WORST OF FERNSY

Tied to a lamppost in Sydney Street, Belgian Syd, for that was his name, was braving the elements not out of any sense of desire so to do, but out of a spirit of public service - after all, his mates had reminded him, it was his stag night three hours ago, and the LSD wouldn't wear off until he had safely signed up for a divorce within the next ten years. In the background Def Leppard pealed through the hospital grounds as Sister Overall Traceypot-Jenkyns reacted with fury on hearing that three inmates had checked themselves out to go and play golf at Carnoustie. It was to be a busy day all that afternoon, with people coming and going in their hundreds of thousands in front of the acid-fuelled Syd, who could just make out the sight of a policeman not so very far away. One look down told him why the copper was headed cautiously for him. The lack of clothes-where-there-should-have-been-clothes and the unreassuringly flaccid todger were only just visible below the developing beer-gut. He didn't look like a prospective bridegroom, and, let's face it, he thought to himself as his mind zoomed off at another tangent, he wasn't going to convince anyone...

Interesting Fernsy Stories, no.94:

The Forcible Ejection


I had been watching A Knight's Tale. Early in that film, a naked and dejected Geoffrey Chaucer mentions he has taken an "involuntary vow of poverty". Yesterday, I took an involuntary vow of temperance, but after I had relieved myself of the entrance fee and a round of drinks in an after-hours drinking club in Brighton that shall remain, happily for it, nameless.

I had been to a pub quiz. At that pub quiz, I had met an alcoholic friend of mine, whom I hadn't seen for some time. Now, I am not one to believe that the only answer to alcoholism is to be found in the sort of rehab clinic into which Jack Osbourne has just checked. Addressing the psychological issues behind excessive drinking can, and does, work and enable the alcohol-enthusiast to continue his hobby without being possessed by it. I'm not even going to issue a disclaimer at this point; if you regard what I say as a dangerous philosophy, subversive of all you hold dear, if you indeed have been through rehab and regard it as the best thing that has ever happened to you and never to be questioned, in the turquoise or yellow order of things, you are possibly right; but I still think you are thinking with too much blue.

You have already gathered there are few punches I pull.

So, in my continuing quest to get to the bottom of this man's downward spiral, to find out why someone of that intelligence finds himself in such a dismal position, I position myself on the next barstool in the Lord Nelson, where I have just attended a Dave Potter Quiz Night with the usual suspects. Now this chap, whom we shall refer to as Drinkall, can still pronounce his consonants, even if he cannot remember where we are. After a brief conversation and a pint, (and, you, dear reader, are thinking "So have I joye or blis, This is a long preamble of a tale!"), we wander off to the club whither I know he will head whether I accompany him, argue with him or abandon him. It is a short distance away, and when we arrive the tall, thin doorman greets him by name, and readily accepts the two-pounds-per-head entrance fee. For this aspect, we have gone Dutch.

Inside, as he doesn't reach for his wallet, stoic sufferance gets the better of me, and I use my extremely-limited resources to buy the first round. Annoyed by the fact that the only real ale, Harvey's, is off, I console myself with the thought of the chemical mush that is John Smith's - at least it contains alcohol, and at £2.40(!) is the cheapest beer on offer. What the barman produces is a Pilsner Urquell glass, which I haven't seen since the days of Prague; its distinctive shape enhances the head.

It looks a short pint.

"Can I have a top-up in there, please?"

"No, the line's there," the barman replies, pointing to a line slightly above the level of the foam.

"Isn't that a bit pedantic?" I rejoin. He's undoubtedly right, of course, but for £4.40, I think I deserve better service.

"No." Of course he's right, and I am left with a slightly-wounded ego, but the knowledge that there is justice in the exchange; I'll make it up to him; I'll be extra nice to him from now on - he's probably having a hard time of it. The bar is hardly doing a roaring trade, and the fact that they have cut the number of real ales to one probably indicates a balance sheet which is poorly at best, and this, given the usual course of things, has probably been communicated in no uncertain terms to the workforce by a management who are almost certainly myopic. Fuck it. I'm here to drink. Anyway, I'm going to enjoy quaffing from a real Pilsner glass again, even if it contains this nasty muck.

My dipsologically-enhanced friend thinks an injustice has been done me, and prolongs the conversation, but his heart isn't in it either - I mean, if I'm there to drink, he's there to clear their stocks. The matter drops, and I take a preliminary sip of the beer as I prepare to decamp for more conversation. This evening, my friend's garrulity is being quenched. He's in listening mode, even if the quality of his responses might leave a couple of things to be desired...

The barman, however, has other ideas and decides that what he needs to do is lecture my mate on how he is right. The subject has already been dropped as far as I am concerned, but now this is utterly dreadful service. I shut him up with a swift "Oi!" as a prelude to a more gentle, "please don't talk to my friend in that manner - the subject has been dropped." However, as the kerfuffle of activity behind me begins to reveal its nature and two hands clasp wordlessly around my waist, I never get there. It is a strangely calm experience; I am wise enough to know that struggling will result in a tighter hold. The Custodian of the Portal has made his decision, and I am being parted from the bar and my beer. As I lie supine on the pavement, attempting to reposition the energy distribution in my body to enable me to get to my feet, I am pleading the case of my partner-in-innocence; "No, don't eject him," I'm saying - I don't want to be the cause of someone else getting the boot;

 this, alas, is to no avail. In slightly more vertical fashion, he joins me on the pavement, and the door to the drink closes on us.

The doorman is to have his moment of pride; my dignity is beyond recall. In for a penny, in for a pound. "You'd better fuck off home," he says, opening the door a moment later.

I have no intentions of doing so. "Now this is the pavement. I can do what I like here."

"Yeah, and it's still the pavement when I take off my badge." As a threat, it ranks somewhere alongside "Come and play with the Tweenies." He closes the door. The whole incident, financial losses notwithstanding, is beginning to amuse me. Briefly referring to the doorman as a dickhead, I go to Plan 'B' a few seconds later. Conversation for conversation's sake. Let's really call his bluff.

"'Scuse me, mate, but can we at least have our pints, you know, in a plastic glass or something?"

"Ah, I'm a dickhead, remember?"

"Well, we're all dickheads, mate." Fuckwit - now I know he can hear me! Oh well. I have been weighed, measured and found wanting. More conversation on the events of the immediate past ensues outside. I shouldn't have called him a dickhead - he's just doing his job; he has made a mistake, an honest mistake. I'll laugh about it in the morning - hell - I'm laughing about it now - all this I repeat to my partner-in-ousting. Two patrons emerge from the bar, and as they come past you can see the fear on their faces; they hate us, for we have been controversial, and that should never happen. I feel vaguely sad for them. Then I look down at my leather jacket, a gift from an Ethiopian friend of mine. The stitching is ripped, the pocket flapping in the breeze - that must have happened as I slid along the pavement, a destination I knew was mine, for it was always his intention to leave me legless; his version of an ironic comment on my frustrated ambition, perhaps?

The devastation to a highly-prized gift rips at my mood. I'd rather it have been stolen intact than torn; nothing else could effectively wound me, but I had vowed to take good care of this coat. It is this that brings a soft tear of melancholy. My voice is quiet, disappointed. The doorman shouts loudly inside to someone else, "He's crying now." He isn't - he's laughing as he says that. A customer arrives and he greets him with enough effusiveness and sycophancy to suggest the new arrival is Richard Branson or Prince Charles. It is extraordinary, but in all my battles this evening, I have tasted defeat, and the only one which means anything to me is the failure of my stewardship over this coat. A way to my weakness has been found, and publicly. I bid my mate a sad farewell; but in the middle of that, the utter absurdity of the evening breaks on me, and the last sound the barman hears from me is barely-controlled laughter. The last sounds I hear from the door as I trudge wearily away is the exasperated doorperson assuring my abstaining-partner, "NO! You're not coming back in!!"

I smile: perhaps I won the exchange after all...

Monday 25th February