Xmas cheer
Shameless re-post thanks to Wanderlust's post below:

Maybe I’ve always been a grumpy old man, maybe life has forced me into this role.

In 1991 I was bar supervisor (wow) at a Toby Grill in Yorkshireland. It was a stop-gap job until something better came along; we’d only moved up north recently and we needed the cash. After four months, the pressure was beginning to tell, I had a wife and a 4-year old daughter and worked most evenings and every weekend. The busiest times were bank holidays and fireworks night. The regulars were all wankers in the way that only regular drinkers at a Toby Grill in Yorkshire can be.

Christmas was coming and the punters were getting pissed. We had muzak on a looped tape that was playing the usual Xmas fare: fucking Slade etc. I’d been on since 11am with a couple of hours break in the afternoon and it was now quarter past 11 and I wanted the punters to go home, when the all-too-familiar strains of ‘Mull of frigging Kintyre’ came on for the fifth time that session. Now, some of you might not know the song (you lucky, lucky bastards), some of you may fondly remember it as part of the backdrop of your youthful Xmases, as for me, I was a punk in 1977, and hearing that bagpipe-a-sing-a-long-shite virtually non-stop over Christmas/New Year 1977/78 was HELL for me and all my friends. It is my single most hated song in the world. Ever.

So I ran to the tape machine and hit the stop button. Silence for maybe a second, then chief regular’s dolled-up pissed-up wife at the bar shouts “Oi, what happened to the music, I was enjoying that.”

“Well,” I said, remaining very calm, “it’s well after 11 and I’m afraid to say that I can’t take this music any more tonight, so it’s staying off.” As I said, calm – don’t forget, I was sober as I had to drive home after work and I was tired, having been working and on my feet for most of the past 12 hours. They were all very pissed and ‘jolly’. The punters started shouting at me to put the fucking music back on, I politely declined whilst busily shoving dirty glasses through the machine and scrubbing out ashtrays. Then, the manageress came out of her office.

“Oi, Pat, Che’s turned the music off and won’t put it back on!” shrieked the woman. Pat glared at me and immediately went and put the music back on. I walked around the bar, grabbed a pool cue from the rack, came back around behind the bar and beat the tape machine to scrap and kicking the bits the entire length of the bar.







…well, no, I didn’t. I stormed out the back and smoked two fags. Came back in when the music had stopped.


I was still working there the following year at Bonfire Night.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:22, 6 replies)

Impotent rage

There's a few customers I had when a pint jockey that I'd love to have done that to.

Alas, I'm weedy and a pacifist (read: coward), so have always been highly unlikely to actually act on such instincts.
( Moey, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:28, closed)

Hey Gunter
How's it going without the fags?
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:47, closed)

Much better today, as it happens.
Think I was just having a bit of a shit day yesterday and looked at not smoking as an excuse.

Just have to get through the weekend without drinking and I'll be fine.

How about you?
( Moey, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:53, closed)

Oh, yes.
I've worked in pubs like that, where the regulars think that because they're there every bloody night they somehow rise above the law.

And you manager will always side with them.

Gits.

*clickity*
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:55, closed)

...
I hate mull of kintyre too. *clicks like a mong with custard*
(twiceydrinker hmmm is it pint time?, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 14:25, closed)

^^Gunther
Yay for giving up fags! I've lasted 4 weeks so far.
( The Light in Chains don't touch the Pope's boner, Sat 6 Sep 2008, 16:20, closed)