Yes, I know it’s been a while, and don’t think that I don’t feel horrible about it. Well, actually, do think that I don’t feel horrible about it, because I don’t feel horrible about it.
I’m sorry, but there it is.
I feel, at best, a mild passing regret of the sort I experience when I order the loin of pork instead of the Seabass in a restaurant.
Which is to say a little, but not much.
While, theoretically, I like the idea of ordering the Seabass instead of the pork loin (and regret, to an extent, not doing so), who are we fucking kidding here? I’m ordering the loin of pork.
Yes. I know. I’m a monster.
Anyway, I just came across this random review of the Kings’ Head which I couldn’t resist sharing with you (and which I copy – unedited below):
Only have the ale by a green king which no me like any this one beer
Me like this review very much much. Me sure me met this reviewer banging head against wall in mans toilets on Friday. Me decide to no speak to strange mans next week.
So yes, that is me sat over there in the corner of the King’s Head. Beard, glasses, dishevelled and perpetually perturbed (and yes, those are scampi fries in my beard). And no, I never thought I’d see the day, and yes, I’m just as surprised about it as you, and no I don’t have an issue of some kind with Roxy. I think she’s done a great job and couldn’t have been friendlier and more accommodating to the regulars. But, nevertheless, here we find ourselves. Wherever that may be. And the Taps? Well the Taps remains…well I guess I’m not entirely sure what the Taps remains. I mean I still drink there on a Tuesday night, and should I be out on a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday then that’s where I’ll be drinking. It’s still home. The Perryman is still the Perryman, and there’s still nowhere I’d rather be on a weekday evening. It’s just…well, it’s just that the world went and changed on me. Went and got young. Got young and loud, and I went and got old and tired. I just can’t deal with the noise, with the crowds, with the 15 minute walk to the toilets and back on a Saturday night. I just can’t deal with the…well…the youthfulness of it. I’ve always felt that the Perryman was insulation enough against the educationally subnormal scum who often frequent the Taps at the weekend, but it’s just not enough anymore. Well though the old girl’s served us, The Perryman wanes and her protective embrace weakens until now, at last, I just can’t bear looking at them, listening to them; watching them do their glass eyed, mouth breathing, slack jawed, nightly Jeremy Kyle dance of missed child support payments and missing links. And so, as I bid farewell to the Taps at the weekends, a few thoughts: - Look, ladies, greeting your female friends with hysterical, piercing, dog whistle, five decibel screeches isn’t an acceptable way of communicating that you haven’t seen them for two days (not counting the 47 texts you sent one another while you were getting ready to go out….and oh look you still managed to come out wearing the same thing: psychedelic orange tan). You make me want to kill myself. - Fellas, you and your twenty mates coming in and standing right in front of the door is not a sensible place to stand on a Saturday night. I just don’t believe you’re really that stupid. It’s impossible. You would have choked to death on urinal cakes by now if it were. - No, I’m not impressed that you can drink four Jaeger bombs in a row. I’m really not. I’m more impressed that you’ve somehow been able to negotiate whatever meagre skills you have into paid employment. Who says there’s a recession on? - Oh, your haircut cost £75, your jumper cost £125 and your trainers £150? Wow, do you know what that makes you? That’s right, a fucking retard. Now fuck off and die.
It's completely typical this - completely bloody typical -
the Russian's leaving that is; or at least the manner of it - so typically
contrary - so typically contradictory; but it makes sense when you come to
think about it doesn't it - it makes perfect sense. I mean everything she ever
did while she was here was a contradiction, so why should her leaving be any
different?
She is - I think - quite the rudest person I've ever met. In
fact 'rude' isn't really the word, 'rude' doesn't quite do justice to the sheer
unadulterated contempt that she can
express for someone's very being just
because they've had the cheek - the motherfucking
temerity - to ask for a pint of strongbow and black on a Monday night.
But, to her friends, I've also never met a more truthful
person. A more honest person. Honest
even though it might cost her - even though she knows it isn't what the person she's
talking to wants to hear and even though she knows that they might doubt her
motives for saying what she's saying - and, indeed, not just her motives, but
also doubt her friendship entirely for what she's said. But even so, she's
still honest. Because that's what friendship is. Or at least the way she sees
it, anyway.
And I admire that a great deal.
I also don't think that I've ever met a more judgemental
person before - "really, is she
actually wearing that dress? With those legs? How old is she? That is
definitely not fresh."
But, to her friends, there's nobody quicker to help pick
someone up when they fall - no matter the cause of their fall or their failing.
[As I said, she's a contradiction - well she's actually more
like a contradiction, wrapped in a paradox balancing on ridiculously high heels
and wearing an inappropriately short skirt].
There's nobody I know more dismissive of people's failings,
their shortcoming and their weaknesses, than Iryna - but there's also nobody I
know more fiercely loyal to the people she cares about. Come the zombie
apocalypse I'll happily have her guarding my back any day….unless there are
mirrors around, that is - if there are mirrors about all bets are off - she'll
be checking herself out in a mirror and I'll be being turned into the Walking
Dead by a horde of flesh eating zombies.
[Just on a side note: part of the reason that Iryna is so
dismissive of people's failings is very much the thing which I love about her
the most - and that reason is the fact that she herself is so resilient and
courageous. There's no challenge she won't meet, no fight she won't fight; and
I admire that a great deal - mainly because my own personal motto is more along
the lines of 'no pie he won't eat, no challenge he won't back away from saying
'actually I think I'd better go and check if I left the iron on']
And so it makes sense that as she leaves we're caught in
this paradox - this contradiction.
I'm incredibly happy - and proud - of her for doing what
she's done. For giving herself this chance for a normal life - to get out there
in the world and live beyond the pub - to do the things she's spent half her
life wanting to get out and do; of course I am.
But at the same time I'm also tremendously sad to see her
go. Look at it this way: apart from her one year break I've seen Iryna pretty
much every day for the last 7 years - that's more than most of us see our
family. Of course I'm sad….and happy.
And hence the contradiction.
(Even in leaving she still manages to be infuriating).
Of course that's all the gay personal stuff. What
about Iryna as a manager, then?
Well, she could most definitely roll. Could roll hard, in
fact. Most definitely could do that.
Could serve like a demon, flirt with the blokes (all of them - at once) and
joke with the women. Run that pub like clockwork even in the middle of mayhem
and chaos at quarter past one in the morning, with the glasses stacking up, the
pot boy gone AWOL, the doormen on strike
and the drinkers on the edge of open thirsty revolt.
She could silence a crowd of great big six ft blokes who
were about to start swinging punches - just with a word and a look; and get the
most dour of old hardened drinkers showing her pictures of their grandchildren
after a couple of minutes of chat.
When she was behind that bar it was hers - she owned it. She
was the mad Russian captain of our little drunken ship.
Ladies and gentlemen - the Russian has left the building.
Friends, Enfieldians, Taps family, lend me your ears!
I come to bid farewell to Iryna, not to praise her.
The evil that people do lives after them,
The good is oft fogotten with their parting:
So let it be with Iryna. The noble Les and Sue
Hath told you that Iryna was rude;
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Iryna answered it.
Here, under leave of Les and Sue and the rest -
For Les is an honourable man,
Come I to speak in goodbye to Iryna.
She was my friend, faithful and just to me,
But Les says she was selfish,
And Les is an honourable man.
But Iryna hath bought many a round in the Perryman,
Did this in Iryna seem selfish and mean?
When the regulars have cried at last orders, Iryna hath wept:
Meanness should be made of sterner stuff;
Yet Les says she was mean,
And Les is an honourable man.
You all did see that on St Paddy's day
She thrice bought rounds of vodka jelly,
Was this meanness?
Yet Les says she was mean,
And sure he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Les and Sue and Walking Stick Tony spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love her once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you then to mourn for her departure now?
O judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason! Bear with me,
My heart leaves through the door with Iryna,
And I must pause till it come back to me
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:
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!
Amongst my stock stable of
annoying questions which I ask mainly because:
I like the sound of my
own voice
I’m uncomfortable with
silence
I’m uncomfortable with
questions about actual personal things related to myself
When I ask a question
I’m actually just using it as a platform to tell you what I think. You know, just
because I’m like that
I’m drunk
People like my
questions
A combination of all of
the above (not liking my questions though obviously; I only added that one
because I actually am drunk)
I’m just genuinely
interested in people’s views of the world (bingo!), is: what are your top five
dream holiday destinations (the parameters being that you have to name a
specific area – which is to say you can’t just say ‘America’ or ‘Australia’,
and that you would be there for three weeks, and during that time money
wouldn’t be an object)?
And as most of you know,
my own top five is:
Alaska (mainly because it ticks pretty much all my
boxes: very few people, mountains,
snow, bears, howling wolves in the ice cold night, warm fires and big
steaks).
The Highlands of Scotland (see above).
New York (cool New York
bars at 3 in the morning in the EmpireState)
The London
Borough of Barnet
Well, I don’t really have a #5
Now those people who don’t
really know me think that my fourth choice is a joke answer; while those who do
know me realise that it’s absolutely not (at which point they generally tend to
roll their eyes heavenwards, while wondering how their lives could have come to
such a sorry lot that they’ve found themselves in the corner of a pub at 1
o’clock in the morning talking to a bearded half wit drinking Red Stagg out of
an Egyptian shot glass and Jack Daniels and Coke out of a pint glass) and that
I’m actually completely serious.
And here’s
why (oh, I bet you just can’t wait for this one….what? You absolutely can?
#RichardIsVeryHurt). I think one of the finest (if not the finest science fiction series of the last couple of decades) is
Fringe. The premise of which is that most
of the story arc for Fringe involves a
parallel universe which mostly mirrors the prime universe (i.e. our universe),
but with numerous large and small historical idiosyncrasies. A significant
example of a large difference being that of the September 11 attacks; though
this event also occurred in the parallel universe, the World Trade Centre was
untouched by the attacks, leaving the buildings standing in the parallel
universe. While there are numerous small differences, such at that airship
travel is far more prevalent in the parallel universe than in our own (the
prime universe) or that Coppola and not Scorcese directed Taxi Driver. And to me that’s what Barnet is: our parallel universe; our
though a mirror darkly; our Enfield but not Enfield. The smudged parallel to our defined prime. And I find the idea of it absolutely fascinating. That
beside us, through the figurative corner of our eye, just over the metaphorical
and existential horizon, is our parallel world. A universe so familiar, but so
different. Their pubs alike, but unlike, their cinemas recognisable, but strangers,
and their streets the same, but ever so slightly out of kilter. And it fascinates me. It’s science fiction brought to life, because what it
means….oh, what it means… is that there’s no need for mankind to dream of journeying
to the stars, to plunge the pitch black miles deep depths of the Marianas
trench where no single ray of sunlight has pierced in four and a half billion
years, to strive and strive again to unlock the cosmic mysteries of space and
time, to – as a species – to ever look to the next horizon, the next mystery,
the next glorious challenge….when we can just go to Barnet. [That’s fucking right, Barnet] Anyway, the reason I was prompted to recall that was
because last night there were a load of blokes from Barnet in the pub – and
they were very loud and annoying (but they were fine otherwise – which is to
say, just some blokes out having a drink and a laugh) – although in all
fairness two of them were genuinely quite funny and entertaining (in a ‘why
can’t you just fall down the stairs and die’ kind of a way). And I was struck that I’d just come face to face with the
parallel universe Mark and Len. And that it was quite possible that it meant
that our Mark and Len were in Barnet, and that the prime universe (ours) and
the parallel universe (theirs) had had to balance things out by sending their
Mark and Len to Enfield
to balance our Mark and Len being in Barnet. And it got me to thinking: does each of us have a
doppelganger in Barnet, and if so what are they doing with their lives? Does
each of us have a walking, breathing mirror to our soul? A living benchmark
which we can never outgrow and against which our happiness and success will
always – ever - be judged? In Barnet we could find those answers, but perhaps there
are some questions which should remained unanswered and some lines which should
never be crossed.
I was just in the lift going
downstairs for lunch and there were two people already in it - a man and
a very attractive woman.
While I'm standing there, he goes to her: Have you ever thought about doing some
modelling?
[and I'm thinking, wow, this guy is seriously cheesy....cheesy, but
audacious - chatting up some random woman in the lifts at the GMC with someone stood there listening to him]
And she goes: Thank you. You know I get that quite a lot
from people actually; I've done quite a lot of modelling in the past
[and I'm thinking - oh God, here we go]
He goes: You know what, I could absolutely tell straight away
[at which point I'm frantically pushing the down button over
and over, because it's either that or kill them both]
Then he goes: Your quarter three financial models were
particularly effective I thought, would you mind e-mailing me your templates?
In Greek mythology Nemesis was
the Goddess of divine retribution who met out her punishments against those who
succumb to hubris – which is to say arrogance (in an existential kind of way
towards life/the universe/God etc). The
Greeks being very big on punishing pride and hubris and all that (which, when
you think about it, is actually quite an English trait in a red top tabloid
kind of way). And life being such as it is, and men’s (in a all mankind sense of the word)
pride being such that it is, I have been brought low by Nemesis (in the many forms that she takes) on several occasions through
my life. She has been a constant visitor for many years. Leaving often, but always, ever, returning…..
There's a guy in the Taps who hates me.
[yeah, why don't you try and narrow it down
for us you dick]
This, I'm sure,
won't come as any particular surprise to those of you who have met me and
inevitably came away hating my guts. Indeed, as my favourite teacher once said
to me, 'Richard, to know you is to hate you. Basically, you're a dick.'
[Which I
thought was a little unfair for parents evening at a primary school]
Anyway, this
guy - and shall we call him WST - really
hates me.
Which I
actually don't mind all that much - that is, I don't mind the idea of being
hated. In fact I really don't even mind the actuality of being hated. But what
I do mind is being hated for no good reason (particularly when there are so
many good reasons to hate me).
WST hates me
because he thinks I'm a thief.
(And just to be
clear - for all my faults and failings - I'm not a thief)
Now, why does
he think that? I genuinely have absolutely no idea. None at all. But he's 100% convinced
of it, and he hates me for it. I mean this guy genuinely despises me. And, as I
say, I have absolutely no problem with him hating me, but at least hate me for
a proper reason. Not some completely spurious bollocks about me being a thief
which he's vomited up from the fetid dark pits of his retarded northern brain -
not some ridiculous hatred that's just come from absolutely no-where. In fact I
was completely flabbergasted when I first found out about it. Particularly as I
found out in such an odd fashion.
One Tuesday night I was sat at the hatch as usual and WST was sat at a table (we, along with Deon, were the only people in the pub), and
he got up from the table to go outside for a cigarette. As he walked past the hatch he stopped and put a
tenner on the bar next to me and said to Deon, 'can you do me a Guinness, I'll
leave the money there' then he walks off - stops in the middle of the pub, has
a little think to himself - turns and looks at me for a long moment, then
walks back, picks up the tenner and says to Deon 'oh, on second thoughts I'll
give you the money when I come back' - glares meaningfully at me again for
about five seconds and walks outside to smoke.
So I said to Deon, 'what the fuck was that all about?' and
she goes: 'oh yeah, he told me and Irena that you're a thief.'
Quite aside from the fact that neither Irena or Deon thought
this was information worth imparting to me, what…what the holy fuck?
How has he come to this bizarre conclusion that I'm a thief
and that therefore he should hate me and strive to make my life a misery?
How?
Look, as you know, I'm no stranger to forming deep seated
and long lasting [mainly irrational - the operative word being mainly] hatreds of people (in fact I
hated Sophie for about two years…actually that's unfair, I didn't hate her…I
despised her very being….and it was probably more like 3 years). I'm all for
all encompassing mainly irrational hatreds. It’s healthy.
But there has to be a modicum, a kernel, a fucking fig leaf
of logic about it. Not just random crap you make up on the spot.
It's just so entirely – so toweringly – so ridiculously - unjust.
Why can’t that stupid fuckhead just hate
me for an actual real reason? Is that so much to ask? It’s not like there aren’t
a few to choose from. But no, this guy’s decided to make my life a misery for
no reason at all.
So now here I am, locked in a
triple threat death match for control of the Perryman with a man with the body
of a deformed monkey and all the charm of rape.
And why?
Why, my houseguest, Nemesis,
and my downfall, pride.
They say
that the eyes are the windows to the soul, in which case, given the way
in which it’s been my experience that windows usually function (this is in no
way to be taken as an admission of furtive nocturnal voyeurism on my part…..definitely
not an admission), it must surely
follow then that the soul must also be the window to the eyes.
(Tenuous I
know, but it’s with such fuzzy logic that I navigate life).
(Which, no
doubt, explains quite a lot).
But hold
your horses, I’m not done yet.
For what
then does that make the window? The window through which one may peer into the
dark recesses of a person’s soul? What of the window in this transaction, this
equation, this profoundly intimate conversation between eyes and soul?
What
properties must be invested upon the window when it is so used? So exposed to
the deepest secrets and the darkest truths.
What then
of the window? The window through which one may view a soul?
A person’s
soul – or indeed a pub’s soul.
(You knew
I’d get there in the end)
Windows
which lay bare all.
Windows
through which those of us who from time to time frequent the Perryman are gaped
and gawped out at, like unfortunately limbed circus freaks, by the bottom
feeding, morally bankrupt, intellectually stunted, pond scum who are to be found
smoking outside of Taps on a Saturday night.
Windows
through which the private becomes the public. The unknown known. The Perryman
revealed.
Unmasked.
Fallen.
Which is
all to say that I’m not really the world’s biggest fan of the new clear windows
in the Taps.
I’ve been
told on two separate occasions by two separate people (each of whom you all
know very well and will have varying degrees of respect for their insights and
opinions), that when I ask a question of someone I do so only to, respectively,
argue with the answer that I’ve been given, and to use it as a platform from
which to wax lengthy and dull on the subject myself.
And to
those charges I can only say: it’s a fair cop Guv. Slap on the old silver
bracelets and haul me away to the clink. Won’t ‘cause no trouble, Mister,
honest.
(That’s
how I talk)
Anyway, I
bring this up because….
Do you
guys know what morphic resonance, is?
No?
Oh well
then, allow me to explain. Some scientists (by some I mean one, and by scientist
I mean Dr Who) postulate the idea that, through a telepathic
effect or sympathetic vibration, an event at one point in the world (or
anywhere within the field) or act can lead to similar simultaneous acts occurring
somewhere else in the field then, or in the future, that an idea conceived in
one mind can then arise in another – or more – people’s mind at exactly the
same time somewhere else within the field.
Which is to say that human beings share
a kind of low level sub-harmonic psychic field with one another in much the
same way that we take for granted animals (e.g. migrating birds) do.
Cool stuff, no?
Ok, only me.
Anyway, I bring this up because I was
recently talking to an old friend of mine and she mentioned that last Thursday
night (in Hackney) she was absolutely and unaccountably hammered – and this got
me thinking, because last Thursday I (in Enfield) was also absolutely and
unaccountably hammered – as indeed were my brother, Charlie and Gareth.
Unaccountably.
In general things aren’t normally
unaccountable. They’re improbably or implausible. They’re coincidental and
pernicious.
But they’re not unaccountable.
They’re just…well they’re just
difficult to explain.
And so, following Sherlock Holme’s
famous aphorism, ‘when you have eliminated all that is impossible, then
whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth’ – why then
naturally the only possible explanation for different people who were all
drinking in different pubs to all be more drunk than they’d originally
intended, had – HAD - to be morphic resonance.
I mean it’s obvious innit Guv’nor.
Think about it.
Thursdays have taken on a lethal will
of their own.
Like Skynet or Herbie the Love Bug (which
we now know was actually an allegory about Aids).
This idea that ‘Thursdays are the start
of the weekend’ has taken hold across the country even though Thursday is quite
obviously not the start of the weekend.
Friday evening is the start of the
weekend.
It’s like saying celery is the start of
the weekend.
Or Bob from marketing.
Just saying it doesn’t make it
true….what makes it true is people acting like it’s true. And all it takes is
enough people somewhere within the field to act as though it’s true and to believe
it to be true, and that idea will resonate all across the morphic field.
A quite literal self-fulfilling
prophecy.
So my friends, next Friday morning when
you roll into work at 9.50am, stinking of flavoured vodka [and shame] and
wearing last night’s lamb kebab on your shoes, and your boss asks you what on
earth you think you’re playing at, well you just look him straight in the eye
and you reply: morphic resonance, boss, morphic resonance.
I once read that the overwhelming compulsion which
people who suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) feel to do what they
do, is mainly one of terrifying incomprehensible dread.
A dread that, for instance, if they don’t wash
their hands ten times every half an hour, that all of their family – every
single person they love - will immediately and inexplicably fall down dead.
A dread that if they don’t turn the light on and
off three times whenever they enter a room, the earth will be hit by a giant
meteorite and all life on the planet immediately extinguished.
A dread that…well you get the idea.
They know it’s illogical, improbably and deeply
damaging/debilitating to their lives…..but…well… it’s just there nevertheless.
They feel it in their bones, to their core…and
goodness it’s difficult to change the way you feel.
They live caught in a perpetual dichotomy – a
nightmarish cognitive dissonance in which they both know that their compulsion
is illogical and a product of their own rebellious consciousness – but they
also feel absolutely and entirely convinced that their dread is real.
Frankly it must be bloody awful and I feel for the
poor blighters, and…you know what….I sort of get it.
With me – as most of you know – it’s sitting at
corners.
I’m nowhere near suffering what those poor buggers
have to daily endure, but I do sort of understand where they’re coming from.
In Taps I have to sit at the corner of the bar;
whether that be behind the hatch, at the hatch or in the Perryman.
Anything else and I feel like I have ants in my brain.
An unreasonably rage – a back of the neck burning, ears ringing, rage.
And of course I know it’s unreasonable – I really
do. Contrary to all evidence I’m only half as stupid as I look. But it is what
it is. That’s just me. That’s just it.
It’s undoubtedly my own fault of course; for
letting it get so far I mean – for not squashing it dead and flat when those
feelings first arose, but…well… it’s done now.
It is. It had become. It has manifested.
The ridiculous thing is that I can sit anywhere in
the Kings Head. Obviously I much prefer
to sit near the hatch – but I can live without it – but when it comes to Taps
all bets are off. Whenever someone – someone who isn’t Barry that is – is sat
in the corner or at the hatch, I just can’t enjoy myself.
For all the time that I’m in there all I’m doing
is waiting for them to go. That’s it. I’m waiting, I’m worrying, by God I’m
worrying, and minute by minute I’m becoming more and more enraged.
You might think we’re having a moderately
interesting conversation about your day, or my day, or your holiday, or
my….well, your holiday, but that isn’t what’s happening.
What’s happening is that I’m eyeing the corner and
plotting blue bloody murder. I’m chopping up limbs in bath tubs in my head. I’m
wondering where I can buy limestone. I’m bludgeoning some poor aged
motherfucker to death with his own walking stick.
And I really wish I wasn’t like that – genuinely I
do – and I know it’s immensely annoying to many people, but as I said, it just
is what it is.
So all I can ask is that you continue to indulge
me…after all, who knows, maybe it really is all that stands between us and
planetary destruction.
Our little boozer has been going through some strange days. They’re not over but it feels like they are at least beginning to draw to a close, and not a moment too soon. It has been exhausting.
Ever since some mystery bastard made the conscious decision to actively try and ruin someone else’s whole life, it’s seemed like we’ve been lurching from one crisis to the next. OK, maybe that’s a little dramatic - we’ve been trudging from one mishap to another.
But as I said it’s been exhausting. Particularly for me and the rest of the staff, because in our position (i.e. behind the bar) people expect us to have some sort of inside track on what the hell’s going on. I rarely do. However, that doesn’t stop the questions from coming…
Where’s the Russian? Why is she gone? Where’s my pint? Who’s the new manager? Does he only have one shirt? Why is he being a knob? What do you mean no lime? Is it a boycott? Where did the new manager go? Where’s my pint? Have you got the Celtic game on? What’s your problem? Didn’t I give you a twenty? How much!? Where did Des and Terry go? Do you want a crisp? Can you turn it up a bit? Can I have a crisp? Can you turn it down a bit? Who’s in charge here? Where’s my pint? As I’m sure you can imagine… It’s been a living hell.
On Tuesday phase one of the recovery was initiated. With any luck, by Christmas everything will be back to normal and The Taps will rise from the ashes like a sausage that’s fallen through the grill. I, for one, couldn’t be happier for The Taps’ newest British citizen. And the sooner she stops skiving off the better – it’s been 10 months, already… GET BACK TO WORK!
Pubs change all the time. And by pubs, I mean the people that make them. Staff and customers leave with very little notice and usually very little fanfare, but more often than not there’s someone else around the corner ready to take their spot at the bar, whichever side it may be. As a result, most pubs are in a state of perpetual change, maybe not always for the better but they always seem to find their equilibrium.
Of late, our very own dingy watering hole has had some pretty seismic shifts (if you don’t know about them by now, then you don’t really deserve to) but we had found some semblance of normality. Well... Normality might not be the word but it'll have to do.
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
--------L.P.Hartley
We all know Gareth’s qualities as a friend and a person, such, I think, that it’s enough to say that he wouldn’t be the former of so many of us if he wasn’t so much of a quality latter.
But since I have, to coin a phrase, come here to praise him, I’ll also say that when it comes to the tricky everyday/day-in-day out business of being a well rounded decent human being [which God knows can be a difficult enough job for any of us] I consider Gareth to be one of the most successful people I know at doing it.
He also has an enormous enough head as it is. So enough of that.
What I really want to write about today is Gareth the barman. And I’ll say this to begin: Gareth’s the best barman I’ve ever seen.
And believe me, I’ve been drinking in pubs for the last ten years (with some small amount of time off to sleep and go to work), and so when I say that, I think – I hope - it means something.
In my time I’ve seen some truly great barmen (Scottish John and Travis from the Enfield Arms and Ed and Bang Bang [it’s a long story] from the 3 Tuns, particularly spring to mind. And they were all very, very good. Great even). I’ve also seen barmen who could have been great – who had all the technical expertise you could possibly want – but were missing that last single elusive edge.
Well actually, that isn’t true. It isn’t a single thing/edge; it’s an elusive nebulous cocktail of things that you rarely see in one person.
It’s wit and humour – the ability to throw jokes back at people as fast as they come – and the ability to do that in the 6th hour of a 7 hour shift at 1 in the morning.
It’s patience – good God, it’s infinite patience – listening to the boring, the mundane, the ridiculous, the prejudiced, the retarded, the repetitive, the racist, the wrong headed and the downright tedious [and that’s just talking to me on a Monday night], for hours on end, and making the person saying it feel like you give a damn.
It’s sympathy at hardship (whether that hardship be real or imagined)
It’s charm to the charmless.
It’s courage in the face of the drunk, belligerent and implausibly stupid.
And it’s decency in the midst of scum and villainy.
I’ve known Gareth for eight years now, and although I know that he might (for all the reasons above) be persuaded to do the odd shift if he’s ever really needed, I refer you back to Mr Hartley’s quote at the top of this post.
The rapture day had finally come. I had won the lottery, I had bought Taps and refurbished it to my specifications, and Taps (as it was foretold two years ago long ago in the Steve Perryman ancient prophecy) had at least become Super Taps.
And lo it was beautiful
And verily was I pleased.
[In my dream the bar looked something like the above].
But all was not well.
Beautiful though she undoubtedly was, comfortable as the stools were, and universally sitting down and being quiet were the customers, it just didn’t feel right.
The essence – the spirit – of Taps had been lost and none of us liked it anymore.
And so, because of my pride and hubris in attempting to perfect Taps....
In Baseball, Americans have a concept of a Starting Rotation, which is to say that [leaning rather heavily on Wikipedia for this]a starting pitcher in baseball usually rests three or four days after pitching a game, before pitching another (Baseball teams can play three or four games on consecutive days). Therefore, most professional baseball teams have four or five starting pitchers on their rosters. These pitchers, and the sequence in which they pitch, is known as the rotation. In modern baseball, a five-man rotation is most common.
And I’ve always applied this idea of a set starting rotation in my mind when it comes to the weeknight Taps staff.
So before what happened, happened, my starting rotation was π on a Monday [as you no doubt know, π is the mathematical symbol for Pi which is at once a mathematical constant and both an irrational and transcendental number and therefore of central importance to everything, even though you can’t see it! – I have to say, I’m rather pleased with that, and have no idea where it came from as I’m mainly completely innumerate], Deon on a Tuesday, Jade on a Wednesday and then a mixture of people on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
And I was happy with that starting rotation. It threw real heat. Each of the starters brought something unique to their respective evenings.
And all was well in the garden of The Taps.
Settled and understood.
Content.
And then Jade went and got herself a proper job (which we were all happy for her about), but we were able to go straight to the Bullpen (which is the area where relief pitchers warm up before entering the game) and we were able to call on the big guns – and in came Gareth to take over the Wednesday.
Sure it was different, but it was still all cool.
I adjusted. I settled down.
I was once more content
π Mondays, Deon Tuesdays, Gareth Wednesday.
And then into the garden of the The Taps came a snake, and...well we all know how that story ends.
And so the starting rotation was shuffled once more, we went into the Bullpen and for a while the Mondays and Wednesdays were covered on an ad hoc basis by the Bullpen, until eventually Chelsie was drafted in and Gareth went back into the regular starting rotation such that we had:
Gareth Monday, Deon Tuesday (oh, the anchor which is Deon, our pillar of consistency throughout), Gareth Wednesday.
And once again we settled down.
Now, I write all of this because yesterday Charlie worked the Monday night (yes, that’s right. All of that. It was interesting, don’t complain)
And yesterday was notable for two things, first that we spent half the evening listening to famous film scores (really loudly) – The Magnificent Seven, The Big Country, Star Wars, Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather etc etc.
And second that we invented a brand new game.
Basically the aim of the game is to design a scene and then from that scene extrapolate a movie idea.
And the way it works is by picking three people, one prop and then a single line of Direction for them to improvise.
So for example:
Charlie starts: Edward Norton:
Richard: Christian Bale
[At this point you try and think about what you can do with these two guys. They’re both tremendous high powered actors who can chew scenery with the best of them, but who do you throw in to add in to create an interesting story/drama? You could throw in another high powered actor, but then what do you have? Three blokes in a room and what? A bank heists or something? Ok, you could do that, but it’s frankly boring].
Charlie: Jason Bateman – now this makes things interesting.Jason Bateman’s an everyman and clearly no match in charisma for the other two, so you start to think about the prop and what’s going on.
Richard: A phone
Direction: Bateman is a hostage who slowly plays Bale and Norton off against one another.
That’s it.
Now, no it’s not the Godfather or anything – or super imaginative and clever, but it’s not a horrendous idea.
And that’s basically how the game works. The point being to actively try to paint yourself into difficult positions (by picking for, instance, implausible combinations for the first two actors, e.g. Denzel Washington and Martin Freeman) so that you have to then think imaginatively about how, with which third actor, and with which prop and direction, you can come up with something at least reasonably plausible and workable.
All I can say is that those of you who used to regularly read the Blog will know why I really haven’t wanted to Blog since what happened, happened.
And that those some same of you who used to read the Blog have also been instrumental in persuading me to metaphorically take down the shutters, dust down the bar, and re-open for boring tirades nobody’s interested in business.
And so, Aragorn in Hidalgo The Lord of the Rings fashion, I return.
As is [was] often my habit I was recently reading the latest reviews on Beer in the Evening, and came across this gem regarding The George:
Best avoided at weekends especially if over 30. Cheap beer but clientele best described as vermin. I keep waiting for Ray Winstone to smack someone with a pool ball in a sock like in 'scum'
2 Mar 2012 05:26
Now clearly the commenter, whoever he/she might be, is a man/woman after my own heart.
[It’s likely, I suspect, that we both share an affinity for wearing Corduroy and mentally barring people for not sitting down].
But it’s absolutely true that on any given weekend night there are people walking God’s own country the streets of Enfield Town who are actual vermin.
ver·min
n.pl.vermin
1. Various small animals or insects, such as rats or cockroaches, that are destructive, annoying, or injurious to health.
2.
a. A person considered loathsome or highly offensive.
b. Such people considered as a group.
In fact, these are people upon whom rats and cockroaches would cast distain. These are people who actual sewer living rats look at, shrug their shoulders, give each other rueful significant glances, and walk away shaking their heads.
I give you an example:
On Saturday night I was in the Perryman/Times Square[1]with Daryl and Jude (who had come in for a few drinks before going to dinner), and Jade and Charlie behind the bar, when a friend of Daryl’s [I can actually picture Daryl sitting at his desk at work right at this moment reading this and swearing at the screen ‘she isn’t my fucking friend’] from the Kings Head came in with two random blokes.
So this woman [she’s 18/19 yrs old, but wearing her years hard. Crack head thin/pale, and with the slightly feral, vacant look of a race horse) comes in (the pub is virtually empty at this point), and sees Daryl and stops to talk to him.
And this part is worth describing in more detail.
She stops, leans in quite close to him, and says, ‘Hello Derek.’
Derek Daryl slightly uncomfortably says hello back, while Charlie, Jade, myself and Jude all look at one another for a long drawn out silent moment while we digest this – then look back at Derek Daryl and the woman – then back to one another - and then take a wordless joint decision to carry on our conversation and totally ignore Derek Daryl and the woman.
This goes on for a while and eventually the woman (who is the daughter of someone who drinks around town) says that she’s slightly wary of drinking in Taps because she gets up to all sorts [we didn’t realise that we were supposed to take this literally] when she’s out on an evening out.
Jude having told her [being unable to avoid getting drawn into the conversation at this piont] that she knows her mum.
At this point the woman departs and we continue with our evening [which mainly consisted of asking Daryl why he’d constructed an alternate persona for himself in the Kings Head, and that why if he was going to do so would he choose to call himself Derek?]
About forty minutes later Jade comes over to us and tells us that she’s had to ask Derek’s Daryl’s friend to leave because she’d been caught [I say caught, but it wasn’t actually caught and I really don’t want to go into the details of it. If you really must know ask Jade, I’m sure she’ll appreciate it] having sex in the ladies toilets with one of the blokes.
Jade also added that by the looks of things if they hadn’t have been caught she fully expected the other bloke to go down to the toilets with her afterwards.
[yes, my Taps friends, eeeeewwww]
Now am I being overly harsh regarding the young Lady in question? Well yes, almost certainly.
In fact, when it really comes down to it, I’m probably simply just being cruel to and about someone in no position to respond, for cruelty’s sake.
[I genuinely do try to be a good and decent person – I really do, but sometimes a target environment is too rich and sometimes I’m just too morally destitute to resist].
But sometimes....sometimes just the sheer fucking feral state of some of these people actually boggles the mind.
It amazes and appals me.
And she – Derek’s Daryl’s friend – is just one more example of it. One more person spitting on the stairs. One more person putting her foot on the bar. One more person being rude to the staff. One more person trying to start a fight with anyone and everyone. One more person not sitting down. One more person coked up and drunk beyond reason.
One more person unreconstructed, de-evolved and one Jaeger bomb away from throwing up on their own shoes.
One more person....oh, what does it matter.
Welcome back everyone!
[1] A welcome addition since last I posed supplied by our very own Ms Jones
