I thought about Botox… until I found out what it meant
One good thing to be said about Brexit is that it’s an interesting word, remarkable even. It’s a portmanteau word, socalled because it involves two words (“Britain” and “exit”) being popped into one suitcase. It’s special, according to the lexicographers, because no other portmanteau has spread so far so quickly in the whole history of the English language.
“Blog” (combining “web” and “log”) and “brunch” (“breakfast”/“lunch”) have gone even further afield than “Brexit”, but they didn’t travel so fast. While brunch was coined back in 1897, it took almost 70 years before it became the international favourite it is now.
Some portmanteau words, such as “bromance” (from “brother” and “romance”), are built to last. Others, such as “Brangelina” (from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie), sadly aren’t. My dentist tells me I have now reached the age when my television career calls for a bit of Botox. I told him that I had been toying with the possibility until I discovered that “Botox” is a portmanteau made up of “botulism” and “toxin”, not a bootylicious combination in my book.
I am reading my friend James Hogg’s new (and very entertaining) biography of the late Richard Briers, another friend, a delightful family man (one wife, two daughters), and a fine actor whose career encompassed everything from The Good Life to King Lear. I wish I had seen his Hamlet, spoken at such speed (“like a demented typewriter” said one critic) that he managed to shave about 40 minutes off the play’s usual running time.
A story that James forgot to include in his book concerns another good friend of mine, Nicholas Parsons, 95, the host of Radio 4’s long-running word game, Just A Minute. Before a recording one day, Nicholas was chatting with one of the programme’s guest panellists, the comedian Ross Noble, who was telling him all about a memorable encounter with the great American actor, comedian and writer, Richard Pryor. Pryor lived life to the full, being married seven times (to five different women), enjoying drugs, tobacco, alcohol and a bisexual lifestyle that had included affairs with Marlon Brando and a transvestite. Having told his tale, Ross went off to collect a cup of coffee and, on his return, was alarmed to hear Nicholas Parsons earnestly telling another of the show’s panellists: “You’ll never believe what Ross Noble has just been telling me
about Richard Briers...”
Because I was an MP and in the Whips’ Office in the Nineties when John Major was prime minister and doing his best to manage a party split over the vexed issue of Europe, I’ve been popping up in radio and television studios this week recalling those traumatic days, in anticipation of the big Brexit vote due in Parliament on December 11. Major had virtually no majority, so getting in the votes wasn’t easy. As whips, we wooed and cajoled, twisted arms and offered inducements as best we could. Happily, as I recall, there is a lavatory just by the voting lobbies at the House of Commons and on at least one occasion we were able to lock a colleague inside it when he threatened to vote the wrong way.
And I recall, too, being given the responsibility of ensuring that Sir Nicholas Fairbairn voted as he was supposed to. Sir Nicholas, a brilliant and amusing man, was a heavy drinker, to the extent that, on occasion, he really didn’t know where he was or why. The moment the division bell sounded, a fellow whip and I would position ourselves on either side of him, carrying him through the correct lobby by his elbows, and walking him back to his seat in the chamber, taking it in turn to gently kick his ankles to make it look as if his feet were moving on camera.
I do hope the members of the present Whips’ Office are having the sort of fun we had. I fear they may not be. When I became an MP, my first whip was David Davis, who introduced me to what became my favourite political maxim – a saying of Arthur Balfour (prime minister, 1902-05): “Nothing matters very much and most things don’t matter at all.”
Not long ago, I spent a happy day with the redoubtable Jean Trumpington, filming an interview with her for The One Show. It turned out to be her final broadcast because, of course, Baroness Trumpington, Bletchley Park codebreaker, health minister under Margaret Thatcher, and the woman who notoriously gave a V-sign to a colleague in the Lords’ chamber, died on Tuesday afternoon. It was as good a way to go as any, aged 96, in your sleep, after a long life well lived.
We chatted about the possibility of life after death. “I don’t really believe in Heaven,” she said, “but I’m still hoping to go there.” If she could come back to earth, I asked her, who would she choose to come back as? She answered without hesitation: “The Queen, of course.” Why? “Because whatever she wants, she gets.”
Lady Trumpington had tales of all the prime ministers she had known. Thatcher: “Close-up, she was stunningly beautiful.” Churchill: “Both fun and rather frightening.” “Churchill loved animals. He liked to have animals all over his bed. Lloyd George, of course, liked to have girls all over his bed.”
Once we had finished filming, because she was feeling happy, Lady Trumpington sang to me several of Charles Trenet’s hits (in impeccable French), some of Marlene Dietrich’s favourites (in excellent German) and English songs from two world wars. When it was time for me to go, as I walked away she was singing, “Goodbye-ee, goodbye-ee, wipe the tear, baby dear, from your eye-ee”. It was the last I saw of her.