Sneaky B*stard

This closed pub game is nowhere near as easy as it looks and on some days it is harder than that.

Today was part 2 of scrubbing the cellar out, among other tasks obviously. Since the drain is in the middle of the floor this involves shifting everything to one end of the cellar, cleaning the other half and then swapping.

The first issue was snapping the cellar scrubbing brush half way through. I have other stiff brooms but this is small and particularly suited to the task so I figured it was worth a trip to the local store (Hursts for the locals) to replace it.

Of course its corona season so the trip wasn’t as easy as I had planned. I waited patiently (see I can do it) in the queue as they operated a strict one out on in system before being granted access. It was only when I was allowed in that I realised that they had counted a woman with a baby and a toddler as 3 of their maximum of 4 customers at a time!

I headed straight for the brooms and was met with a multitude of coloured heads and different appendages. The assortment left me feeling not unlike a woman having her first visit to Ann Summers but I had an easy way to cut through the array. A quick brush of the various bristles determined that the required stiffness was not available (stop laughing at the back) and I turned tail and headed out.

The look on the faces of the staff, behind their full face visors and masks, tells me that it was not just me that realised that I had just queued to enter a store, fondle some brooms and then leave.

Now I really could do with a squeegee (I still struggle to believe that is a real word) for the cellar so this presented a good opportunity to purchase online. One of my suppliers ticked all of the boxes and I found scrubbing head and squeegee but then a dilemma struck, what handles do they need?

With no apparent guidance I spotted the ‘live chat’ winking at me and seized upon it. I asked the friendly ‘Pete T’ whether handle x was suitable and he scurried away virtually to check. No Tiggy I didn’t realise until later that ‘Pete T’ was probably ‘Petey’ moonlighting or I would have made it all much more challenging.

Fresh back from the virtual storeroom Pete T informed me that it looked like ‘it might’ be suitable. Well I bloody well know that, that is why I selected it you idiot! I should point out that none of the images were adequate to identify if the sockets were plain, tapered or threaded. Could the virtual genius suggest a suitable device? well apparently he ‘just tries to look for the same manufacturer’ . Helpful? Not really after all Mitsubishi make trucks and ships but I wouldn’t want to sail the Atlantic in an L200!

Random purchase made I headed back to the cellar and cleaned the rest before leaving it to dry. As a side note it is odd having cellar cooling running, it makes it feel like I am back in an actual operating pub. Last job of the day is to unstack the kegs ready for their eventual disposal, this is where my day took a further turn.

Amongst the kegs are four real ale casks, all of which have sat there, sealed, for 12 weeks. Little did I know that one of those tubs of HSB had been plotting. As I innocently lifted it from its lofty position, in my clean and dry cellar, it seized the opportunity and struck. The shive popped out with an ease that would make any mother jealous. For those unaware the shive is a bung about 2.5″ in the centre of the cask.

What followed the shive, instantly, was anything but easy. A fountain of stale beer shot out so hard that it was almost solid, hitting the ceiling (via my face) and raining down from above. Rather than anger the beast further I placed it on the floor whilst spluttering through the relentless torrent of beer. Oh but the beer had planned this, they probably all discussed it, and placing it on the floor was not to be the end of my issues.

With my head, thankfully, removed from the fountain it hit the ceiling with renewed vigour, the room darkening as the lights were doused in HSB. The additional force set the cask spinning not unlike some heinous WW2 weapon. Two days it took to clean the cellar, that cask managed to cover every surface with, at a guess, half of its contents.

Having wreaked its havoc the cask then lay still, contented, burping a steady stream of foam like that drunk who has just vomited on your carpet at a party. And then the greatest insult as I paddled through the lake of rotten beer, picked up the angel of death and held it while it slowly vomited the remainder of its contents down the drain. Like holding your dates hair back at the toilet when she has had too many shots, its just something you do, despite knowing your night is ruined.

And that my lovely people is pub life.

Touched up, jilted and muddy

Around 8 in the evening on one night last week a young, 18 to be precise, lady walked into the pub and proceeded to have a tantrum…

“I can’t believe it, why would you do that to me? I was at the BLOODY church, stood at the alter in my dress and you didn’t turn up!”

Me: “Ermmm…”

“You’re a bastard a total bastard how could you do that to me? You left me crying in my wedding dress!”

“Babe we said Totland church, I was there waiting where were you?”

“Don’t give me that I KNOW where you were you were drunk, on OUR wedding day you were drunk what a bastard”

At this point she collected herself, straightened her clothes and smiled sweetly “Disaronno and diet coke please, Love you Gav”

This is not a scene from a movie or a joke this is actually what happens when you are not just a pub landlord but the landlord of the Plough.

Two groups of tourists witnessed this scene and I am not quite sure what one of the fellas was actually thinking when he noted that I was ‘in trouble’. Did he think that marrying half your age was normal? or did he think I was offering ‘Jim fixed it for me badges’? We will never know but I hope he reads this one day and it takes him someway to understanding the strange version of humour that we have here.

I have a customer who feels that the arrival of shorts is an opportunity to molest me. When I say that she puts her hands up the legs of my shorts when my hands are full I am not doing the situation justice. The hand in question travels so far up it is often stopped only by my waistband!

I have growled and barked on many an occasion but said customer is adamant that it’s just a bit of fun despite it being entirely one-sided. This weekend, whilst removing a parasol I felt a hand up my leg and barked. The hand was removed and reappeared on the other leg which resulted in “if you keep touching my leg I will kick you in the f*cking face”.

You would have thought that this was a reasonably clear demonstration of unhappiness but when some other customers pointed out this interpretation they were met with “oh he loves it”. It was at this point that simple genius came into play, a perfect demonstration that the best drunk logic comes from another drunk:

“He has just offered you a free kick in the face I don’t think he likes it at all”

And in that one sentence we seem to have resolved the trauma of wearing shorts in the pub, simple genius.

I will leave you with an update on project garden. We are now entering week 12 and have removed two walls, around 90 tons of soil and 20 tons of rubbish (concrete, brush etc). If this sounds significant then allow me to put it in some perspective, we have just cleared the corner and are now actually in the garden area. To paraphrase an old ad ‘if Carlsberg did gardening’

Engineering heads and sandy balls

Recently it has occurred to me, once again, that not all people on earth are Engineers. I don’t use the term Engineer to reference some educational standard but rather the way of thinking. I know some of you will dismiss this, but I assure you that it’s true, there are genuinely actual people out there who don’t see the world like we do, crazy eh? There are people who don’t get a hidden internal grin when they see a problem, that don’t have that unshakeable confidence that any problem can be beaten.

When the car doesn’t start some people’s first thoughts are how they will complete their journey or who they will  call. Of course we all know the correct thing to do is to think through the starter circuit to ascertain where the fault lies. Now it has been said that my mindset may explain why I am single and occasionally have to be physically dragged out of tool stores, maybe it’s true. Perhaps an affinity with the physical world is the corollary of having no such affinity with people, if this is true then it’s by no means a bad deal. Think about it, how many times will the rest of you give up in the face of an mcb that won’t hold, a leak that can’t be seen or a bolt that just won’t undo? I would suggest that physical problems happen way more than emotional success so you have your thing and I will stick with mine.

Next up we have some seaside humour, I guess it’s not unique to the  coast but that is where I saw it. First we have the romantic young couple strolling along the promenade. Well we’re heading into winter and the young lady had tired of walking so she playfully clung to her partners neck, doubtless asking to be carried. Our young beau was certainly up for the opportunity to demonstrate his physical prowess but made a poor choice in technique, clearly not an Engineer.  Turning his young lady so that she was facing him he bent to his knee and proceeded to throw her over his shoulder, now two words are key here ‘throw’ and ‘over’. The young lady dived perfectly, head first into the pavement I would have given her an eight for style if I had a scorecard and wasn’t more than a little concerned for her wellbeing!

The lad was a legend,  first his shoulders raised as his mind told him that he had hidden strength hence couldn’t feel his burden. Then reality slowly dawned on him, accelerated doubtless by the scream of pain, and I swear I watched his plan for a ‘physical’ evening drain through the features of his face.  It would look odd if I randomly videoed people outside of my apartment but at times like this I think it would be worth it!

The second story is one of dog walking, a lady and her small dog on the beach in fact. The lady had one of those seemingly obligatory ball on a stick arrangements and the dog seemed reasonably happy to retrieve the ball for her. The problem was that the woman’s aim was far from Olympic standard and inevitably the ball made it into the sea. The dog tracked the ball as far as the water and then clearly concluded that a £1 ball was not worth a dunk in the North Sea in November and left it there. Sadly his companion was not so bright, she ploughed in to retrieve the ball soaking herself in the process. I watched her retrieve the ball from the ocean a further three times with the dog obligingly retrieving the throws that made the beach. It took all of my self-restraint not to head to the beach, take the throwing stick thing and give it to the dog since she seemed to be enjoying retrieving the bloody ball so much. I can just imagine the dog getting home and talking to the cat “I tired her right out fetching that ball, she will sleep well tonight”

Gay sisters and rosy red apples

I had cause to have ‘the conversation’ regarding injuries and recovery with a colleague yesterday. The nature of my job is such that I see a lot of people so I still have these conversations fairly regularly. My technique is a basic introduction followed by recounting a couple of blog posts, seems to work.

Yesterday’s conversation was in a car and I watched the screwed up face and physical discomfort that always accompanies description of the actual damage. Once through that I was met with the hilarity that accompanies, on this occasion, squeezy marmite (thanks Jo), press ups and sneaky cast removals. This is perfectly normal for me, there is rarely a time when I can’t raise a laugh from one of the darkest and most scary times in my life. At the end of the conversation my colleague remarked that my attitude was astounding, my answer was that ‘once it’s done, it’s done you just have to get on with it’.

Walking back to the hotel that evening I wondered whether there was something odd in my attitude to life, do I approach things differently? I can’t think that I do, doesn’t everyone laugh at their own misfortune? That old saying of “laughter is the best medicine” has a lot of truth in it surely?

I have a thought from facebook for you this morning, feel free to skip this if your hatred of social media necessitates. The morning’s concern is about the apparently constant need for approval that blights so many young girl’s lives. This can be seen in the millions of ‘selfie’ pictures posted online, what else would posses you? When these pictures get negative comments we are told that this is wrong and that it can lead to depression and ruin lives. This is a public forum, if you post a picture then you must intend it to be viewed. If you haven’t proofed the photo or hell you’re just ugly then remember this is the real world, people have no obligation to be nice!

The reality is that these pictures garner two generic responses, lovers and sisters. There are the guys who will comment positively but who would be too tongue tied to pass a compliment in the flesh. This is basic, and often missed, facebook courtship. Then there are the girls who will be “stunned”, declare “love” and wolf whistle, unless you’re gay I would suggest that this is an experience you wouldn’t want repeated in real life?

Ultimately though the craze for self admiration can be blamed on poor childhoods, can’t everything? It is an absence of fairytales that makes this seeking of approval seem ok. You see when we were young we were told stories of wicked witches consulting mirrors for approval about their beauty. Ok it may have made us ever cautious of rosy red apples but it also taught us that if you keep canvassing opinion the results won’t be good.

Hurdles: An alternative approach

I had a sudden brain wave over the weekend, I know who would have thought it? My mission for the last two long years has been to resolve the outcome from my accident and reposition myself to hit the market again and restart life. I know that there are more hurdles on the way but remain resolute, I just have to keep knocking them down until I get the keys to my pub after all life is just a game isn’t it.

Not being directly in the market does not mean that I don’t keep a watching brief, I have tried to keep my nose out as it where but it has proven far too difficult. So I am aware of sales and movements in the one market that is critical to me but also those in other markets that provide indicators, trends and benchmarks. One constant fear has been the gem, the risk of watching the one offer that is too good to pass up slip out of the market. The licensed trade is a complicated beast burdened by more pessimists than would seem fair so it is not as simple as opportunities being sold, the real concern is opportunities being sold at viable rates. Where venues are taken off the market at untenable or naive prices I consider this to be nothing more than a change of caretaker, so far my opinion has been proven to be right. But what about that little slice of perfect, sold at a realistic price and potentially out of reach for a generation?

There was always a back up of ‘buy and board’ but this presents significant commercial hurdles and as such can only be applied to real bargains. But I have now seen another option, perhaps encouraged by some progress in my return to the market, locum management. Don’t misunderstand me, I do not consider this a viable way to operate a commercial enterprise, but to preserve an opportunity I think that it has legs. There is nothing more soul destroying than working to fund an empty pub, I remember running between meetings and calling Shorty to hear “nobody has been in boss” and still wince at the thought. But like so much in life it is a matter of perspective, I funded the Ship because I believed it could wash its own face and, bless the old girl, she proved me right.

This option has reinvigorated my view of the world and restored my passion, there is a new business plan that enables a holding period if needed. There are three venues that are on the current list and their numbers are all being revisited, not as decision makers in themselves but as gates to see whether decisions should be brought forward. Once again I find that I am astounded by the passion that the subject stirs in me, I keep waking up surrounded by piles of floor plan sketches and scribbled notes on operating costs. The new option is not preferred and it certainly doesn’t lend itself to every option but it does provide a grappling hook to snag the one that is getting away and that is more than I have had for some time.

Obnoxious teenagers and Manjita

I apologise to those that read this from out of town, this is an English centric post. There are two advertisements running at the moment that are more irritating than the standard drivel. Number one is the advert that involves teenagers droning their parents title in order to demand some clothing purchase. I won’t mention the company that the advertisement is for out of principle but I’m sure that you have seen it. I don’t understand why the advertisers think that this advertisement will tease me into using their service. Of course it is a clever advert and it calls to my inner conscious but all those kids make me want to do is punch them in the face.

If you deconstruct this advert what it says is that this is the company for you if you have horrible and demanding children and are a rubbish parent. “Demanding children? No backbone? Weak parent? Give in to everything with one simple call to us and you can be back to your Lambrini in no time”

The other one is not so so irritating as it is illogical. In this advertisement a young man is too stupid to work out that the ‘TV’ button on his new kindle will display the screen on the TV. To cope with his complete and utter incomprehension of basic device management he calls upon the magical new help function. Selecting this option puts him in touch with a young lady with a charming Irish accent who helps him without criticising his abject stupidity.

This is England, we don’t have English call centres, any help service will be outsourced. The reality is that when you press this button you will make contact with Manjita, a 16 year old Indian girl who can barely understand English. There will have to be seventeen steps of security, all completed with a person who can’t understand English. When you deal with Manjita by phone she will call herself Jane and pretend that she is in the same time zone. She will follow scripted small talk and do her very best to pretend that she is simply an incompetent English person, how will this work with a visual system? Will they have to build rooms that look English, will there have to be real time airbrushing? Let’s be honest here, if you can’t sort simple telephone support then why show us who we are talking to?