Apologies

I will blog soon - I'm just snowed under at work at the moment.

I'll try and get one of our [currently mute] other authors to post something though.

Opening Nights

I haven’t been in myself yet, but the feedback I’ve heard so far vis a vis the Kings Head has been mainly positive, and judging by the number of people who went back for a return visit on Thursday night for the grand opening (following the private opening on Wednesday), they also must have been at least fairly impressed.

When I got to Taps on Thursday evening there wasn’t a single regular in the place – hell, there wasn’t a single person in the place at all apart from myself and Jade (although, Gareth, Daryl, Adam and Gerry turned up soon thereafter – as well as Casey who was on to work after Jade).

Which was very odd. I’ve never seen the Taps completely empty at half six on a weekday night in all my years drinking there; which I think means that we can definitely take it that the ex-Kings Head crowd, Matt and Alice, Tom, Sean, Terry, Barry, Derek, Rebecca, Murray etc have all decamped en mass – which is completely understandable (and also a shame as they were/are a bunch of really nice people), who, I've no doubt, we’ll all miss.

While Gerry only had a couple in the Taps before popping back to the Kings Head where Dave and Pete were.

It’s clearly too early to extrapolate anything too certain from one Thursday evening, but there are clear indications that the Kings Head might well go some way to appropriating the bulk of the regulars from the Taps.

Now, as you know Thursdays are generally one of my favourite nights in the Taps (except for on those nights which I’ve previously documented – and last night was one of those nights, which, as always, meant that the place was filled with 20yr old baboons).

Something which I’m sure you’ll agree I generally endure with gracefully stoicism (if graceful stoicism was a euphemism for a graceless whinny huff), but last night I really couldn’t stop myself from thinking: screw this, I’m going to the Kings Head.

But ever the whisper in my heart: Taps Faithful, Richard, Taps Faithful, restrained me.

Though for how long I wonder?

[What was interesting to note though was that Tommy, Dan and Len, and Skiddy (I don’t know why they call him Skiddy – and frankly I’m not that anxious to find out) all came back over from the Kings Head because they preferred the Taps].

Rules of the Taps #1

A few years ago on a long Saturday afternoon (when else?), a few of us had a bash at drawing up some Rules of the Taps -  and which, when I’ve got a bit more time I’ll try  and revive, but in the meantime let’s try and piecemeal compile a list until such a time as we can collate them all more fully.

So, for example, saying please and thank you is an established rule. Likewise not waving your money around when trying to get served.

But, for me, here’s the basic, fundamental rule of the Taps:

Don’t act like a twat.

That’s it.

For instance, don’t come into a quiet pub at 10 o’clock at night when three or four people are gathered around the bar having a chat, and start shouting and capering like a bunch of drunken baboons.

Instead, try and follow this simple rule: act accordingly.

And that, also, is it.

So, for example, if you go to a pub on a Friday night and people are shouting and capering like baboons then by all means feel free to join in, but if you go into a pub on a Wednesday night and people are quietly talking, don’t start shouting and capering like a baboon.

It’s a simple enough rule isn’t it?

Personally I can’t really see any reason to shout and swear and guffaw like a horse faced, slack jawed, goon, but if that’s your cup of tea, go somewhere where other people are doing the same.

i.e, act accordingly.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

So then, the big day is finally here. The paint has dried, the floor has been varnished, the beer bought and the brass buffed and shone. We have our invitations in our pockets and we’re all off to the Kings Head Private Opening Party tonight, and then the Grand Opening tomorrow.

That being the case, now is probably an appropriate moment to stop and consider what the opening of the Kings Head might mean for the Taps and her regulars.

There seem to me to be several scenarios.

I suppose that the worst case scenario is one in which the Kings Head super pub hunts, kills and eats the plucky little Taps small regular’s pub. And let’s be fair – it’s not an unreasonable concern. I mean we know that it will have a good manager in place who certainly knows what she’s about (and who we all already like and know). We know that it will have a wider range of interesting beers on and (according to all the reports I’ve heard) that the place is looking good. We know that (apparently) the bar stools are wonderful oak and leather creations (complete with backrests), and we know that due to the slightly higher prices (and the range of drinks on) that it should attract the older more civilised crowd who make up the bulk of the Taps regulars.

That being the case will the Taps regulars defect wholesale to the Kings Head? Because here’s the thing. The Taps mid week after work regulars aren’t there because of the price of the drinks, they’re just there. That’s why there’s no difference between those who are there on Mondays (with Monday club prices) and those who are there on all the other days.

That is, it’s not the prices that keeps us there but the quality of the pub experience itself.

The Kings Head is also attractive in that it’s a real pub – complete with real ales and little alcoves and right angles on the bar. And that’s an attractive proposition for a bunch of people who genuinely love pubs.

Equally, the higher prices in the Kings Head should, in the long term, make it less of a draw to the George and Ratlers crowd who flock to the Taps on a Friday and Saturday night (and sometimes on a Thursday), which is a massive inducement to the regulars to go to the Kings Head on a weekend.

All of which makes for a fairly convincing argument for total destruction.

[I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure].

Do I think that will happen? Not really. I think that the more likely scenario is that the mid week regulars will, for the most part, stay the mid week regulars. I mean we’ve got a good thing going here so why spoil it? We know what we’ve got. And what we’ve got is cosy and comfortable and nice.

The weekends and the odd Thursday night are a different proposition entirely. Now, there’s nothing I like more than getting to Taps on a Friday evening after a long week at work, but after 10pm or so it just gets too busy (often with some not terribly nice people in). Now assuming what I’ve said above about the Kings Head holds true, wouldn’t it be nice to go somewhere which will stay consistently nice in the transition from the evening to the night?

All told, as I say, I think the most likely scenario is that the Taps will mainly stay the same during the week but that of a weekend we’ll just wholesale give it over to the rowdier younger crowd who like the impossibly loud music and the huge numbers of people crushed together like garlic in a Frenchman's kitchen.

I also think that the Kings Head will come to be the place for the big events – the big football games. Christmas Eve. Birthdays and Leaving parties [I think that partly that will be because given the choice the bar staff won’t want to use the Taps for stuff like that. I mean, really, they spend half their time working there, will they really want to drink there as well – well unless they’ve got loads of tickets to use that is]. It will be the place where people will say, ‘lets go the Kings Head it’s too busy/scummy/dead in here’ (depending on your personal point of view).

All in all I think that it will mean the death of the pure Taps faithful and with it that very clearly defined sense of community. It seems to me that what will instead develop are people who either use the Kings Head exclusively and people who use both the Taps and the Kings Head regularly, because there really aren’t any good reasons for not using the Kings Head at all, while I can well see why some people wouldn’t want to use the Taps.

All I think we can be certain of is that we’re seeing the end of an era tonight. I don’t know how things will change, but change they will.

Chris Woods

My posts are generally driven by things which have happened the evening before I write, however last night it seemed as though the exact opposite were true and my evening was driven by the preceding post regarding Satan and football.

Last night I was sitting in the regulars’ corner (my preferred mid week place at the hatch having been usurped) with Daryl and Peter, doing the crossword and watching Arsenal v. Newcastle United in the Carling Cup 5^th Round.

And as often happens while watching a fairly uninspiring game, the conversation turned to more general football discussion.

Those football discussions which are entirely pointless, grossly subjective and hugely enjoyable. Greatest player of all time, best centre back ever seen, whether Glen Hoddle should have won more caps, favourite Arsenal player and so on and so forth.

You know, classic pub stuff.

And it struck me that the encyclopaedic knowledge which so many blokes (and quite a few women) have of football is really quite astounding. I mean, football is something which blokes (and many women) have been studying and thinking about their entire lives, such that  the average bloke is probably as expert in the history and nuances of football as David Starky is about the Regency Period.

Your average bloke will be able to spend an hour eloquently discussing whether, relatively speaking, Tostoa was better than Bergkamp, or whether Rivelino was better than Garrincha.  Equally, he/she could trot out Brazil’s entire starting line up in the 1970 World Cup final without missing a step, name  the England assistant manager in ’66, and, in reverse order, list the five highest scorers in World Cup history.

In themselves, these are obscure pieces of knowledge. I guarantee that you don’t know that much about anything else.

[Quickly – off the top of your head: Who did Chris Woods spend most of his career playing for?

Exactly. Rangers.

Why do you know that? Really, think about it, why have you retained that piece of completely pointless knowledge about a sometime England number 2?]

That’s no less an obscure a piece of knowledge than knowing the code names for the two parted  planned Allied invasion of Japan in 1946 or knowing the start to end dates of Belisarius’ Visigoth campaign.  It’s just that so many people share the same knowledge that we take it for granted.

[Which team was Kevin Keegan playing for when he was twice named European Player of the Year?

Zing. Hamburg

See what I mean?]

Anyway, this is all beside the point (actually, come to think of it, did I even have one?), my point is (yep, there it is), is that talking about football in the pub – and more specifically those conversations which start, ‘alright then, name your all time World IX’ or ‘who would you say is the greatest batsmen of all time’ or fly half, or spin bowler, or F1 driver or whatever, are a vital part of the very essence of what makes pubs great.

There doesn't have to be a resolution - and there doesn't even have to be a point. It can just be a few hours spent at the bar thinking and talking about greatness in days gone by.

Sky Sports

This is just one more example of why Rupert Murdoch is pure evil.

Now, I know I keep banging on about how the pub is a community and all that – and no doubt you’re all getting a bit fed up of it, but it’s something which I fundamentally and passionately believe. The pub is, and always absolutely has been, a community (complete with its own village idiot in our case).

And this kind of thing is just destroying that sense of community. I mean, pubs are synonymous with football. Talking about it, dissecting it, complaining about it…watching it.

It’s always been the case that if you couldn’t get to the game then your local was the next best alternative. In fact for many people it’s always been the only alternative.

Watching football is a communal activity – and that bastard Murdoch is deliberately destroying it. He’s deliberately trying to make people stay home and watch it as individuals based on a neo conservative abhorrence of communities and society. It’s Thatcher’s vision of a societyless fragmented Britain writ large.

Murdoch and his ilk are people who don’t want people to come together, who don’t even see the point of it, who don’t understand it and therefore don’t like it, who just couldn’t care less about sending thousands of pubs out of business, and condemning people to live pod like solitary existences.

If I didn’t already hate him (and I did), this would certainly do it.

Christmas

As I alluded to in an earlier post, Christmas is my favourite time of the year in the Taps. As it happens I’m not a huge fan of Christmas in general, beyond Christmas dinner at my Aunt’s house (which is my desert Island food and totally fricking awesome by the way) that is, but I do love Christmas in the Taps.

I love everything about it. I love the Pogues, and the whisky. I love the decorations and the lights. I love coming in from the winter cold to a warm pub and a friendly welcome. I love the Christmas atmosphere and bonhomie. I love people stopping in for a quick drink while they’re doing their shopping and then heading back out again fortified and warmed. I love all of it (except amateur drinkers).

I think that there’s something slightly Dickensian about good pubs and Christmas. Something that’s redolent of a by gone era, when public houses were alive to the sounds of the crystal clink of glasses; and men in coats and tails would drink port and whiskey and brandy around an open fire safe from Jack the Ripper and the freezing fog and driving snow outside.

A time when people would stand outside in the snow, their faces pressed up against frosted glass windows, peering in at the golden glow of a warm fire lit bar and wonder whether they had time for a quick couple of pints before they made their way home.

It actually reminds me a little of the feel of Counterparts, my favourite James Joyce story from the Dubliners (which is about an alcoholic clerk on a night of drinking in Dublin). He just captures the joy of pubs in a way that only people who know them can understand:

"Just as they were naming their poisons who should come in but Higgins! Of course he had to join in with the others. The men asked him to give his version of it, and he did so with great vivacity for the sight of five small hot whiskies was very exhilarating. Everyone roared laughing when he showed the way in which Mr. Alleyne shook his fist in Farrington's face. Then he imitated Farrington, saying, "And here was my nabs, as cool as you please," while Farrington looked at the company out of his heavy dirty eyes, smiling and at times drawing forth stray drops of liquor from his moustache with the aid of his lower lip.

When that round was over there was a pause. O'Halloran had money but neither of the other two seemed to have any; so the whole party left the shop somewhat regretfully. At the corner of Duke Street Higgins and Nosey Flynn bevelled off to the left while the other three turned back towards the city. Rain was drizzling down on the cold streets and, when they reached the Ballast Office, Farrington suggested the Scotch House. The bar was full of men and loud with the noise of tongues and glasses. The three men pushed past the whining match-sellers at the door and formed a little party at the corner of the counter. They began to exchange stories. Leonard introduced them to a young fellow named Weathers who was performing at the Tivoli as an acrobat and knockabout artiste. Farrington stood a drink all round. Weathers said he would take a small Irish and Apollinaris. Farrington, who had definite notions of what was what, asked the boys would they have an Apollinaris too; but the boys told Tim to make theirs hot. The talk became theatrical. O'Halloran stood a round and then Farrington stood another round, Weathers protesting that the hospitality was too Irish. He promised to get them in behind the scenes and introduce them to some nice girls."

Christmas to me seems to have that old fashioned feel to it. Of large rounds being stood, spirits being drunk. Toasts being made. Civilized laughter and honest goodwill.

You know, perhaps it’s something just as simple as that people are just nicer and happier. They’re more patient. More generous and less weary at Christmas.

And what is the Taps afterall but a social club. A home away from home. And at Christmas, then, a place of even greater safety and joy.