Saturday Night's Alright

To me at least, there’s something special about Saturdays in the Taps.

It’s the Holy Grail of drinking days. A day which answers to no one else.  That makes no apologies and suffers no insults. A Saturday is an anarchic, long haired, broken nosed, leather jacket wearing rebel of a drinking day.

Now Thursdays (as I’ve previously noted) are the best nights, and if you’ve managed to swing taking Friday off, it can be wonderful. And Fridays – well a Friday evening after a long week at work is a gift; but a Saturday, oh now a Saturday is something really quite special.

A Saturday doesn’t need to worry about getting up for work the next day or going to Ikea or visiting the in-laws. All a Saturday has to worry about is which DVD boxset to watch while lying on the sofa on Sunday afternoon.

In other words a Saturday is free. Beholden to no one and answerable only to itself.  Drunkenness without consequences and degradation without limits.

And that knowledge is a wonderful thing. On a Saturday you never have to look at your watch.

I usually get in on a Saturday at 2pm (well I say usually, I mean ‘I get in on a Saturday at 2pm). And at 2pm on a Saturday you only ever get four kinds of people. Taps faithful, people taking a break from shopping, people in for a particular football/rugby game and nutters.

(Don’t ask me why but nutters love 2pm on a Saturday).

Now the best days are those when Spurs or Arsenal aren’t playing and its just a few random shoppers, the mandatory nut nut, and the regulars sitting at the bar. Normally some variation on myself, Barry (at the end), Mark, Daryl, Adam, Eugene, Len and Dan (you have to say it like that, ‘Len and Dan’) and Gerry (and sometimes Peter).

[There isn’t really a regular Saturday day time member of staff]

And being regulars everyone is sat the bar (often nursing Friday night hangovers). Now there’s something quite determined and definite about a Saturday drinker. A Saturday drinker doesn’t care that he/she’ll be absolutely hammered by the time that most normal people are only just going out on a Saturday night. In fact a Saturday drinker knows full well that by 10pm on a Saturday night they’ll be involved in heated conversations of deep metaphysical, political and emotional importance which to the outside world will  merely seem like a series of prolonged slurring, overly familiar hugs and superbly executed high fives.

But that’s for later.  All that comes after.

Because a Saturday isn’t about the end, a Saturday is really about the journey. It’s about the ten pence bets and the crosswords. It’s about ridiculous theories [this Saturday in fact a random bloke declared – and I don’t know how this came up in the first place; but that’s how things happen on a Saturday – that he could break a spoons head just by rubbing it. Well naturally Mark couldn’t resist getting involved in this and asked Sarah to get a spoon to challenge this guy’s physic abilities. Everyone gathers around this bloke as he begins to rub…and rub…and fifteen minutes later he’s still rubbing away and….well long story short, he’s no Uri Geller] and stupid jokes. It’s about whimsy and football and saying nothing for minutes on end.

It’s about watching the world go by on a Summers day and listening to the rain hammering down on a Winters afternoon.

Which is to say, it’s about hanging out with your mates.

Equally, there’s something about getting slowly drunk over a day. The way that drunkenness creeps up on you, different stage through different stage. Bonhomie through introspection; honesty through reflection.

It’s something to be savoured.

And all with the added bonus that by the time all of the scum arrive at night you’re too drunk and comfortably and snugly ensconced in the regulars corner to care.