enigma Variations, Op. 36 (finale)
London Philharmonic, Bryden Thomson (conductor)
Reason: 'I love the Englishness of Elgar. I can listen to Elgar sometimes and the mind could wander. And I'd find myself wondering if I was listening to Test cricket commentary from Lord's or racing commentary from Worcester which was his favourite occupation.'
Der Rosenkavalier (final act excerpt)
Reason: 'which transcends a lot of other opera and I think it's sensational.'
String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat major, Op. 127 (second movement)
Reason: 'I love him and late string quartets. … this second movement I think is terribly sad and it's sort of heart rending in a way and I've got a funny feeling that I know how Beethoven felt about all sorts of personal things.'
String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 20 No. 1 (Sun Quartets)
Reason: 'I'd very much like to wake up in the morning to my coconut juice made… a wakey wakey to the Haydn string quartet. Opus 20 number 1 and I only discovered the Sun Quartets recently. I love it.'
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:18Jeff, booze, horses and women – is that the order of their importance in your life, or does it vary?
It varies from time to time, it started off women horses booze. Then coming into the final furlong, booze moved up at an alarming rate. Women dropped back. Then I suppose that racing and [booze] crossed the line together, as it were, a dead heat.
Presenter asks
2:11And what do you put that survival down to? Is it luck or friendship?
It's uh luck and friendship and uh great fear of falling through the very thin ice that I skate on every day.
Presenter asks
3:47Tell me how large a part music plays in the survival of Geoffrey Bernard.
Enormous part. Uh it's one of the most important things in the world. … Every day. for a for a bit. It makes me reflect, which is quite nice after the holy burley of some of the disgusting places I go to. It's uplifting tremendously.
The keepsakes
The book
The Complete Sherlock Holmes short stories
Arthur Conan Doyle
They are full of absurdities that make me chuckle. It wasn't intended by Conan Doyle, but he did have a highly defined sense of the absurdity even if he wasn't quite aware of it.
The luxury
a high powered hunting rifle with a lot of ammunition
to shoot game with. B, to shoot Man Friday with after he'd started telling too many boring jokes and anecdotes. And finally C, should blow my own brains out if I got ill.
Presenter asks
6:23Do you find that people come to you to talk about their drinking problems or habits? They want to assuage their guilt by talking to someone who drinks rather more than they do.
They do sometimes, yes. … The only way you can possibly give up drinking is to want to give it up. And I don't want to. And alcoholics are dreadful self-deceivers. Not many of them do really want to. … I had two and a half years on the wagon once because I did something awful and the remorse was ghastly. … I hit a woman. We're great friends now. But even so I sometimes give her sidelong glances and think the mistake I made was not hitting her harder.
Presenter asks
7:56But what did you intend to do with your life? When you were twelve years old, what did you intend that you would be?
At twelve I wanted to be a marine engineer. At sixteen I wanted to go to bed with every woman in the world, well with few exceptions. I wanted to open the batting for England. I had my ambitions were very banal.
Presenter asks
27:23Realistically, how long do you think you've got?
About two years? … No, I mean in some ways life is so awful at times. And I've suddenly developed a new feeling that dying might be like going on holiday. Might be like check in at Heathrow to go to Barbados or somewhere really nice. … The hells. Nasty. But it's my own fault, it's all self inflicted.
“It's luck and friendship and great fear of falling through the very thin ice that I skate on every day.”
“I disliked myself until ten years ago. But I don't know, I'm an absolute monster anymore, no.”
“I loathe working more than anything else in the world, writing. It makes me physically sick. With anxiety. I hate it.”
“I think to myself, go on talking, I've probably only got ten more minutes to live to this so boring and awful.”
“I wish I had been a better person, that's all.”
“I'd like a high powered hunting rifle. With a lot of ammunition. … to shoot game with. … To shoot Man Friday with after he'd started telling too many boring jokes and anecdotes. And finally, should blow my own brains out if I got ill.”