Passports and somebody woke Bob

Today’s post comes from publican Gav and is really a study on ‘be careful what you wish for’. We are looking at the process of pubs coming out of lockdown and the requisite stages.

Now most people know that pubs could open outside from 12th April, inside from 17th May and then back to normal on the 21st June so , by corollary, most people are wrong. Firstly the dates are all predicated by ‘no earlier than’ although, in all likelihood, the red tops will ensure that the dates are pretty much fixed. Secondly this pesky date of the 21st of June when ‘all legal restrictions will be lifted’, that means back to normal right? No it doesn’t.

Volumes of correspondence with parliamentarians has revealed that there are no actual plans to allow adults to stand up with an alcoholic beverage. Significant pressure is growing to end the table service requirement but it is likely that you will only be allowed to collect your drink and return to your pre-allocated, socially distanced, table.

There is a separate review into so called ‘passports’ and social distancing as a whole and it is in there that we will find any return to normality for the pub. This is where we, as a trade, have been led rather than leading. The rumour that passports could allow a return to normality was rallied against by the trade bodies as yet another overly burdensome regulatory task. I do get that this is true but in decrying it the industry has fallen through the scant camouflage of yet another government trap.

Normally the government are keen to ignore the cries of the licensed trade. Contrary to popular opinion we are not massive government cash cows, although we contribute a lot, in direct taxation there is little between the on and the off trade. Beer duty (2.8-7.5% ABV) is 95.4 pence per litre regardless of whether it is served in a clean cold glass in a pub or a dusty tin on a supermarket shelf.

But this time somebody woke Tom, Bob and Collin the MPs for Dunderton, Duffington and Snorington out of their slumber and set them at it. No sooner than they had enjoyed a three course lunch, 5 pints and 3 naps they were out of the stalls and running. Needing a passport to get into a pub, the very essence of British society, they simply were not having it. They gathered many of the other nocturnal residents of the house and set about looking at why this was wrong.

It turned out that Bob (63) had the most recent experience of a pub because he was suspended from school and visited the ‘Up Her Arms’ when he was 19. The group formed a committee to listen to Bob espouse the wonders of the great British local from his visit in 1977, after all it is important to stay up to date with ones subject. Stories of smoke filled rooms, buxom young barmaids and Bob’s own boyish charm conjured memories in the assembled band and reminded them why social distancing was so damn important in pubs.

To the matter in hand, they decided that it was an affront to British society to require a man to demonstrate his fitness to enter a pub and they would not stand for it. Now Tom knew an usher who spoke to a bloke who cleaned the speakers chair and he said he could get their voice heard by the leaders. A hurried note was drafted, passed through three readings, four committees and rubbed on a ravens beak before being passed on to the bloke who knew the bloke…

And so as the speaker took the chair he found the note, carefully placed under a half eaten chocolate digestive that he had been saving for PMQs. The note said ‘BoJo smells of jam’, the speaker smiled and added it to the pile but what was this, another note underneath, how curious.

‘Passports for pubs -No’ well thought the speaker, if that’s what the members say then who am I to argue. From his dark tower, watching by zoom call Hangcock let out a Machiavellian snigger “excellent” and brought another 2000 shares in Tesco as the speaker folded the note carefully.

And so it came to pass that the government were forced to fiercely deny that they would impose any such restrictions on the right of every person to visit their local pub. Pubs, they declared, were a mental health haven and there would be no discrimination on who could use them. The trade press celebrated, the trade itself despaired.

If we deconstruct the current position then firstly we are all aware that the government hates us being at the bar or in any way vertically drinking (unless we are not in a pub in which case it is fine). So by rejecting out of hand the use of passports in pubs they have ensured open access for all which sounds great. The trouble is that they are far to late in realising the mental health aspects of the social hub of the pub, their rules have already destroyed that. The old fella who lives alone takes no great solace in being forced to sit at a table on his own in the pub after all.

An educated trade body would have argued that the adoption of a passport system in exchange for removing restrictions should have been a choice for venues. Allow a venue to decide what suits them, passports and bar stools or open access, rule of six, sit down, table service , blah, blah , blah. My own straw poll indicates that 100% of the publicans that I know would have opted for passports and no restrictions but I get that it should not be mandatory.

So we now face the prospect that you can show your passport and attend festivals or nightclubs with unfettered freedom but you won’t be able to tell your mate down the pub because they are not on your table of six, after all we have to be ‘covid safe’.

The only words that I have found some comfort in of late are regarding the actual passports. Buried in the review document is a paragraph full of buzzwords like ‘inclusivity’ and ‘non-discriminatory’. The review goes so far as to say that whilst evidence of a vaccine, previous infection or negative test result will act as a passport; it will also be available to those who cannot have the vaccine and find testing is overly arduous. So it sounds like Tarquin, who is opposed to vaccines and doesn’t like putting anything up his nose apart from street level drugs, will still be able to get a passport or, at least, not be challenged as to why he doesn’t have one.

It seems inclusivity will make the same mockery of the passport that it does the mask. Wearing a mask is a legal requirement unless you are exempt. You can be exempt because you don’t like masks and it is illegal to ask you why you feel that you are exempt so, in effect, masks are optional. Hopefully the government are simply using the lure of freedom to encourage vaccine uptake before they buckle to the loons and agree that everyone can have a passport anyway.

They call them mad for a reason

Since I am spending a lot of time answering questions I thought it was a good time for a somewhat technical post. The subject of today’s post is therefore ‘crazy flu’ or, more accurately ‘the crazy roadmap from the lunatic lockdowns’.

So, here in the UK, the government released their ‘roadmap’ out of lockdown. It seems that in the modern world we address questions like this by pressuring our politicians to make announcements before they have the requisite information. Since we are pressuring them for answers that they do not have the knowledge to provide we ‘guide’ them through leaks and rumours.

Once the government have formed our suggestions into a vague and woolly plan they make an announcement. When the information they needed comes in the government amend their plans and are immediately set upon for ‘U turning’ on the plan that they didn’t want to release in the first place.

Anyway we now have a plan out of lockdown. During the announcement of said plan BoJo was at pains to repeatedly state that the dates presented for the various stages were in fact the earliest possible and would likely move to the right. Needless to say that the reporters and people of the country ignored all of this and the dates are now cast in stone with any change being a ‘U turn’.

For us in hospitality there are three key stages. In stage one we can open outside, then at stage two we move inside and finally at stage three lots of other stuff happens. Since the release was a bare bones document it is lacking in detail, some would say this reflects the approach in general.

One key detail is important enough to make it into this early release though and that is the fact that we cannot possibly hold an alcoholic beverage whilst standing. The scourge of ‘vertical’ drinking is outlawed with compulsory table service and ordering and drinking only being permitted when seated. This issue is important enough to be detailed in the first two stages and yet is missing in the (no earlier) than June last hurrah. This leads myself and many industry commentators to believe that there is no plan to remove the mandatory requirement for table service.

Along with some of the trade press I have pressured our MP and other parties to gain some clarity on the matter. I successfully had a written question submitted to the relevant department to tell us what the plan was. The response was telling in that it did not address a clearly detailed question, in short there is no plan for how we return to the wonder that its the bar.

Throughout the reams of correspondence on this issue I have maintained that there is no justification from banning an Englishman from the bar. I can see only two reasons why the government is so determined to prevent us standing with our beer.

The first is the acknowledged desire to turn us European with the adoption of the so called ‘café culture’. Now far be it from me to accuse a government of not learning from history but this is exactly what brought us 24 hour opening in 2005. The principle was that we were a nation of binge drinkers and removing the deadlines associated with licensed hours would allow us to relax and adopt a more civilised relationship with beer.

In all of the research and debate about creating a Lisbon in London or Madrid in Manchester it would appear that nobody looked at a Brit abroad. When you place you Englishman in Madrid he turns into the same beer pig he does when you call last orders in the UK. Unsurprisingly the change to hours did not create a tsunami of drunk and disorderly cases, as the nays had believed it would. But neither did it cause England fans to enjoy a macaron with a friend to celebrate the football.

Perhaps the government think it is time for another go. Mandated table service and increased pavement space to promote (some would say enforce) a café culture. If this is the case I would, and have, urge our parliamentarians to check out the many benches already being used for this purpose and ensure that they really know what they are trying to generate.

The second reason comes from the fact that the politicians no longer feel the need to manage the scientists instead they ‘follow’ their advice. Now there is a reason why the term ‘mad scientist’ exists, with great knowledge comes, well frankly, a good dose of lunacy. This is why scientists do not run companies, they report into people who have the sanity to balance the madness.

Imagine if Henry Ford had said to his greatest scientist ‘invent the perfect car that is good for all’. We would be on the fourth generation of scientists trying to develop a car built of kelp that ran entirely on soya milk and produced rose water as its exhaust. In the meantime we would still be feeding our transport polo mints and getting to work with a sore ass.

The same is true of anything. We would still be sailing to America for business meetings if we had asked the boffins to create the best aeroplane. They would still be working on balsa wood models of craft fuelled by tangerine skins if someone hadn’t told them to get a bloody move on.

So for the first time in their lives scientists are being listened to and nobody has noticed yet that they are insane. Having destroyed our economy to fight the crazy flu they have set a terrifying precedent. Since we are now not allowed to die I expect that they are currently working on plans to close swimming pools and eradicate verrucas. Apparently if nobody ever goes out then the chances of being hit by a car reduce by 99.5% (interestingly also the survival rate of crazy flu).

So what do the egg head lunatics have against vertical drinking I hear you ask. Well it goes back to the heady days of university. In order to grow ones grey matter to such an enormous size as to be able to single-handedly calculate that washing your hands is a good thing you have to study. I should clarify there that I actually mean study not what students call study.

So when your egg head goes to university it is all about studying hard into the early hours. The rest of the students are spending their student loan smashing shots and preparing for their gap year. This is egg heads introduction to the concept of bars, its as close as hew will ever get to seeing a bar as there is far too much learning to do. He see’s the student union as he heads off to the store to collect pencils and hand sanitiser, the noise and the mass of drunken humanity is not for him.

When he heads off early to lectures he has to step over drunken room mates in various states of stupor. Even in those early years he can see that they return from the bar with higher viral loads and spread them liberally around the campus. His only exposure to the world of social drinking leads him to believe that it is an awful environment.

Normally these early formed opinions are no concern to us but, as I said earlier, suddenly egg heads are in charge. The economists demand that hospitality is opened back up and all the egg head can see is vomit stains on his student carpet. Surely if he makes them sit down they will be better behaved? And when the compulsory background opera and ‘text book to eat out’ comes in it will only get better.

So where does all this leave us, here at the Plough. Well we are, and always will be, a wet led pub that is to say we are a drinkers pub. People that come to a wet pub do so to enjoy a drink in good company, it is the social experience that we miss not the alcohol.

We won’t be opening outside because we are a town pub and, well, it is England and April. We did consider opening the outside area for a limited number of days to avoid the dead spots but this then means a limited range and higher waste. The biggest problem that we have is table service, one server cannot cope with table service when busy (trust me I have done it) yet when we are quiet additional servers will be bored. You could actually be full on a Wednesday and empty on a Saturday because you are so weather dependent.

I can assure you all that I am keeping a very close eye on how things develop. I have more calls and discussions booked next week to try and push the debate over table service and I am seeing some traction. If I can get an idea when we can step away from table service that will form the cornerstone of reopening plans. Table service is, frankly, soul destroying in a wet led venue. We don’t want to tell people off and they don’t want to be told off. In short table service is the government saying you can open but only f you promise to slowly destroy your own trade.

Watch this space guys, hopefully the egg heads are in retreat.

Secret wine and special baking

A lot is made of the effects of lockdown on mental health but, for the record, I would like to assure everyone that I was always pretty dumb.

The sudden cold snap, obviously less cold on the South island, has slowed progress outside which leaves me with more time on my hands. I am partial to a bit of bread baking but this is stalled by the cold temperatures inside which stop or, at best, severely extend the proving time of dough. In one of those eureka type moments the other day it occurred to me that they have been baking bread in cold climates for years…..

Some internet research enlightened me to the use of the oven as a contained vessel for proving. Basically dough plus hot water in the oven provides sufficient heat for proving. So last week I set about baking a loaf of bread, I didn’t need the bread, I wasn’t particularly bothered by the bread, but think of it as a time killing technical challenge.

At the first proof I have the dough in the oven with a jug of boiling water and am trying to keep an eye on it without releasing the steam. The current firewood of choice is the old decking and this is rather wet so the fire needs to be run fairly hot and regularly fuelled. The first hour of proving turned out to be pretty busy, running upstairs to check the dough, then downstairs to fuel the fire. Can you spot the obvious mistake here? Yes so did I, after around 90 minutes. I removed the dough from its artificial warming location and placed it….. by the fire. I can’t blame BoJo or lockdown or crazy flu that is just an average Gav episode.

The cold weather has also moved my shopping boundary closer, well so close as to be inside the building. It is well documented elsewhere on these pages that on the matter of shopping, amongst others, I am an idiot. This is not to say that I have a particular dislike or issue with shopping but, far more simply, I am stupid. So crazy flu has made it harder for me to turn tail and exit a store empty handed, not impossible but harder. I now either don’t enter the store or I leave the store with one ‘essential’ that I don’t actually need rather than any of the items I came out for.

The chill factor has combined with my natural desire for efficiency and means I have now taken to having the debates indoors. Friday night was the start of the weekend and so I had planned to have ‘something and chips’, only the chips were actually on the premises so I needed further supplies. The ‘plan’ was to head to the store and purchase some sort of fish/burger/pie arrangement and some bread rolls. In the worst case I could purchase the rolls and just have those with the chips.

At this point most of you would have headed to the store but that is where you are, frankly, daft. I spent time debating what would actually happen with myself before I departed. I tested various hypothesis, they had no fish, burgers were in a large pack, etc. Then I tested my back up plan which, you will recall, was the purchase of bread rolls. Of course the bread rolls would be the ‘wrong’ ones or they would be in a large pack when I only wanted a couple. There was a brief internal debate over whether I would succeed or return with milk that I didn’t really need before I locked the front door with the solemnity of a sage parent knowing I wasn’t going out.

In some good news I discovered that I was responsible for the wine. That doesn’t sound as good when you don’t realise that for a little over a week two bottles of red wine sat on the shelf and were treated to daily curious scowls. The bottles arrived from a well known wine retailer, addressed to me but with no other evidence as to why they had been sent. There was no paperwork in the box at all and I certainly didn’t order them. The saying is that one should never look a gift horse in the mouth but I have never had much truck with sayings. When I see a gift horse my dentist mirror comes out and we go for a full check up.

I spoke to various people who could have, reasonably, been responsible but drew a blank. Now I am not a Korean defector so I feel that a poisoning attempt is unlikely, nor am I attractive or young enough to have to fear a date rape risk but those gift horses they are just worrisome. The bottles remained on the shelf and I passed them daily with little more than a curious stroke of the chin. Not only would I not drink them but I wouldn’t bring them close to my wine stock in case of accidental consumption.

If you should ever read my ramblings and think ‘I will send him some food/drink/gift’ it is worth noting that you should identify yourself. If I don’t know the origins I will not consume the product, more from concern that I am signing some secret pact with the sender the details of which I am unaware.

Then the mystery was solved, just like that the wine moved into my rotation and was swiftly dispatched. It was not a call or a message that answered the riddle but the arrival of a knife sharpener in the mail. The knife sharpener arrived, addressed to me, with no paperwork. On the face of it this could be seen as an escalation, adding a degree of malice to my mystery arrivals perhaps threatening the need for a sharp knife.

Actually this reminded me that some ancient loyalty scheme had mailed me to say that I should check my account and I discovered a small amount of points. Whilst the balance was insufficient to exchange for gift vouchers (my normal escape) I did discover some small value items to take up the lion’s share. Yes that’s right, 2 bottles of red and a knife sharpener.

There is no innocence in beans

Well as work continues apace at the Plough I thought I would share with you some examples of recent interactions with alleged inanimate objects. I am sure that I am not alone in suspecting that some of the object we deal with on a daily basis are way more malevolent than is made out.

I recently set upon the slow cooker and one of the ingredients used was baked beans. Now I made an error when I got the can out, I did not shake it. I was aware of the error as I pulled the ring pull back but, since they were going into the slow cooker it was readily resolved.

I cannot recall another occasion when the ring pull has neatly removed the entire lid from a can in one go. Normally they peel up the edge in the first attack and further effort is required to free the lid from the can. But no, on this singularly awkward, occasion the lid parted company with the can with no more effort than that taken to brush some lint from ones shirt.

Of course the force that I applied was significantly more than to brush that lint and because the contents were going into the slow cooker I had the can raised aloft. With the can braced against thin air and the lid departing at rapid speed my right hand suddenly, and briefly, followed the lid. The resultant acceleration, in some sinister way, combined with my earlier failure to shake the can and compounded the situation.

The liquid contents of the can, sat atop the solids, seized upon the sudden glimpse of freedom. With the enthusiasm of children at the school bell a tidal wave of orange sauce exited the can with an astounding turn of speed. In an effort to capitalise on new found freedom the liquid went on to distribute itself in all directions, I even found some heading up my T shirt sleeve.

Now you can tell me that this was just an unfortunate series of events. You can explain that there was no underlying malice aforethought planning this result. I shan’t argue you with but, to be on the safe side, I shall (and did) curse at the can and its contents as if was sentient.

We have to keep on top of these objects and their creeping subversion of our relationship with the natural world. If we let these small incursions go unnoticed things will escalate and who knows where it will end? The beans knew I knew, after all why would I address my cursing at them if I thought that they were truly innocent…..

For the last week or so I have been gardening. Gardening at the Plough is, like everything else here, a matter of some logistics. I have broken up over 50 tons of concrete, carted it to the front of the pub and from there it has been taken away by a grab truck.

The only way of removing bulk from the pub is by a grab at the front and so we have become quite adept at loading out. Loose product at the bottom forms a ‘base’ with larger material added to the top to maximise space. We can achieve a 6 foot tall pile with some judicious launching of the larger (and heavier) material.

As you can imagine even the best of us sometimes miss the target when throwing heavy and awkwardly shaped concrete blocks. But when that block rolls back to your feet you know, really, that this is another push from a so called inanimate object.

Well I, for one, will not succumb to such devious tricks. This is why you can find me repeatedly throwing a block on to the top of the pile and cursing it when it returns to my feet. On the last occasion it took me five attempts, it kept rolling off but I was not being defeated. At one point, as I picked up the block and cursed at it, I did point out that I had all day and eventually it would give up. It clearly noted my determined tone and after collecting it once more it gave in and wobbled to a stop atop the pile.

This ongoing battle with malicious objects reminded me of a discussion with a team leader in Derby years ago. An intermittent external fault was causing some electronics unit to expire and exhaust all of its smoke in what we like to call a ‘non fire smoke release’ event. On looking through the numbers I discovered that one operator had fitted 7 units on assembly and every one of them had failed on test in the same manner.

I was astounded that said operator had kept changing expensive electronics without checking the associated circuitry, which would have revealed the fault. When I asked the team leader and quality representative what they thought possessed their man to keep damaging brand new electronics without checking the circuit the answer was immediate “the eighth one worked”.

I cite this as a further example to these malignant objects, you may think you can win but we are on to you. As I have often said, one should never underestimate a determined idiot.

Pork pies don’t drink, you can tell

Well I am pleased to say that despite BoJo’s best efforts to force me to be a normal human being nothing has changed. I am growing concerned that the remaining ‘essential’ stores are starting to think that I am a shoplifter. I must be the only person who, faced with no substantive food in the house, can make a plan and head to the store only to return empty handed. The genius of this is that when I return I am angry with myself for the situation but equally, somehow, smug in the knowledge that I knew it would happen.

I genuinely have no idea where the rage comes from when I am shopping for food or, to be fair, where it is targeted. I stroll into the shop quite relaxed and by the end of the first aisle I am incandescent about nothing in particular. Then I get angry with myself for the fact that I am angry and don’t know why. I have no recollection of being assaulted by a tomato as a child, I have never been slighted by a pork pie so I am at a loss as to what my argument is.

If I make it all the way to the end of the first aisle then I am fuming with the quiche in that fridge or can’t believe that Scotch Eggs are so uniform. I am also, especially since we are only allowed out for essential shopping, obliged to buy something now. Storming out of the store empty handed is a dangerous card nowadays and should, in my opinion, only be played when you are at the front and can cover it as ‘forgetting your money’ or some such.

There are many things on my mental list that I could buy but since I have failed at the first hurdle I have already deleted the list. What is the point in buying the pickle if you didn’t pick up the cheese? Go back and get the cheese you say? Interesting idea but I am still fuming at the Cornish pasty so I won’t give it the satisfaction.

Since I am now going , quite frankly, bat shit crazy I can’t pick up something random because someone will be judging me. Even if there is nobody there, somewhere somebody is judging don’t you know. A frozen ready meal? great idea and then they can imagine me sat in my underwear with pasta sauce on my chest and just tut at the singleton who let himself go. Seriously this is how my mind works, god only knows why!

So the default option is milk. Try judging me on that eh, we all need milk and hell I drink a lot of tea so nothing wrong there, perfectly normal to buy milk we all do it. So if you see me in the queue with a bottle of milk and I seem distracted please rest assured it is not you, I am trying to counter a murderous rage and it is all down to those fishcakes in the fridge, bastards!

I decided that Saturday was a take away night and, as you will have come to realise, this is way more significant than it sounds. This is a decision made early with the rest of day spent reinforcing the plan somewhere in what passes for my mind. The plan was to order it around 7pm and everything was set for a chilled evening. Around ten to seven I was drinking my last brew of the day as I wandered over, locked the front door and placed the keys on the hook. The smug voice in my head murmured ‘you knew it wasn’t happening really’ and I had quite a delightful sandwich instead.

There in lies the issue, I think, years of ‘food is fuel’ have left me quite frankly incapable of food planning. To this end I remain eternally grateful for the services of my own personal shopper aka ‘CB’ for filling in the blanks that fill my shopping trips faster than inflatable boats fill Dover beach.

Work is carrying on apace at the Plough, all of the decking is up and the new front wall is taking shape. I would like to thank the nightmare that is parking in Shanklin for its role in preventing Island roads getting an opportunity to practice being a nuisance. By the time they got the opportunity to get a good look at the trenching works I was washing the pavement down, nothing to see here as they say.

The impending tightening of restrictions means we need a big push on materials this week, the project manager in me is incredibly uncomfortable not having all of the material on site. The extended lockdown in itself does not offer an extended window of works because the builder has other commitments and we all know how hard it is to start again. We need material on site to carry on the good progress.

In other news I see that the predicted ‘success’ of dry January was not to be. The pundits had predicted that the nation would embrace the unhinged idea of taking a month off of drinking alcohol. Lockdown excesses followed by Christmas were apparently going to empower the fun police and their lunatic ideas.

This dry January has followed in the miserable footsteps of its predecessors. Social media is awash with declarations from people shunning the booze despite the trauma of lockdown. Well done Sharon, you go out for friends birthdays and sometimes have a prosecco with dinner, go you with your whole month teetotal.

Dry January is just an opportunity for those who rarely drink to feel smug about the fact that they ‘can leave it alone for a month’. I worry about these sober people and I wonder why they feel the need to tell me that they are sober for a month, like I care. I will enjoy a bottle of wine and relax while you kick the dog and shout at the kids because you ‘don’t feel the need to drink’.

So to all those occasional drinkers, who we would normally see a couple of times a year in the pub. who are ‘doing’ dry January. Firstly let me assure you that you are morons, guided by some utter bullshit that you follow only because it is a very easy success in a very sad life. Secondly please remember anybody can ‘not drink’ but no good story starts with ‘ I was on my seventh orange juice when ‘.

Nobody needs to drink just like nobody needs to eat crisps we drink because we enjoy it. Once again I will ensure that I drink on every day of January to counter the sober sheep. But in tribute to your determination I am going to give up for February. No not drink of course, I am giving up going to the gym, all of February and despite lockdown I think I can do this. If anyone wants to support me in this valiant endeavour please drop a bottle of red at the door.

Take it steady… or not

Remember all of those people in March saying ‘they will never shut the pubs’…..So today is day three of lockdown 3 (LD3). The thing that had never happened in all of history, the closure of pubs, has now happened 3 times this year, will carry through into next year and has become, almost, routine.

The Ploughs last trading session was Christmas lunchtime, a particularly difficult shift to end on. Both Christmas day and Christmas eve were great in the fact that we only allowed regulars in and we got a good crowd. To be left running out of stock on Christmas lunch was so frustrating that I actually had to remove fresh kegs from the cellar to prevent me starting them.

Every time we ran out of a beer I had to caveat the statement with ‘well I have loads but it’s not practical to spike a new one’. By 2 pm it was quite clear that people in the pub were drinking second or third choices despite having a fridge full of their favourite at home. In this simple observation we can see something that our politicians clearly can’t, we come to the pub for the social side and not simply for the beer.

My intention was to finish up here, have a basic clear up and then wander up the road for a final pint. The strange thing is that, even on LD3, the deflation still hit too hard. Perhaps going from the exuberance of Christmas day to the silence of another lockdown exasperated the feeling or perhaps you can never get used to it. I didn’t leave the pub, I didn’t want to see people and I didn’t want to talk, I needed to sit on the floor and be quiet with the Plough.

First order of the day was to remove Christmas, every decoration removed, boxed and placed in the loft. I was not prepared to wake up on Boxing day to a pub that was silently celebrating Christmas on her own. Now the LD routines start, hunting things to do, pacing yourself through the tasks at hand so as to fill as much time as possible.

Day one was a full line clean then lines gassed. All taps stripped and sterilised, every keg coupler, cleaning socket and fob detector stripped and sterilised. I managed to drag this out until 3 pm, a great opportunity to do jobs that are usually picked up piecemeal in one go. Nice to sterilise the entire system before putting it gaurdian to protect it, I mean I haven’t had that opportunity in ….. nearly a month!

The Plough looks closed, the gates are shut, blinds are closed, chairs are on tables yet still I have to fend off people. Reading this you will doubtless fall into the same trap as our politicians and assume it is desperate alcoholics knocking on my door, you too are wrong. The Boxing day strollers, tourists and extended family made up the entire day. I am thinking most knew before they tried the door so thankfully only one wanted to argue.

An older woman with what I presume to have been her daughter was quite adamant that the rules changed at midnight on Boxing day. I explained that they did indeed change at 00:01 on Boxing day and she assured me that was one minute past midnight. Sometimes peoples argument is so self defeating that it seems to blind them so I opted for, ‘try down the seafront’ and they wandered off cursing me.

Day two involved removing one of the outside tables to see whether they were suitable for the log burner. Having passed the test (no black smoke) I figured that one table a day would be a good rate (always pace yourself in LD). So as I finished last night all tables were dismantled and stacked away for cutting up, still can’t pace myself!

The right way, the wrong way and then the Gav way

Well I have just completed the most significant planned task of lockdown 2. The task in question was to lay a new floor in the office and, whilst this may sound simple I can assure you it was not.

First task was to clear the floor. Okay, you got me, the first task was to push everything to the back to give space to start. Next up was removal of the existing lino and half a dozen layers of various tapes used to patch it over the last few years.

In the corner of the office is an old rain water gulley from when that wall was the back of the pub. The gulley is dry and has never caused me any issues but it has always been a source of concern. Since it is redundant it just feels that it should be covered with something more substantial than beer mats.

When the ladies toilets were removed during the refurbishment I looked around for people a couple of times before realising that the voices I could hear were the builders, coming quite clearly through the ‘sewer telegraph’. So knowing how close that dark hole is to the sewer system and to my computer meant it had to be blocked.

Having removed the beer mats I cut a piece of ply to fit the outlet and set about filling the remaining hopper with expanding foam. The void needed about a third of a can to fill it, I know this through the wonder of hindsight. I hadn’t appreciated just how much cold temperatures slow down the expansion of these products so I used two thirds of a can (yep about twice what was needed).

Obviously cutting the foam back is not a problem but I did need to make sure that any excess stayed put and didn’t start reaching out over the floor to other items. So of all the things that have happened in lockdown probably one of my oddest was sat with a glass of wine watching expanding foam.

Drain appropriately sealed it was now time for my nemesis… wood. I do not have the patience for carpentry in any of its forms, all power to those that do but it is not for me. I should point out that despite living most of my life in the office this is not some wild extravagance, the oak flooring is left over from the bar because my builder was a nervous estimator.

With the rule ‘measure twice and cut once’ fresh in my mind I set about it. The first few rows took a significant amount of fettling (there is probably another word for it) since the rim of the gulley was raised. My two main issues were that I had to accommodate the ‘bulge’ of the gully and minimise height at the door to the safe on the opposite side.

Before you go predicting my failure let me assure you that I had checked and the safe door cleared the wood flooring…. just. My logic was that if I could get it low enough the door would wear its own path and in so doing save me a job. With the first eight or so rows prepped I opened the glue and I have to say it started well.

About half way through I was running like a pro, well a slow incompetent pro at least. Then I hit a board that just wouldn’t fit, no matter how hard I hit it. I know it fitted on the dry run so why not now? I examined the board all was good but it wasn’t a fan of slotting in to its given location.

Having considered it for a moment I realised that the concrete screed had a slight bump in it and there was not enough adhesive to level the board. I liberally applied adhesive to every available area of my skin and clothing before wrestling the board out of the swamp of adhesive. The board skidded, slid and twisted but was no match for my determination to cover everything in adhesive.

To get some extra leverage, and ensure I tore my finger nails off, I applied a barrage of offensive language. I think the language made the board reflect on its position and it came free with an almighty slurp. With the resistance suddenly removed I yanked the board high enough to allow the dripping tendrils of adhesive to reach any areas of my body that I had missed in my previous dousing.

One advantage to doing tasks like this in the pub is the readily available weights in the form of beer kegs. Additional adhesive and weights appropriately deployed I retired for the evening, after all in lockdown 2 we need to pace ourselves.

The next day the floor greeted me with one of those opportunities to learn. I learnt that I should have cleaned the tongue/groove joint out while the adhesive was still wet. Still, its lockdown 2, plenty of time to waste so I manually hacked all the dried adhesive out with a scraper. Having moved everything onto the completed floor and, in so doing, seriously restricting access I carried on laying the floor out.

I clearly needed more glue and ordering this proved to be the usual roulette that islanders will all know so well. The first few companies either wouldn’t deliver to the island or would for a courier charge far exceeding the cost of the product. The frustrating thing is that those that don’t want island business are always those that you have to jump through hoops before they tell you. For those that don’t live on the island let me assure you that there is little as frustrating as registering with a company to check out a basket, being told they don’t deliver to the island and then being plagued with marketing. You don’t deliver to me, we have had this debate, stop trying to sell me what you won’t let me buy!

Ebay appeared to save the day on this occasion, order placed I awaited the dreaded email/call to tell e that they don’t deliver to the island. The message arrived the next morning, to tell me the item had been shipped! When it works, when it goes your way, the elation of knowing that you have found a supplier who will ship to you is something amazing.

Safe in the knowledge that adhesive was on its way I set about cutting the rest of the floor yesterday. I was going to do half of it but got carried away and ended up with the entire thing (look at me biging it up) cut and dry laid. Now this is one of the oddities of lockdown 2, time is incredibly slow moving. I am not kidding when I say slow I mean a day is basically a week long at least.

With an aching back, sore knees and generally pretty tired I stood up checked my work and wondered why it was still daylight (there are no windows in the office). Obviously I had done a hard day so it must be at least 6pm right? Wrong, it was 1pm, once again the clock had paused while I was working. It was never like this in lockdown 1, who has slowed this one down? I suspect that if you watch the briefing when they closed us down you may spot BoJo muttering under his breath ‘this lockdown will last 4 weeks (but feel like a year)’.

The adhesive arrived at 3pm and it looked like I was perfectly set to do the rest of the gluing today. The problem is that at 4pm it was too early to finish for the day, maybe there was something else I could do? After a brew and a couple of messages insinuating that I had done half a job (cheers CB) I committed to get it done. Needless to say this was not, necessarily, the right decision although I guess otherwise would have only been delaying the inevitable.

Just to recap, at this point the remaining floor was dry laid and no other flooring was in the room save for a few small pieces used for knocking planks in. I carefully lifted all of the pieces and meticulously stacked them in order in three distinct piles one for the room width and one each for either side of the safe.

My technique (remember measure twice) was to lay the next strip out on the previous board and ensure that it was correct before placing it into the glue. So I would check cut ends to the walls and joint spacing staggered against the previous run. It all went well until the last full width run, there was a large plank missing. I had the end piece, the spacing was good but there was an 810mm plank missing.

I sorted through both of the other piles, they were correct and complete, so where was the missing piece. Perhaps it was in the area where I had been cutting, despite not having left the room. So I trod in the wet glue and paddled (now in just a sock) to find it wasn’t there. Not only was it not in the office it no longer existed. Somehow, in this weird lockdown 2 time shift, it had disappeared.

It genuinely threw me I checked and double checked everything and it was all good, even the joint spacing, but there was an 810mm gap. I gave up and resigned to cut another piece but the only stuff available was holding the filing cabinet up. I gave the matter some thought, helpfully spreading adhesive through my beard, and decided to go grab another pack. Gently treading on the lid of the adhesive I trod more across the boards before realising and discarding my sock as well.

New piece selected I steamed ahead and was soon left with just the narrow gap down one side of the safe. The problem here is that whilst dry fitting was easy the drinks pythons run around this area and make it very difficult to get the adhesive in place (they are only about 4″ off the floor and are too tight to lift). My solution, some would say it was inspired, was to pour adhesive out behind the pythons and drag it forward with a scraper.

Sometimes in life we over achieve, so it was with my adhesive distribution system. I managed to scrape some of the excess up and dribble it over newly laid boards on the way to the tub. When I placed the last boards down they were floating like a ship on an ocean. I pressed them in and scooped the excess adhesive from the edge safe in the knowledge that it is well hidden.

A quick wipe of the joints and I couldn’t work out why there seemed to be growing patches of adhesive on the finished floor. After clearing a few more I realised that my adhesive had been dripping down the side of the tub onto my joggers so quickly scraped that off. Now I have said before that I will always wipe stuff on clothes when I am working, I consider them to be readily available cloths really.

And so it came to pass that I was finished, surveying a job pretty well done, at 8pm last night. But this is me, so I was surveying my handiwork in my underwear. During the course of the task I had lost a shoe, a sock, my joggers and my T shirt in order to stop them spreading more adhesive than the spatula!

Yes the safe door opens without touching the floor and no, I never found the missing plank.

Can I help you sir?

As we approach the end of week 6 of lock-down I thought I would share a couple of updates from life locked inside the pub. Let’s be fair if I had offered a golden ticket to spend your lock-down in the pub it would have been over subscribed, after all where better to be?

So today is my line cleaning day and I have cleaned the single line that I have retained for personal consumption. Sounds great doesn’t it, ice cold draught beer… The flip side of this is a distinct absence of choice. Those who have drunk with me will know that I do change my beverage from time to time and having only one draught line somewhat precludes that.

I start 11 gallons of product like an Olympic sprinter, its the best thing that I have ever tasted, pure nectar. The trouble is that there are 88 pints in there and (as your mum always told you) until that is gone you can’t have anything else. I sit down and think that I fancy a glass of wine and this little voice says ‘have some beer first’ then there is this little debate before I fold and drink some beer, see you never realised how tough it was did you?

The fact that pubs are closed appears to have been accepted by the general public far quicker than I expected. Despite lights ablaze and music blaring I leave the front door open and it is used only by delivery people. We have developed a system, given the no contact rule, for dealing with deliveries whereby they place items just inside the door and I either spot them on CCTV or fall over them.

It is funny how used you get to furniture and shadows and well to being open I guess. Obviously I have moved furniture around and the amount of times I step off the steps with a paint brush in hand to see ‘who that is’ before realising its a table! Apparently it takes me longer to adjust to being closed than the general public. I know the pub is shut, after all that is why I am painting and it looks like a bomb site, yet the other day I got off the step 4 separate times for the same bloody table that caught the corner of my eye.

It is bad enough dealing with the ducks without going to serve the furniture. 4 times, that is not just special that is Gav special! I am not that stupid though, I introduced myself to said table and now I don’t have to get off the step I can just call out to see if Bob wants anything. See, they all think I am daft but I am as daft as a fox me.

 

 

Day two and all is normal…..

Wow how the world has changed in a few short days! With some emotion I took a step that I never thought I would have to and closed the Plough on Friday night for the foreseeable future.

Obviously I am not alone in this situation with all pubs and bars in the country being ordered to close. These are indeed unprecedented times and there are some very tough times heading our way, to help alleviate (hopefully) your boredom I will try and improve my blogging skills and let you know how planet Plough is coping.

So this is day 2 in the pub and I have already learnt that it is very weird. So we closed as normal on Friday night and I didn’t do my normal clean because I figured I would have some time to do that. I am now running spreadsheets to monitor not only the fiscal status but also the myriad tasks associated with shutting down dispense systems for extended periods. To be honest the jobs seem to spring up in my mind as quickly as I start one and I know that restarting will be a test of memory without records.

Saturday felt very odd, not being open is not something that has occurred since I first opened with the exception of building works. Those of you who know me will know that I cannot abide half completed tasks, even as I type this I am annoyed with the state of the pub. I am extremely conscious that we have gone from rushing to open to several months of closure and, for the first time, I am having to ration the tasks in order to fill the time as best as I can!

Again those who know me will know that I have done little, if anything, to make upstairs habitable and also that I do not drink at home (upstairs). I have now pretty much moved into the bar which is both more comfortable and also allows me to continue to drink the stock that is live.

Obviously isolation in a pub is not the worse situation for any of us but I do have to note that whilst many have had a boring weekend they will be heading to work tomorrow, for those of us in hospitality there will not be this relief. These will definitely be testing times for those of us who are used to working all of the time, slowing a workaholic is an interesting challenge even for the workaholic I can assure you!

As I sit at the bar with my pint I am faced with another social rule which I have had to address, that of drinking alone. I have now named a number of bar stools and they are keeping me company. I have carefully selected the names to assure myself that I am highly unlikely to fall out with all of them, after all I need my drinking buddies or I might go stir crazy…