I’ve been
wanting to write about this for a while, but just never got around to it for
one reason or another; and it comes under the general heading of things which
make me smile.
Iryna’s
VISA party (back in…oh, October?) was held in the pub she was Assistant Manager
in at the time (I forget it’s name and can’t be bothered to find out – yes, I
can’t be bothered to do the only thing in the entire world that I’m actually
any good at: looking shit up[1])
– which was in Tottenham – very, very near to the ground – and that being the
case, very much a proper Spurs pub.
So it’s
Iryna’s party and things are in full swing (implausibly drunkenness) and lots
of the regulars at that pub, who were also at the party, begin that slow, low,
rumbling Spurs chant – the one which
starts slowly and then gets faster and faster and louder and louder - ‘Yids! Yids! Yids!’
So, given
that Iryna’s pub at the time was a proper Spurs pub, this was clearly a fairly
normal and unremarkable occurrence for them; but in Taps, if you start with the
Spurs chants, you’ll be told to knock it off in fairly short order [obviously
Taps is more a Spurs pub than anything other team, and it’s not as though any
of the staff particularly object – especially when it’s regulars, but it’s just
not really that kind of a pub – unless the match is actually on – mainly because there’s just no point
encouraging some of the bottom feeders who are in on a weekend].
So I’m
sat in the corner (Perryman on tour) watching this happen with my usual lack
of a normal socially adjusted life interest, and I look at Mark, Len, Adam
and Gareth watching Iryna’s regulars with such rapt expressions of envy on
their faces that I could almost feel them straining to join in, but
having been so conditioned (in a Pavlov’s dogs kind of a way) by years of being
in Taps to not do so, they were all still – barely - at heel.
And then
I see them – almost as one – turn to look at Iryna with these forlorn angelic
pleading expressions of ‘please, can we, is it alright?’
And Iryna
(who knows exactly what it is they’re asking), smiles indulgently at them – like a mum
watching her kids in a sweet shop, and nods at them, as though to say, ‘go on,
you’re allowed.’
And their
little faces actually light up with unalloyed happiness – like children being
given the keys to the toy store, and they join in, jumping up and down ‘YIDS!’
‘YIDS!’ ‘YIDS!’
I smile
just thinking about it now.
[1] Which
reminds me of one of my favourite exchanges from Frasier:
Frasier: Nothing. But not for long. There's one area where no man has ever bested me,
