Sorry guys I tried…

Advanced warning – Not a humorous post (sorry)

So the time has come, as we both knew that it would. Our oldest child is about to attain the heady age of 18 and we need to address the elephant in the room. The elephant, in this case, is the 3 bedroom house that you still live in and I still pay for.

Of course it is not just you, our son and daughter live there and your current partner oh and your daughter who shares a room with ours. We both knew that this day would come, it should be etched in your mind after all the state sponsored lawyers fought hard to achieve this among many other wounds while you continued to sleep with the third party in our marriage.

As in everything else I have forgone revenge, ignored hatred and looked after my children. I have provided the home that any spare prick could enter if he called you good looking (hey I ain’t specsavers am I ). I won’t lie, the mortgage has often been a relatively easy payment, in cash terms, but sometimes not so. If there is a credit for going above and beyond then I should maybe earn it for paying the mortgage from a hospital bed (no sick pay here) or when I had no work. There may even be points for paying a mortgage whilst living in cesspits over pubs or on mates floors, if so I claim them now.

It is ok I know my role, I guess I always did. I am here to provide and I will ALWAYS look after my gorgeous children. So you have had some 16 years to make provisions, you have had a number of bequests and a number of partners living rent free how did that work out?

Let me tell you how it worked out for me, I couldn’t remortgage because I was bound to a house I couldn’t enter. I missed my children so terribly that I cried as I shuffled in the car to get to sleep or waited for the party to end so I could grab a sofa, I didn’t miss my bed because I knew by then that three of us shared it. So what did I do? I worked, I worked hard and then I worked some more but you knew that I would because that’s why you chose me, you knew it was who I was, an easy mark.

So I moved into a rental, the best that I could do as I was shackled to our home. I cleaned cigarette butts from under the bed in the only furnished let that I could find. I made the best second home for our children that I could it was all that I could do. Our children asked questions of my accommodation that left me crying at night, I wanted to provide an example of life, of what you could achieve if you worked hard, but instead I demonstrated how to apply pest powder.

Am I proud of my life? No, quite simply I am ashamed, ashamed of how little I have achieved and how poor a parent I have been but more than anything I am devastated that you are the mother to two of the most perfect people in the world.

So the day came, we knew it was coming. How did you handle it? How about telling the kids that the old man hasn’t done too bad? after all you slept around and he kept at it, kept his cool and kept on paying. How about mentioning that he didn’t always use that deodorant but on that ice cream trip he had slept in the car and had no chance to change his clothes but still would have cut his arm off to see your smiles. You could mention how he paid the mortgage when he had nothing coming in, never faltered, never failed to keep a roof over you and whoever s head? How about telling them that 16 years on they can still make that grizzly old man cry and have tonight?

Nope because, and I learned this a long time ago, it is and will always be about you. So take your opportunity, enjoy the sympathy as the ‘evil’ man stops paying the mortgage on the house that he first mortgaged at 20 years of age. Yes, my mortgage was long before you because, unlike you, I know the meaning of work. Enjoy the fruits of my labour and hide any realism behind your sense of entitlement. Enjoy scaring our children because you feel it will help you extract some additional sympathy from the situation, above all never admit what you are.

Don’t give me a second thought, don’t look at the pictures of the doting father and wonder how this has affected him. Don’t for one minute think of how you have systematically poisoned the relationship he has with his children for no tangible gain. Make me into your demon and I will just plod through after all its what I am here for isn’t it? I will cling desperately to the hope that one day our children will realise that I was the good guy and that I love them and I will hope I am still here when that day comes.

 

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Questions, influence, closed doors and property

It is often assumed by my customers that I have spent a lifetime in the licensed trade, I put this assumption down to my general lack of tolerance rather than any particular talent that I display. Occasionally somebody will ask the question ‘so why are you here?’ and sometimes I realise what a difficult question that can be to answer. The question was asked yesterday and when I finished late last night the question was still in my mind when I looked at social media and found this picture.

 

This got me thinking as to who I could ‘blame’ for where I find myself today? Who are the influences in my life that led me to the freehold of the Plough? I guess that they are the people who have allowed me ‘behind the scenes’ of their businesses and, to a degree, their lives. I have always had a fascination with what happens behind closed doors, some of my ‘other’ career highlights have been the ability to enter secret locations, to walk underground tunnels and just to go where the public can’t or even when they can’t. So being part of pubs was always going to be somewhat addictive and I started at a young age! So a small roll call of those who drove me to my own pub:

• Trevor and (to a lesser degree) Pete at the holiday park – The mania that was a busy holiday park in the eighties was an eye opener for a young lad. Glass washing, cleaning and eventually serving beer in the insanity of summer was tempered delightfully by opening the damp empty bars for ‘functions’ in the off-season. Trev was simply insane and I still have fond memories of the madness that was the club.
• Terry, Carol & Woodsy at the Phoenix (hence the news clipping) – Somebody had to teach me the skills of finishing in the later early hours and then restarting a few hours later for a Sunday lunch session. Here I was taught that you are always public property in this trade, thanks for the dinners when I looked like I needed them Carol and for treating me like family. My old mate Woodsy helped to draw the showman out of the shy kid and the old man (Tel) introduced me to Underburg and the principle of always powering through except, of course, for when he nipped upstairs for a nap. I was deeply saddened when the grand old dame of the town was demolished but perhaps viability was its last lesson.
• The Ship & Shorty – For showing me that there still is a lot of love for a good pub, even a tired old one, it was a privilege to be your landlord and thank you for your support.
• Andrew and Helen at the Albion – For reminding me that we’re not here forever, for resetting my maths and for giving me the kick I needed. For every one of those mornings of driving past at silly o’clock and thinking ‘I would rather be there’, for showing me that it’s a way of life not a living and simply for reminding me that there is always a way. When I am tired I remember working with Andrew and Dave in the cellar while Helen was in the bar and Sue was in the B&B rooms and it reminds me that I can be tired because there is only one of me. Oh and of course to Andrew for being as close to a responsible adult as anybody can be in this trade.

So when you ask ‘why are you here?’ the answer is a series of odd memories, emotions and feelings. It is the image of Trev falling over with half a dozen till drawers and being so drunk that he just lay there and laughed, it is cuddling Rex the most vicious pub guard dog that I have ever met, it’s the red faces, the shouting and tantrums. It’s the feeling and smell of a sticky bar after a successful night, a pep talk from Woodsy that was always given an inch from your face at high volume. Its struggling to hold it together around the smell of beer after a heavy night, it’s the smell of sweat and condensation when you lock up after a busy night. In fact it is just that this trade is a calling and if it’s in your blood you will always return.

There are of course many more people who have supported me and continue to do so. Many of you have listened to me debate the details of business plans as I have stressed over the various potential properties and their viability. You have listened to me talk myself variously in and out of some venues and generally put up with the madness that led to me being here and I thank you all.

I am not sure if this answers the question but at least it acknowledges the trade influences that got me from 14 to now, thanks guys.

Retirement raffle – its an investment!

I have recently completed another review of the pub market from my perspective and my record remains pretty good. Every so often I review the pubs that have shown up as potentials and look at where they are against my thoughts at the time, its nice to check. Where I concluded that there was simply not enough demand to support the house they have closed, on this I remain 100% accurate. Where people have lost their way with the business and are treating the commercial sale as a residential one they remain on the market. The trouble with this approach is that the emotions associated with selling a home are not supported by the reality of the trading figures, again I am bang on target.

This time around there are a couple of quirks of the market that surprised me. One premises that has been occasionally and very cautiously marketed, I got as far as the ferry on one occasion before they changed their minds, has ceased trading. It is always sad to see a venue cease trading under any circumstances but I was surprised to see plans to extend the post office counter to become the only trading activity. The pub rescued the post office service many years ago when it couldn’t survive on its own for this to have now overtaken the pub in terms of trading viability is both astonishing and sad. I suspect that family dynamics may have held greater weight in this decision than pure economics but nonetheless its a surprise. My thoughts were that the early toe in the water would be followed by a more firm commitment to sell in the future and certainly I kept a close eye on developments.

The second venue that surprised me was an outside option whose status I am unsure about. This venue is marketed by one of those awful business selling sites that requires the DNA of your first-born before you can ‘join’ and then bombards you with irrelevant garbage, needless to say I have progressed no further than the front page. It was during my search for more information on a premises that is being sold by the owners of 4 years due to “retirement” that I discovered how they had come about the purchase. The pub was last sold via a raffle with tickets costing £20 each and the winner getting the freehold. Fair play to anybody who can take £20 and in just four years have a return on investment that allows them to retire but again I feel there is more to the story.

So what Have I learnt? Well commercially failing post offices can surpass the turnover of a well-loved local pub and that a raffle is a legitimate way of selling a pub. Before you leap to the keyboards to pen me a comment pointing out that the trade is in a dire state and I would have to be mad to buy a pub please remember, as I have said many a time, it is not a choice. Don’t bother scouring the web for the trade news that told us this was the worst New Year in the on trade to date with more people staying at home and even youngsters eschewing alcohol, I have seen it already. Even whilst reading the bad news stories my mind was ruminating on potential extensions for letting rooms. For some there is just no escaping the trade we just adapt to the difficulties and plough on.

Dust, DNA and Empathy – I need a pint

Before I start I would like to just reassure everyone that I am not having a crisis of confidence or any such silliness. This post is not a continuation on a theme, well maybe it is but it isn’t supposed to be it’s just the way the timing goes.

I happened to have 5 minutes to kill before an appointment yesterday when I was stood at a demolition site, an old sorting office I believe. The machines had removed a large part of the building and this opened a view into several offices on the top floor as well as a services room on the ground floor. Where many would see dust, noise and nuisance I saw history being dismantled.. I see this all of the time in old buildings, I don’t just see empty offices but I see generations of staff progressing through their career. I see the young man proud to have made that step from blue to white collar but still never truly feeling like he belongs ‘upstairs’. I can see the congratulations as people move on and families grow, all of the stuff that happens everywhere but will never again happen here.

In the services room I can see the education of young sparkies learning their trade, including the sweat, bruises and frustration. The big office on the left hand side with a view of the park will have been a senior one inhabited previously by both the beloved and the reviled, it comes with the territory. The building has echoes of retirees fondly recounting new plans but also those who quietly mourned their own loss of purpose. The building will have seen shifts spent wishing to be anywhere else but also shifts spent gratefully in the solace of work. The toil within this building will have funded generations of households as they struggled through lean times and enjoyed the more bountiful.

I can see the dozens of times that the “writing was on the wall” as new systems, machines or routines were introduced, each new introduction eventually becoming the favoured tradition only to be displaced by the next great idea. I know that the inevitability of closure will have led to a perverse confidence that it wouldn’t happen ensuring that there was no real preparation for the end. At the end I can see the shock and the distasteful picking over of the building and its contents. There will have been a palpable sense of loss as other parts of the business identify what they will salvage and transplant into other sites assisted by staff that are seeing out their notice.

All of this I see in a building and perhaps that is where my empathy lies although I am not sure why. It could be that as a young railwayman during privatisation, and long after, I watched the decimation of a great industrial heritage but I don’t think so. I like to think it is an Engineer’s trait, we are more tied to the buildings that we inhabit than other people because we share a physical bond. Those dirty workshop floors are not just stained with grease they are stained with the sweat and blood of us and our predecessors, we can honestly say that our DNA is in a building. The further you go back in the history of our trade the more blood, sweat, limbs and even lives were lost achieving what needed to be achieved.

It is in these buildings and their services that asbestos quietly crept into lungs before claiming years of life like some natural tax inspector. Too many substances, processes and activities to name have reduced the length or quality of the lives of those of us that just have to make and repair things, new ones keep appearing at a regular rate. So for me it is the inherent tie between Industrial Engineers and their environment, going back through the generations that breeds my empathy with old buildings.

This is not solely the plight of Engineers though, it is also the plight of many modern day publicans. There is no glamour or wealth in the licensed trade anymore, it has long since departed, but there is history in these buildings. Not text book history, not always tangible history but a history of life lived, of young becoming old, christenings and wakes and hey all of those parties had to happen somewhere. Just knowing that a building has been a social hub for generations makes it call out to me to protect it and hey if we don’t keep traditional pubs alive then one day your grandchildren will be asking what they used to be like.

Hey that could be my new pub slogan “From wetting your head to sprinkling your ashes and every event in between, we are here for you”

 

No thanks and the blame game

A young couple in the pub on Saturday night were questioning the last train home. They were not teenagers but his jeans looked like they had been attacked by a threshing machine and were 3 sizes to big. I have learnt that ridiculous looking clothing is a sure indication of “young”. Having decided that they had time for another drink they took to talking to some locals about the area and said that they were considering moving.

Apparently they lived in Chelmsford, a nearby town, and were not impressed. After glowing praise from the locals they hit the inevitable down side which is that there is no work so “if you can get to work from here”. This is another indication of age difference, we all assume that people have to work I guess you could call it senior naivety. Oh no they proclaimed “we don’t work” and went on to explain that they had 6 children and 3 grandchildren. Apparently the ‘viewing’ had involved visiting all of the pubs in town to see how they liked them.

If a single politician in this country should ever have a desire to know what is wrong, I hold out little hope, they wouldn’t go far wrong speaking to this couple. A state sponsored breeding machine who believes that they deserve to live somewhere nicer and whose priorities are the pubs! There are many reasons why it is nice where I live and one of them is that these people were only visiting.

I would also like to share with you a classic example of female logic (sorry girls). A woman got on the train today with a wheeled suitcase but it was upside down so she was dragging the case and the wheels were in free air. As she struggled with the case she didn’t once pause to look at what was causing the increased friction, she carried on cursing the case. Ladies next time you question men’s understanding of you think back to this, if an inanimate object gets blamed what hope do we have?

I have succeeded in not burning up once this weekend and only twice last week, neither associated with alcohol. I have taken to swallowing anti-histamines before visiting the pub but I think I will stop this next weekend as I am not convinced of the link. Thankfully I am seeing my doctor on Friday and not his lunatic colleague so perhaps we will make some headway.

In other news the exercising is clearly working as I have developed a small tear on lefty’s scar tethering. Because the scars grow into the muscle they are anchored to it rather than floating over the top as skin is supposed to. When the muscle works and grows it pulls at this tethering and the scar rises as it is irritated. I like to think that this is an indication of success.

Once again it has been lovely to watch my gorgeous isle as the sun nurtures trade and visitors. Watching local businesses emerging from the stark winter and discarding memories of floods. My twitter feed has been full of beautiful pictures and even sad farewells from solent crossings. I very much look forward to being a more active part of island life just as soon as I can.

Who captured who?

I had an idle interweb search yesterday, as I am inclined to do. The subject of my search was pubs that have been on the list at some point to see what has become of them.

I started with the Prince of Wales which was a lovely, if somewhat decrepit, building. The Prince was a good size property with parking, gardens and some seven bedrooms. Opposite a royal residence it was held on the remainder of an 800 year lease from the crown estate at a passing rent of £25 paid every 6 months. I rather fancied a cheque book full of stubs marked ‘HRH’ and imagine telling HMRC that you were short because you “had to pay Liz”. There were a lot of issues with the building when I viewed although the potential was clear to see.

An inquisitive finger went right through a ground floor window frame. I was also advised that one particular box seat is never removed because they receive electric shocks from it. This was a real community pub, in a less than flourishing community. When I visited with my son we really struggled to leave having made friends with customers and staff alike. One key feature that amused me was the bust stop opposite. When the school bus dropped off the children would peer in the window and some, finding their parents at the bar, would enter to collect sweet shop money! A lack of trading figures and a significant need for investment meant that my offer did not grab the attention of the PubCo disposal team and I parked it for later review. Shortly after I saw that it had sold and this was the first search to see what had become of it. The premises were purchased by a leisure group whose name is identical to one that seems intent on land banking in my beloved Sandown, not sure if they are one and the same.

The building has been refreshed and the kitchen re commissioned which shows a real investment. On top of this the accommodation has been refurbished into letting rooms each named after a royal child. The old girl looks great and it is clear that real investment has been made, I hope that this is a real future investment and not a ploy to disguise land banking. I wonder if they use the provision in their licence, by royal prerogative, that they may trade throughout the night when fishing competitions are being judged?

Turning to the next pub, the one that demonstrated the dream could be had, I had an immediate hit. The premises are back on the market for a figure that shows my previous offer to be acceptable. The Bonny, you may recall, had issues with parking which, in an area with restricted parking made the site untenable for a single operator. This is a another beautiful building a grade 2 listed former masonic hotel with, as I recall, 8 bedrooms.

When I first looked at this property I fell in love and thankfully the original owner was selling land to the rear. Apparently he had separated the plot when he sold with the intention of building on the tiny plot to the rear. I had draft plans for a small garage and parking for two cars outlined and a solicitor engaged for the conveyance. It is always difficult to purchase two plots separately when they are tied to the end plan but I figured that in the worse case I had to out the land at a later date. I think there was some conversation between the two vendors, the vendor of the land worked in the pub on Sundays, because ‘out of the blue’ I was gazumped on the land.

Some painful negotiations resulted in me offering a best and final against both packages, to be split however the vendors agreed. This presents a legal challenge in conveyancing but I agreed to fund that side of matters. It was a tough and emotive negotiation on both sides but you have to stick to your business plan and stop your heart writing cheques. The vendor chose to take the pub off the market, by this time we were mid summer season, based on the business doing well. I have seen what passes as the books and the business was far from healthy, I suspect that more family support was offered. This is what happens when emotion overtakes business, the summer is a tease that draws you into throwing more of your life and your cash at a failed dream.

Given my current situation I had no choice but to subdue my immediate urge to make an anonymous offer. I know of a parking solution fairly local that would ease the situation if not totally resolve it. I did look at the updated pictures on the agents site and they confirmed that additional family have moved in. They also showed that the trading side is still is eclectic and confused as before. I sat on my hands yesterday, I know that I cannot make a move just now. But this is a slow and difficult market, who is to say that fate has not just started the prologue to the next chapter of my story?

I know that in an odd way this has lifted a dark mood today. Try as I might the journey has been consumed with an undertone of cellar limitations, letting room conversions and bar reorganisation. Above all this is how I know I will achieve my goal, when something consumes you this much it is only a matter of time.

I remember calling Andrew from a local pub to discuss the Bonny and he remarked that I had found my pub. I remember the warmth of the building and I remember feeling at home there. Who is to say whether it us that choose the venue or the venue that chooses us. . . .

Drunk elephant wipes toilet seat with cash

I read this weekend in the Publican that Stafford police are unhappy that of the public houses they tested all were positive for cocaine. According to the some police chief this was indicative of the licensed trade’s failure to address the drugs problem and in his opinion this was why the licensed trade took up so much of the police’s resources. In case any of you have read this press release which no doubt originated in the Guardian of the Independent I thought that I should put your minds at rest. Clearly the ludicrous amount of braid and other shoulder accessories  has affected this woman’s head. It seems to be the case in most walks of life that attract shoulder candy, perhaps it has a high mercury content? Either way it is a good rule of thumb that the more rope on a person’s shoulders the less sense in their head.

But lets examine the detail of this stunning revelation and see what a normal mind makes of it. At this point can I suggest that anybody adorned by shoulder spaghetti leaves us because they wont understand a word that follows. The fact is that every pub that the Staffordshire force swab tested proved positive and that is indeed indicative of the prevalence of drugs in society. There is no routine testing, the police do not have to test you once a year like a drugs MOT these are random checks carried out when the police chose. In short these tests form one of the many justifications for police overtime. There’s a budget saving straight away, we all know that the use of drugs is widespread so stop checking. Spending money confirming this is taking money away from important matters like checking that the fridge light does indeed go off when you close the door.

There is no mention of where the swabs were taken, but it would be wise to suggest that it was toilets. For some reason people that ‘enjoy’ sniffing powder that has generally been smuggled into the country in a person’s bottom seem to like toilet seats. Given the dubious provenance of the product I guess the toilet seat compares favourably, who knows. I do, though, find it odd that the same people that chose to hover over a toilet rather than sitting on it are happy to nostril hoover it, each to their own though. Now if they had swabbed the windowsill or the pool table then they would have grounds to complain since this would indicate that there was some condoning of the activity, or would it? The truth is that these machines read miniscule amounts as a positive trace and lets face it the clever kids at school were not the ones that joined the police so there is no finesse its just positive or negative.

Are drugs consumed in public houses? without a doubt they are, they are also consumed on public transport and in restaurants. If you swab McDonalds toilet seats they will test positive, it is incredibly difficult to control what happens in toilets. Do publicans condone drug use? Of course not, no more than restaurants condone bringing your own food. It is hard enough to earn a living in a pub without your clientele finding alternative ways to enjoy their night that do not put money across your bar.

The shoulder merchant goes on to say that public houses continue to place a “big demand” on police at the weekend, particularly in terms of alcohol-related disorder. Really? You mean the police are not called out to carpet thefts and Appletise fuelled riots? Pubs sell alcohol so when they need the police alcohol is likely to be involved, I don’t hear people condemning the banks because the police deal with mostly theft-related crime.

This braided fantasist goes on to say that dealing with one drunk person can take 17 police officers. Are the police in Staffordshire gnomes? or are the public all martial arts experts? If it takes 17 police officers to deal with a drunk then the issue is clearly with the police. The only place we see 17 police officers together is at the doughnut counter, that’s 4 1/4 persons per limb was this a drunk person or a drunk elephant? It is true that the police are more likely to be called to a pub than to a florists but it is also true that for every £3 you spend in a pub nearly £1.05 is tax, the same is not true for florists and certainly not supermarkets. If you sell less beer in the pubs there is less money to pay the police, biting the hand that feeds you comes to mind.

If we follow the shoulder loon to her logical conclusion then all pubs are bad because they have found traces of cocaine in them. So obviously she wants more resource to study toilet seats in pubs, perhaps even leading to a ban on toilet seats altogether or transparent toilet walls. But I would suggest that we approach this a different way, stop swabbing toilet seats and swab bank notes. It is acknowledged that every note in circulation in the UK has traces of cocaine on it. So lets get captain shoulder bling to investigate the banks, come down hard on them because 100% of their product is contaminated with cocaine. What are the banks doing to stop their notes being used in this way? A lot less than the pubs are doing I can assure you.

Upon reflection I see a corollary here. The next time a publican is asked “can we swab your toilets” his response should be “be my guest I polished the seats and cisterns with a £20 note just before opening”.

Do me a favour please if this post makes any sense to you. Go to your local pub, not the chain but the local independent or tied house, have a pint (or even an Appletise) and tell the publican that you think he’s doing a good thing. It may not be a lot but it will make all the difference to a tired person in a vilified trade at least until I get ‘hug a publican’ day publicised.