Photo / Dean Purcell
Jeffrey, Lord Archer, to the photographer: "Isn't she awful?"
Me, to the photographer: "Isn't he awful?"
The photographer: "No comment."
He thought me awful when I was asking questions he didn't want to answer. I thought he was awful when he was glaring at me like a ferret who has just sighted a rat (no doubt the other way around from his perspective) and saying: "No comment."
We were having lunch, at the Hilton in Taupo, and he arrived in a frisky mood. Six minutes in, he had his knife to my throat. I'd suggested he might retire, on his squillions, which produced mock outrage. The retirement bit, not the squillions.
He likes jokes but they can come across badly on the page. He used to say to guests wanting the loo at his London apartment: "Go past the Picasso and left at the Matisse." This was "meant to be funny". Somebody told the press and it has been repeated as, well, what? Evidence he's a snooty twat? "Yeah." He doesn't make that joke these days.
He had arrived at some idea that I'd been a head prefect and was out to boss him around. One of his jokes was to mimic me standing with my hands on my hips, looking bossy.
I did try to make him have champagne - his shepherd's pie and fizz Christmas lunches are famous.
But he never touches the stuff, can't stand it. His guests like it and he thinks the idea of shepherd's pie and French champagne is fun. It is somehow typical of him that he puts on these parties but doesn't partake in what most people would regard as the fun bit.
He has one half glass of red wine at night. Why bother? "Because it's nice." If he likes it, why doesn't he have more than half a glass? "Are you a sort of lush?"
He's got a nerve accusing me of bossiness. Would bread be required for the table? He answered for the table: "We're slimming. We don't eat bread. It's one of the rules. We're not allowed bread!" Were we going to have pudding? "No. I'm not allowed three courses. I'm on two courses for lunch; one course for dinner."
We could split a pud three ways. "Certainly not. The rule is the rule." Why does he have these rules? "Because if you don't keep to them ... I've lost a stone and I want to lose another half a stone."
The lift in his London apartment takes 30 seconds to get to the ground floor. In those 30 seconds he exercises. He got up from the table to demonstrate. "You shouldn't waste 30 seconds." "What would happen, Jeffrey, if you wasted 30 seconds?"
"My God, we can't waste 30 seconds! My son [he has two] thinks that is the funniest thing about me."
The funniest thing about him! He has done many things which most people would think far funnier (and not in a ha, ha sort of way.) The most infamous of what he calls his "mistakes" is still inexplicable. In 1986 he sued The Daily Star for suggesting he'd slept with a prostitute.
He won damages of half a million quid. In 1999 he was selected as the Tory candidate for Mayor of London. He withdrew after allegations he'd committed perjury, was subsequently found guilty and served two years in the clink.
Read Michele Hewitson's full interview at the NZ Herald online.
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