It Ain't Over 'Till the Thin Lady Sings...

Captain Sensible writes: A strange yet poignant opening to the excellent A.A.Gill's restaurant review in today's Sunday Times. His reviews are always worth reading anyway -- whether you are a foodie or not -- but this one has a touching reminder of why God said it is "not good" to be alone.

'Towards the final curtain of her life, Marlene Dietrich — bent by time, straitened by circumstance and living off Bismarck herring and Vollkornbrot in a Paris attic — found that the ragged and worn ends of her life wouldn’t quite meet. She did, though, have a Californian admirer (I’m guessing a lifelong bachelor), who was depressed and visiting a psychiatrist. Dietrich suggested that he should send her the money he spent on analysis, and she’d sing to him five nights a week. The cheque arrived. The thin lady sang.
For some reason, I find this a particularly touching image: a lonely, unhappy, pink little man lying in his neat, overvalanced bed, staring at a side table covered with patent medicines, a silver-framed photograph of his dead mother and another, larger, picture: of Marlene, the famous one in top hat and tails.
The telephone rings. He picks up the receiver. A reedy voice begins to sing See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have. The man snuggles under the covers, with his hand over the mouthpiece so she won’t hear his ragged breathing.
Far off in Paris, in the pearly dawn, the sleepless Dietrich sits in an armchair covered by a thin blanket, tremulously chanting, her voice sliding into a husky whisper. Those great hooded eyes stare at the same photograph in the grey light. When she finishes, there’s a pause, and she breathes: “Gute Nacht, and God bless.”'