Chatty Man

This week has been a week for random conversations with people. It started on Wednesday when I boarded a train at Peterborough station. I sat at a table and before I’d had a chance to get comfortable the guy on the opposite side decided to spark up a conversation with me. He said that Peterborough was “a wild west town”. This was news to me. I’d not noticed anyone strolling through Cathedral Square on a horse wearing a cowboy hat and no wagons have been attacked by Red Indians lately. 

I glanced at the people across the carriage who I noticed were keeping their heads down. They’d obviously been on the train with him for a while and had heard quite enough for one day. I quickly established he was getting off at the next stop so decided that politeness was the best course of action and so I nodded and smiled. It turns out that he was an East Londoner, originally hailing from somewhere near Wapping “up the road from Murdoch”. 

He now lived in Stamford but found the place to be too much like “Midsomer Murders”. I guess this was an observation that there’s not a great deal of social diversity in Stamford when compared with the Old Kent Road rather than a confession to a series of grisly murders. He seemed surprised that strangers greeted each other in the street in Lincolnshire without there being the underlying threat of impending physical violence. From what I could make out he seemed to like it in Stamford but, after three years of “recharging the batteries” he was moving back to be within the sound of Bow bells. 

Apparently he “knows what’s what” in East London, although the picture he painted was less than rosy suggesting that all the urban areas of London were at war over immigration. He had apparently had an animated discussion about this with George Galloway when he turned up on my fellow passenger’s doorstep canvassing for votes. According to him he “told Galloway how it is” until “he got all intellectual with me”, so I guess that George wasn’t reprising his impersonation of a cat.

The chap got off at Stamford and we bade each other farewell. My new companion at the table from there on was an old lady with an impossibly large rucksack. Maybe she was the murderer and the rucksack contained the bodies, either way she wasn’t chatty at all.

That evening I was staying in a pub-come-hotel in rural Gloucestershire. After enjoying an evening meal there I decided to prop up the bar for a last pint of the evening and soak in the local atmosphere. Fast forward a couple of hours and that last pint had increased to a few last pints, one given to me on the house from the barman, Tom, and I was getting a guided tour of the pub and the cellar from the landlord, George. It turns out that it was a very old pub and was once used as a court house by Judge Jeffreys back in the 17^th century. I was even shown the tree from which the guilty were hung. 

I retired from the bar late that evening having met pretty much everyone in the pub. I’m not sure how that happened but all I can say is that you don’t get that sort of camaraderie in a Premier Inn, regardless of what Lenny Henry says.

On Saturday night I found myself on Twitter. I like Twitter. If you choose to you can end up in conversations with all manner of people. For instance that night I ended up having a brief Twitter chat with the guy who slapped a plate full of shaving foam into the craggy chops of Rupert Murdoch. I discovered that the perpetrator of this brief blast of social anarchy had not used the cheapest shaving foam money could buy. He used Nivea, as that was all he had in the house. I suggested that he was doing the octogenarian aussie a favour and that the aloe vera will in fact serve as a very able moisturiser and that perhaps Mr Murdoch senior should be thanking his assailant rather than pressing charges but unfortunately we both agreed that this may not be the water tight defence he was looking for.

So it turns out that I can have a random conversation anywhere really, propped at a bar, trapped on a train, or via the information superhighway after a few light ales. There’s no moral to this story. Just a sort of shrug of the shoulders and a comment of "it’s a funny old world”. 

I suppose it makes me wonder who I’ll meet this week although I think I’ll aim for less of the anarchists and more of the genial pub landlords dishing out free beer and local history lessons.  That way I stand more of a chance of finding out useful pub quiz information and less chance of being assassinated by Mi5.

Where Was I...?

It has been remarked by a friend, albeit in passing, that I have yet to conclude the tales of what I did on my holiday. They’re right of course, but now thanks to the passage of time and my increasingly short term memory, remembering what happened a week ago is a little more difficult. But here goes……

Thursday

I was still giddy about the day before and I think that’s what drove me into willingly suggesting that we go into Peterborough in the afternoon. The present Mrs Hayward was looking for some clothes even though she plainly has more items in our bulging wardrobes than most major high street stores. Faced with the prospect of me drifting around after her she decided we should go our separate ways for an hour or so.

To be fair I had vouchers to spend and still high on time travelling escapades I eagerly swept into HMV and bundled to the counter clutching Doctor Who DVD box sets, plus a Blu-Ray disc of Sherlock as well, just for good measure. Ruthlessly efficient as ever, that was my shopping done in the space of about five minutes, so I did what any sensible man does in this situation and retired to the pub.

The pub I chose was The Drapers Arms. It was close by and, better still, it was cheap. For the Drapers is a Wetherspoons pub, booze emporiums for the unemployed, the retired, the sick notes, the feckless, the man of minimal wealth, the shopper, and the real ale drinker. I’m being harsh, The Drapers Arms, unlike its sister pub in the more hectic part of town, is actually quite pleasant and relaxed.

The ‘spoons over the other side of town tends to attract the less respectable elements of society due to its proximity to the Job Centre. I used to work in the Job Centre in Southampton and it used to freak our jobseekers out when I and my good friend Ned, a Job Centre employee of many years now, wandered in to the nearby Wetherspoons for our lunchtime pint. You would literally see grown men diving under tables and hiding behind newspapers to avoid being spotted, it was a tragic thing to behold. We didn’t care how they spent their money and our excuse was the Government paid us peanuts so financially we weren’t much better off than those who were signing on once a fortnight.

The Drapers sees all manner of life walk through its doors. When I looked around I could see young and old enjoying a drink. There were girls drinking wine, some old codgers drinking bitter, and a couple of Poles on bottles of red WKD and shots of Apple Sours, quite ambitious for 2 in the afternoon. In through one door came an office worker in a suit, in the other came a guy with a faded Manchester United top. There was a large TV on the wall showing the Cheltenham Festival but the sound was muted, the only thing to be heard was convivial chatter. I had a couple of beers, one light and hoppy, the other dark and malty. Both were good.

One person I know claimed that they’d once been harangued by a prostitute in this very pub but such salacious activities obviously don’t occur on a Thursday afternoon and, to be fair, I doubted the story from the start. It doesn’t seem to be that sort of pub.

That evening Mrs Hayward treated me to a meal out at Smiths. They have a restaurant out the back these days and the food is excellent. Anywhere that has a ‘Pie of the Day’ gets my vote.

Friday

I’d like to say I did something productive but I think we were both a little hungover and I’d picked up a crocked knee from somewhere. At least I didn’t come home with a traffic come or a pocketful of Daffodils, both of which happened to me in my younger days.

Every time I stood up I howled with pain and waddled about like a 900 year old but this was getting little sympathy from Mrs Hayward. I scaled back to just making the occasional “oof” noise but staggered around a bit more. This too gained little reaction so I gave up. As the day went on my knee improved but my running plans had been knocked back a little. I realised the only way I could help my knee was to give it some exercise by getting out and about…..and possibly imbibe another ale or two.

I had arranged to meet with one half of our friends from the home of brewing on Friday evening. We hit upon this plan when we stumbled into The Golden Lion in Bourne the Saturday before. We loved the pub, it was a real old fashioned local, but our other halves disagreed and instead of thinking that it was quaint and charming they thought it was a rat infested hell hole which they wanted to leave at the earliest opportunity.

We therefore took their disapproval as a sign of quality and vowed that we would return without the women the following Friday for much drinking and bawdy conversation. As it was, in the cold light of day we decided that maybe we would start in the safe haven of Smiths and see how the evening progressed.

After a few ales we got brave and decided to extract ourselves from our comfort zone and explore. Exploration number one was to the local kebab shop. Many years ago it used to be called ‘Bourne Greedy’. These days it has a crap name without even the whiff of a pun. It’s not the only kebab shop in Bourne, in fact we have an embarrassment of them.

The local town council are the usual bunch of self serving, small minded, local business types who are always incredibly resistant to big names coming to Bourne. They are still in the throes of resisting Costa Coffee’s advances as they would rather shop units stayed empty until a local entrepreneur takes it, which they rarely do, however they seem to be very welcoming to kebab shops. Bourne has five of them, and a new one has opened just recently within vomiting distance of another. This is on top of four Chinese takeaways, three curry houses and four chip shops. There’s only about 12,000 people in the whole town so heaven only knows who’s eating all this takeaway food.

On this particular evening, and in this particular kebab house, we got an insight to Friday nights in the life of the average teenager in Bourne. Two lads were propped up in the window eating a burger and chips and some screechy girls were “with them”. I have reluctantly put that in inverted commas as the girls obviously believed that they were with the boys but the boys were displaying as much disinterest in them as they could without totally ignoring them.

As we ordered our own greasy feast the girls left briefly, but soon returned with another young mimsy who was sobbing her heart out as her boyfriend had dumped her. There was much discussion about this in a strange high-pitched garbled language I didn’t quite understand. This makes me feel very old indeed. One of the girls eventually tried to engage one of the lads in this drama. He didn’t even look up from his burger as he wearily uttered the words, “I couldn’t give a shit”. I admired his honesty. The girl wasn’t offended by this comment, she just went twittering back to the group.

The lads finished their meals and left, without the girls noticing. When they did they suddenly screeched their way out in pursuit of them, leaving their tearful friend stood alone in the kebab shop, much to her surprise. She must have looked around through her tears of sorrow to find her only companions were a couple of 30 something blokes and a kebab shop owner. Not surprisingly she also decided to leave.

After consuming our food we felt brave enough to venture back to The Golden Lion. Say what you like about it, the beer is good and it’s very, very cheap. There’s not many places where you get two pints for less than £4. If there’s a Samuel Smith’s pub near you then you should go and visit it. Tell them I sent you.

The Golden Lion is very much a local’s pub and the lounge bar is the hub of this. I sent my partner-in-drinking to go and see if there was a seat. He came back to confirm there was and I asked if everyone had stared at him. “What do you think?” he asked.

Many moons ago I went in there by accident with Mrs Hayward, her best friend and her gloomy boyfriend at the time. Gloomy boyfriend liked to play on the fruit machines so to avoid talking to us he sloped off. Within a few short minutes it was apparent that he’d won the jackpot as the silence of the lounge bar was shattered by the clattering sound of pound coins pumping out of the machine. One old boy in the corner quickly emptied his glass and made his way to the bar. He seemed to be looking at us expectantly. We’re not sure to this day if there was a tradition for the winner to buy a round for the whole pub but we couldn’t miss the accusing stares and quiet muttering as we hastily departed to safer climes.

Last Friday nothing so embarrassing occurred. We politely drank our beer and discussed the matters of the day before deciding that if we had made it into this establishment then we should seek out and invade another local boozer, The Masons Arms. I’ve been to The Masons before and I quite like it, it’s quite small and homely. I’ve played darts there although I’m terrible at it, and I’ve also done my Tom Jones impression on karaoke there, whether they liked it or not.

So, as the evening drew to a close we supped an exceptional pint of Deuchars IPA and were satisfied that our explorations had been fruitful. My drinking friend then realised that he hadn’t told his better half that he’d be out this late so we headed off. These are the perils of coming out drinking with me, there’s always room for another swift half. I was taught well.

Saturday & Sunday

The weekend was fairly unmemorable. Saturday was spent mostly at home bimbling about followed by a brief wander into town and then home again. Sunday was very similar but I cooked a roast in-between. Before I knew it, it was time to go to bed and therefore the holiday was over.

So that was it. One week spent doing very little. How long is it until Easter exactly?

It's a Royal Knockout

I have to say I’m no Royalist. In fact I once used to have the opinion when I was young and foolhardy that the Royal Family may as well face the Guillotine and have their severed heads placed on spikes so that the tourists could queue up and have their photographs taken with them. I reasoned that it wouldn’t put your average visitor off as they probably savour a touch of the macabre in their lives, hence the popularity of such attractions as the London Dungeon and Madame Tussauds and the continual popularity of ITV murder based crime shows like A Touch of Midsomer Lewis and Thyme.

Being a bit older and wiser I have mellowed in my opinion especially since I realised that, in reality, the Royal Family have no impact upon my life for the most part, despite the letters I get in Her Majesty’s name from the tax mafia. However today I am, in some respects, glad that my plans to remove the heads of the royal household didn’t come to fruition as they have finally done something of note, and without the Queen’s husband offending anyone.

It has been announced that to celebrate the marriage of Prince Somebody to somebody else the pubs are able to stay open until 1am on the day of the wedding without any need for permission. Hooray!! God bless you ma’am, etc.

Let’s face it, nothing shouts ‘Royal Wedding’ like a BOGOF deal on blue WKD and some drunken women screeching ‘I Will Survive’ into the wee small hours on karaoke. Maybe I’m just thinking of one particular pub in Bourne, but you know the pubs I mean. Because at the end of the day it’ll be these rat infested hell-holes that will take advantage of the government’s generosity and not the nice pubs in town like Smiths (Smiths of Bourne, look it up, it’s very good).

I can hold out hope but you know the type of pub that’ll stay open, it’ll be the ones with no hand pumps, just keg lager fonts. The ones that have Sky Sports on continuously and which during the World Cup would have been head to toe in England flags (if of course the cross of St George had the JJB Sports logo in the middle of it – seriously, buy a proper flag!!!)

You know the type of pub I’m talking about, there’s always some really old drunk guy in there who everyone says used to be an ex-boxer but his family disowned him and he now gets into fights so that he can be assured of a bed at night in the local nick. It’ll be those pubs where everyone stares at you when you go in and the décor hasn’t changed since about 1992.

It’ll be those pubs with several fruit machines, but no quiz machine, and a minimum of three pool tables where you know it’ll be ‘winner stays on’ at all times, because that’s what the big guy with the tattooed head and the chunky jewellery says, and who are you to argue when you suspect he’s probably carrying a knife and a number of anger management issues, especially since his wife left him/went missing.

It'll be those pubs that are always ‘under new management’ and every Saturday night there’s a police car parked outside it after someone looked at someone else the wrong way, and always promotes its drinks offers on those neon pieces of card cut out in a star shape.

It sounds like I’m knocking these establishments, and I kind of am, but this is because they’re not to my taste. I prefer to have a nice quiet drink (preferably a real ale or two) in civilised company without the underlying threat that if I accidentally brush past someone at the bar then I will find myself in A&E with the blunt end of a pool cue down my throat and the impression of some geezer's oversized ‘Dad’ ring emblazoned across my face.

I may sound like an ungrateful subject but it’s never the nice pubs that stay open late on these occasions. I like a pub with a convivial atmosphere, where you can buy wine from a proper bottle rather than from a little pump at the bar, and they serve other spirits rather than just vodka (check the optics, if you can see at least four industrial sized bottles of fake Smirnoff then back away slowly, but be careful not to spill anyone’s pint).

I also like to go to the loo without traipsing through the puddles of other customer’s urine, where they don’t sell whiskey flavoured condoms or inflatable sheep out of a machine, and without someone staring at me when I’m trying to pee.

Oh, and be careful if you happen across a guy called ‘Cheeky Monkey’, but that really is another story.