Yid Army

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.

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[1] Which reminds me of one of my favourite exchanges from Frasier:

Niles: What do you know about Irish plays?
Frasier: Nothing. But not for long. There's one area where no man has ever bested me, Niles: homework!