Tuesday 13 March 2012

Exciting News, (and Cat Flu)

I have been laid up for the last few days with what I am ever more certain has been a dose of Malcolm Flu.  It's just like bird flu or swine flu but much more current and trendy. The lovable little monkey has this habit of licking and biting my face while I'm asleep, so much so that I'm actively growing my beard and moustache just to act as a kind of mouth-guard from him. Perhaps I need to erect a wall around the bed. The fact that I have invented a new kind of flu has made me feel so hip and fashionable, that despite being laid up for almost a week, I have been trying to infect everybody around me in the hope that it goes viral. 

Is that the sound of a distant tumbleweed, I can hear ?

Anyhow, being sober for five days has made me realize how much is going on in the coming weeks and months and just how much work I have to do away from behind the bar.
Firstly is the Bristol Beer Festival this weekend, and the announcement of the local district Pub Of The Year Award. Two Bristol pubs are nominated (3Tuns, 7Stars) and three Somerset pubs also (Hunters Lodge Priddy, Plough at Conglesbury and I think the Crown at Churchill.) Having not visited any of the country pubs recently I can't offer any qualified opinion as to the outcome, but I won't let my ignorance hold me back from predicting that the Three Tuns will triumph this year. I don't like big beer festivals much but I do need to show my face really, so I'll pop along to the trade session. Thanks to Camra for sending me the invite.

April is CAMRA community pubs month, and we have two exciting events scheduled for this time. First is the launch of Bristol's Tiniest Record Fair (and swap). This will begin at 10am on Saturday 7th April, and hopefully continue at the same time on the 1st Saturday of every month. 

The second event is the return of the twice yearly Bag of Nails Beer Festival. It's going to be called (unless we come up with a better name) the Festive 30, Cask Ale Festival, (A Bacchanalia of Beer.) So called because we're going to try to get through 30 firkins and pins of ale in one very long weekend. The start date is Thursday the 12th of April and it will go through to Monday the 16th of April. Quite a challenge and a lot of organising is ahead, but I'm very much looking forward to it.

Many more details to come as we think of them.


And more. The Formula One season starts soon, and although Evil Murdoch has bought the rights to it, I have been investigating LEGAL ways to watch the races live and avoid giving him any money. If we accomplish this, we'll watch it in the upstairs room, so normal Sunday afternoon drinkers will not be disturbed. (Most people do not want to listen to 26 wasps on amphetamines with rockets shoved up their little arses fly in circles for two hours on a Sunday.) 

Tuesday 6 March 2012

Twat.

Tonight, some bloke took a swing at me for no other reason then I told him to get out of the pub.
It was 11.30pm, and he hadn't even been drinking in the pub in the first place. He just came in after closing time to boringly and repeatedly tell me (again) to get a half curtain to cover the front window. A few weeks ago, he had drunkenly wasted ten minutes of my life telling me why my pub is so quiet, (Even though it isn't that quiet) is because there is no curtain and he can't have a naughty drink at lunchtime because he might be seen by his employer. So he came in again, and I was told me this again.
The funny thing is that he also told me that he only drinks shite lager, so he wouldn't want to drink in here anyway. (If you hadn't guessed already, we don't sell shite lager.) After five minutes I got bored of his drunken and selfish rant and restarted the conversation I was having with two students who live across the road. This drunk didn't like being ignored and called us 'fucking hippies' and said he was going to leave. He didn't leave, but said it again. And again. I was still behind the bar and asked him to go. He didn't so I asked him again, and went to the doorway, where he was standing. I asked him to get out, and when he didn't, I shouted at him to get out. Then out of nowhere the arsehole took a swing at me. I ducked, it missed, and then I tried to manhandle him out of the door. Josh, one of the students helped me, and we bundled him out. On the pavement, his legs gave way and he fell to the floor, I think that Josh might have fallen on top of him, because the drunk had a bleeding nose when he got up.

But when he did then was to top his twattiness. He started screaming assault, and called the police. We didn't hit him in any way. We just forced him out of the pub after he had refused to leave and tried to assault me. So after a very boring hour, involving five officers and three squad cars, It was decided that no assault had really happened and I was supposed to go out and talk to him and shake his hand and move on. I really should have done that, but before shaking his hand and moving on I wanted to ask him why he had tried to hit me. He flatly denied this, even though it was witnessed by everybody else in the pub. Another five minute rant/argument ensued, and when the police told him that he wasn't going to arrest anybody, he decided to stick his finger up at the police and stormed off.

Sorry for the long rant, but I am just surprised at what total knobs some people get when they are a bit drunk. By trying to whack me, and then calling the police for my arrest, he has catapulted himself into a whole new level of twattiness. I have a picture of him and I think that it's only fair and just to inform all of the other landlords and landlady's in the area, what a complete prick he is, lest he try to twat any other bar staff.

Some people really shouldn't get drunk ever. Only yesterday, a bloke with mental health issues came in asking why I wasn't going to serve him. The reason is that he's an unpredictable mentalist, but I was diplomatic and gave another reason. His response, 'Are you not serving me because I'm ugly ?' (Last Friday when I told him that I wasn't going to serve him, his response was to start a rant about Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull for five minutes. This time he called me a wanker and told me that my pub was shit and going to fail. My obvious response was, 'why do you want a drink in here anyway if you think my pub is shit ?' He did apologise for calling me a wanker, just before we finally threw him out.
What is it about Hotwells and crazy people living here?