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Trying to buy a meal in a pub!
The first pub we found on the square, The Castle Tavern, had a blackboard outside advertising an appealing menu of pub-grub, so we went in, grabbed a couple of menus, and made a quick decision. I went to the bar to order. Gill had her usual tipple, a half of dry cider, and I ordered a pint of Guinness. I admit this was a mistake. I could have ordered a half, but I like the feel of a pint glass in my hand. I like to know that following that first thirst-quenching swallow there will still be some beer left in the bottom of the glass and I won’t have to immediately turn around and queue up at the bar to order another. So I ordered a pint. Yes it was foolish, selfish even, but I didn’t realise that precious seconds would be ticking away while the barman slowly, slowly pulled that long, lingering, creamy draught.
“…and for lunch we’ll have…” I added, studying their menu.
“...Sorry, we’re not serving food”, came his dull response as he topped off the pint and placed it on the bar.
“But the blackboard outside…? It says lunches served 12 to 2, and it’s only five to, or at least it was when I came in.” It had taken so long to pull the Guinness that it was now two o’clock.
“We’ve stopped serving food.” The dead pan statement had an ultimate finality about it that no rational advocacy would ever penetrate. “You could try the pub round the corner”, he said, “The Black Lion. They serve lunches ‘til two-thirty. Turn right outside and take the second on the right, it’s called Finkle Street.”
“Ok”, I said reluctantly, “Come on Gill, we’ll go round to the next pub.” However, as we started gathering up our things the barman called out “Oi! You haven’t paid for your drinks.”
I only ordered the drinks to go with the meal. I don’t want the drinks now. What I want now is the food. What I want now is to hot-foot it round to The Black Lion to make sure I can order lunch there before they stop serving too. Shall we do a runner? Perhaps I should pay for the drinks with a flourished note and leave with dignity, an air of distain for his petty-bourgeois niceties… and no change? Should I pay for the drinks and then pour them over the bar, or over the barman? No. I don’t want to spoil the holiday by causing a scene at the outset. Reluctantly, I pay for the drinks. And once they’re paid for my own petty-bourgeois tight-fisted nature demands that they have to be drunk, whether I like it or not – which I don’t.
There is something about having to drink a pint of beer quickly that takes away all the pleasure for me. I know the youthful binge-drinkers of today think nothing of pouring litres of lager down their necks at break-neck speed so that it never even touches the sides on the way down. I wonder why those pop-pubs don’t just sell the kids a plastic funnel at the bar and then pump the lager through the sprinkler system; it would save a lot of time. Binge drinking is not for me. I like to savour a pint. I like to take my time to fully enjoy the subtle flavours, to pay proper respect to the skill of the brewer and publican, and of course to spend less money of an evening. Drinking a pint of Guinness, one that you really don’t want, at breakneck speed, is a kind of purgatory. It’s like being forced to eat up every last scrap of your inedible school-dinner before being allowed out to play. ‘Why do I drink this stuff?’ I start asking myself. It tastes horrible. Have I been fooling myself that I like it all these years? I try to take larger gulps to get it down faster, but it won’t go and it makes me choke. It hangs in my mouth like a bitter poison. So I take smaller sips, but then the level in the glass won’t go down at all. It’s regenerating itself. It’s crawling up the inside of the glass as fast as I can I drink it down. This has become a battle of principle, man against beer. It’s been paid for and it’s going to be drunk, every last drop. Somehow I can’t help but remember that around the corner at The Black Lion their clock is ticking away those precious seconds.
Meanwhile a family come into the bar.
“Are you still serving lunches?”
“No”, says the barman, (at least he’s consistent). “Try the pub round the corner. They serve lunch until two-thirty. Turn right, then second on the right.”
The family leave.
Hang on a minute, I think. We’re in the queue before them. They’re getting a head start!
A fat, elderly American couple, wearing slacks and two-tone shoes, also waddle in off the street.
“Say, can we get to eat here?”
“No mate. Try the pub round the corner. They serve lunch until two-thirty. Turn right, then second on the right.”
They leave.
A sense of bitter injustice is brewing inside me. We are going to miss out again. Those Americans are going eat all our food. There will be nothing left but scampi and soup-in-a-basket by the time we get there. Drink! Damn you! Drink! Forget the indigestion that’s brewing along with the injustice. Take no heed of the massive belch that’s threatening to force its way up from some deep resonant chamber far below the surface of the earth and erupt like a pyroclastic flow shattering eardrums and glasses across the whole of the north-east. Drink up man!
Eventually, what seems an age later, we finish our drinks and leave, but not before yet another couple, two women secreted among a forest of carrier-bags, has also come in and been redirected round the corner.
It’s not a race. I wouldn’t be as childish as that, surely not? But we were first! We thought about having a meal before they did. It’s so unfair! We were at the front of the queue and now we’re last. The legs are speeding up under me involuntarily. My stride is lengthening. These are hiker’s legs, and they walk fast. No, it’s not a race, but I feel a smug thrill of satisfaction as we overtake the American couple dawdling past the dry-cleaners, and then flash past the two women with the carrier-bags as we hurtle round the tight corner into Finkle Street in the outside lane and start to accelerate down the home straight. The family has been delayed by one of their kids looking in a shop window. The mother is trying to drag her away, like a dog owner tugging at the lead while their pup tries to cock its leg and pee up against a lamp-post. We slip past them unseen and bolt into The Black Lion, back at the front of the queue at last. Justice has been restored.
“Are you…?” That’s me speaking, while gasping for breath.
“…still serving…?” The father of the family, who has sped ahead on his own, has come in a close second.
“…food?” It’s the women with the carrier-bags rushing in to take the bronze.
We chorus the question almost in unison.
Our orders were accepted somewhat reluctantly, and on condition that we all ordered at the same time - now. There would be no pawing over menus in relaxed anticipation. I chose a steak pie, which I felt could be transferred from the freezer to the micro-wave and thence to the plate without too many opportunities for things to go wrong. To be honest it wasn’t too bad, although the last few bits of crust felt as if they might once have been attached to a leather-back turtle. At least it was short crust and not one of those ridiculous flaky pastry pie crusts that blow up like a balloon and force you to spend weeks excavating down through layer after layer of something that looks and tastes like grease-proof paper - before you can have the slightest hope of finding any morsel of meat at the bottom.
We sat in the window seat, where a brass plate advises ‘Please vacate for musicians if requested.’ This is a peculiar instruction, but I am a musician as it happens and as the space does indeed seem to have been vacated, I feel my musical talent has at long last been publicly recognised. Time for a triumphant trumpet blast, I suggest to Gill. She replies, sotto voce ‘If you fart out loud, I’m going to walk home!’ | 
