Pub review
They say:
"DO NOT go into this pub if you are not from Bridgwater you're NOT welcome." --Brian Jeffries
1/5
I say:
“Have you been here before?” asks the barmaid. I don’t think I was expected. The only other times I hear that question are in London restaurants shortly before they explain the ‘concept’ of their menu. “I’ll introduce you around!” offers a woman sat behind me. She is joking. I am relieved. The intrigued barmaid, other patrons and I make 7 in total so it wouldn’t have taken long for the meet and greet. I am allowed to retreat with my pint to the back of the bar. I sit under a long-stopped grandfather clock. My presence in the bar has, regrettably, caused the barmaid to start up the sound system and turn on the TV in case I want to watch the sport. Neither drowns out the lively debate at the bar which is on the rights or wrongs of racism. One of the locals comes over to catch the end of the cricket on TV. He talks about the Bangalore vs Hyderabad game that is drawing to a close. He segues to football and commercialisation and I respond to his points, raise points of my own and at no point in time ever feel like I am in a conversation. I’d be the first to admit that my social skills lack intuition and finesse but I don’t shout into a cave and call that interaction. There are shades of a great old pub in here. The shards of a lost identity. A dark wood bar carved by a craftsman faces textured wallpaper painted a colour best described as tobacco-stained magnolia. Original bay windows evoke an original pub, someone’s front room given over to a nascent indoor drinking industry. The lady who offered to introduce me is telling her friends how relieved she is to be getting her driving license back soon. One of them asks why she lost it. “Because, right, the police pull me overrrr and arsk me ‘do you know why we pulled you over?’ “I say ‘cause I’m drunk’, they say ‘because you haven’t got your lights on’”. I shouldn’t laugh but everyone is and it’s funny. The laughter passes and I’m a voyeur again. I envy their familiarity, this is their front room, they recline in the splendour of their comfort. My somewhat involuntary eavesdropping tells me that their relationships haven’t lasted though and I think about my own and how I don’t know what to do. Fix the roof while the sun is shining I tell her but our roof will always have a hole.
A man whom I take to be the landlord makes a point of greeting me as he comes into the bar. I must be truly anomalous in here. I like it in a contradictory kind of way. To stand out but be invisible, not part of the furniture but dissolved into it. Thunderstruck comes on. I smile broadly at debauched memories and I’m free of troubles for 4 minutes and 53 seconds. As I make to leave the landlord notices and ambushes me from behind the bar. A bald, lean man in his 40s I get a covid complaint fist bump and his name. He draws my attention to a sign advertising the live music and other entertainment on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. His cheery tone can’t mask the desperation in his voice. And the excited hope that an unfamiliar face has brought. Maybe a new regular?, maybe he’ll tell his friends and they'll come too, maybe I’ll make something of this place! But I won’t tell my friends because I don’t have any friends, not here anyway. I tell him that I’m not in town past Thursdays but still he points at the sign, hope triumphing over expectation again. I wish him the best, I truly do, but I can’t save this place and neither can he.
2/5 --
They say:
"DO NOT go into this pub if you are not from Bridgwater you're NOT welcome." --Brian Jeffries
1/5
I say:
“Have you been here before?” asks the barmaid. I don’t think I was expected. The only other times I hear that question are in London restaurants shortly before they explain the ‘concept’ of their menu. “I’ll introduce you around!” offers a woman sat behind me. She is joking. I am relieved. The intrigued barmaid, other patrons and I make 7 in total so it wouldn’t have taken long for the meet and greet. I am allowed to retreat with my pint to the back of the bar. I sit under a long-stopped grandfather clock. My presence in the bar has, regrettably, caused the barmaid to start up the sound system and turn on the TV in case I want to watch the sport. Neither drowns out the lively debate at the bar which is on the rights or wrongs of racism. One of the locals comes over to catch the end of the cricket on TV. He talks about the Bangalore vs Hyderabad game that is drawing to a close. He segues to football and commercialisation and I respond to his points, raise points of my own and at no point in time ever feel like I am in a conversation. I’d be the first to admit that my social skills lack intuition and finesse but I don’t shout into a cave and call that interaction. There are shades of a great old pub in here. The shards of a lost identity. A dark wood bar carved by a craftsman faces textured wallpaper painted a colour best described as tobacco-stained magnolia. Original bay windows evoke an original pub, someone’s front room given over to a nascent indoor drinking industry. The lady who offered to introduce me is telling her friends how relieved she is to be getting her driving license back soon. One of them asks why she lost it. “Because, right, the police pull me overrrr and arsk me ‘do you know why we pulled you over?’ “I say ‘cause I’m drunk’, they say ‘because you haven’t got your lights on’”. I shouldn’t laugh but everyone is and it’s funny. The laughter passes and I’m a voyeur again. I envy their familiarity, this is their front room, they recline in the splendour of their comfort. My somewhat involuntary eavesdropping tells me that their relationships haven’t lasted though and I think about my own and how I don’t know what to do. Fix the roof while the sun is shining I tell her but our roof will always have a hole.
A man whom I take to be the landlord makes a point of greeting me as he comes into the bar. I must be truly anomalous in here. I like it in a contradictory kind of way. To stand out but be invisible, not part of the furniture but dissolved into it. Thunderstruck comes on. I smile broadly at debauched memories and I’m free of troubles for 4 minutes and 53 seconds. As I make to leave the landlord notices and ambushes me from behind the bar. A bald, lean man in his 40s I get a covid complaint fist bump and his name. He draws my attention to a sign advertising the live music and other entertainment on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. His cheery tone can’t mask the desperation in his voice. And the excited hope that an unfamiliar face has brought. Maybe a new regular?, maybe he’ll tell his friends and they'll come too, maybe I’ll make something of this place! But I won’t tell my friends because I don’t have any friends, not here anyway. I tell him that I’m not in town past Thursdays but still he points at the sign, hope triumphing over expectation again. I wish him the best, I truly do, but I can’t save this place and neither can he.
2/5 --
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