I stopped at the Magpie Pub in London near Liverpool Street for a quick drink after work a couple of days ago, and as I stood at the bar I realised that I actually didn’t know how to get a beer. As I stood there dumb and mute, (while all around me people were coming and going getting served with little difficulty) I realised that I had no idea how to get served in a pub anymore. I was being bumped and pushed by people trying to get past me to get served, and there I stood on the verge of panic, eyes glistening with a sudden moisture (from my hay fever), out of my depth and teetering on the brink of full blown asphyxia inducing sobbing (also from my hay fever).
I just couldn’t understand why they hadn’t just come over and put a Kronenbourg in front of me. It was bewildering and frightening.
But you know Richard Taps. I held it together.
Barely.
But I did
(a single silvery tear running slowly down my cheek doesn’t count)
So I started up the rusty cob-webbed covered gears of my poor old brain to remember how to get served. I held my note in hand, caught the bar staff’s attention, nodded to acknowledge that they’d seen and noted me, and then patiently waited to be served.
Which I duly was. I ordered two pints and then gave the barmaid £6.60.
She looked down at it in her hand, slowly looked back up at me and gave me a look very similar to the Irena patented ‘looking at me like shit’ and asked ‘what’s this?’
Apparently it wasn’t £3.30 a pint.
I took the £6.60 back, gave her a tenner and told her to keep the change (of which there wasn’t that much) and shuffled away, shamed and embarrassed, vowing never to return.
And people wonder why I don’t want to leave the Taps?
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