restaurants, bars and clubs I never knew about and couldnât in any case afford, meeting all kinds of people Iâd never come across as a student going between college and lecture room. I love the delicious, expensive food and all the fine wine too, even if it sometimes takes me a day or two to come round from the hangovers. Thereâs no doubt itâs already brought a whole new dimension to my life, changing the way I see myself and my future.
And that in itself is part of the problem. Since Iâd spent two years after school studying languages, first in Göttingen, then in Perugia, I already felt older and more experienced than my contemporaries when I first came up, and now that Iâm going regularly to London and starting to be part of another, more sophisticated world, the disaffection has grown apace. It reminds me of when I was âheld downâ for a year at school because I was the youngest in my class and had started momentarily falling behind; so that afterwards everyone who had been a year beneath me became, to my lasting shame, my contemporaries. Something similar has occurred now that Iâm at university, although I do have a small circle of close friends Iâm really fond of. Iâve noticed, however, that wheneverI mention my Soho exploits to them, it soon sounds suspiciously like bragging, and Iâm particularly irritated that no one has remarked on the dark-blue, fly-fronted John Michael shirt that Francis bought me on Old Compton Street â Iâve been looking and I havenât noticed anyone else with one in Cambridge, where tweed jackets and pipes still dominate as if Carnaby Street fashion and the Kingâs Road simply donât exist. Regardless, I wear my new shirt as frequently and defiantly as I can.
So Iâve come to accept that Iâm now leading a kind of double life: gowned student by day, huddled with other youths round gas fires in damp cloistered quads, endlessly soul-searching and trading shallow banter as we wonder who we are and what we might become; Baconâs chosen companion by night, invested with special powers, riding a crest of champagne as all doors from the Ritz to the last seedy outpost at dawn open before me. I get used to the duality, but it does nothing to bind me more closely to my undergraduate status. And regular contact with artists like Frank Auerbach, Kitaj and David Hockney â the new Sunday colour magazines have just photographed him like a film star, in a gold lamé jacket â has only served to convince me further that itâs time to leave Renaissance art behind and look for something new. As my final subject of study, I choose what I have always loved most and might have read from the beginning: English Literature. But before I can even begin to cram into one year what would normally take three, I am still struggling to complete my issue on âModern Art in Britainâ, which has taken me off any kind of even desultory study for the past few months.
To be fair, Iâve been incredibly lucky with the contents so far. Hockney, Kitaj, Paolozzi and others have all written texts specially for the issue, and Iâve done an exchange of letters with Auerbach. Iâve also bagged some big essays from critics as important as Lawrence Alloway, Norbert Lynton and Jasia Reichardt. Iâd hoped to include David Sylvester, who first asked me to come down to London to talk about the possibility, then explained to me, walking me up and down the station platformwhen I arrived, that he could not write, like the others, without proper compensation. We are a student magazine and there was never any question of paying anybody; the return fare for this fruitless visit has already taken a good few bob out of my meagre budget; I just hope we get enough in from the advertisements to go some way towards settling the printerâs bill. My Bacon interview has been pieced together from scraps of
And that in itself is part of the problem. Since Iâd spent two years after school studying languages, first in Göttingen, then in Perugia, I already felt older and more experienced than my contemporaries when I first came up, and now that Iâm going regularly to London and starting to be part of another, more sophisticated world, the disaffection has grown apace. It reminds me of when I was âheld downâ for a year at school because I was the youngest in my class and had started momentarily falling behind; so that afterwards everyone who had been a year beneath me became, to my lasting shame, my contemporaries. Something similar has occurred now that Iâm at university, although I do have a small circle of close friends Iâm really fond of. Iâve noticed, however, that wheneverI mention my Soho exploits to them, it soon sounds suspiciously like bragging, and Iâm particularly irritated that no one has remarked on the dark-blue, fly-fronted John Michael shirt that Francis bought me on Old Compton Street â Iâve been looking and I havenât noticed anyone else with one in Cambridge, where tweed jackets and pipes still dominate as if Carnaby Street fashion and the Kingâs Road simply donât exist. Regardless, I wear my new shirt as frequently and defiantly as I can.
So Iâve come to accept that Iâm now leading a kind of double life: gowned student by day, huddled with other youths round gas fires in damp cloistered quads, endlessly soul-searching and trading shallow banter as we wonder who we are and what we might become; Baconâs chosen companion by night, invested with special powers, riding a crest of champagne as all doors from the Ritz to the last seedy outpost at dawn open before me. I get used to the duality, but it does nothing to bind me more closely to my undergraduate status. And regular contact with artists like Frank Auerbach, Kitaj and David Hockney â the new Sunday colour magazines have just photographed him like a film star, in a gold lamé jacket â has only served to convince me further that itâs time to leave Renaissance art behind and look for something new. As my final subject of study, I choose what I have always loved most and might have read from the beginning: English Literature. But before I can even begin to cram into one year what would normally take three, I am still struggling to complete my issue on âModern Art in Britainâ, which has taken me off any kind of even desultory study for the past few months.
To be fair, Iâve been incredibly lucky with the contents so far. Hockney, Kitaj, Paolozzi and others have all written texts specially for the issue, and Iâve done an exchange of letters with Auerbach. Iâve also bagged some big essays from critics as important as Lawrence Alloway, Norbert Lynton and Jasia Reichardt. Iâd hoped to include David Sylvester, who first asked me to come down to London to talk about the possibility, then explained to me, walking me up and down the station platformwhen I arrived, that he could not write, like the others, without proper compensation. We are a student magazine and there was never any question of paying anybody; the return fare for this fruitless visit has already taken a good few bob out of my meagre budget; I just hope we get enough in from the advertisements to go some way towards settling the printerâs bill. My Bacon interview has been pieced together from scraps of
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