Thar she blows!
I worked in a pub when in my early twenties. I was responsible for the general maintenance of the place, no mean feat considering the majority of the building was constructed in the 14th Century. Certain aspects had been built on top of it, certain elements created in dug-out underground areas surrounding the access to the natural sandstone caves that formed the cellars, amongst other things, these included the toilets.

Unfortunately, these were limited in terms of size. In recent years, they have grown thanks to the excavation of additional areas under the main bar, but the gents had one cubicle. Sometime over Christmas 2001 someone decided to smash the toilet bowl, causing the water to spill out over the floor. This I could have coped with in itself, but before it came to our attention, more than one person discovered the lack of facilities suited to their requirements and opted to crap into the thigh-height urinal tray. Over the space of a busy Saturday afternoon, a combination of fecal matter, urine, paper hand towels and cigarette ends caused this to become completely blocked up and people just kept using it without saying a fucking word to us.

Once we were alerted, the water that flushed into the tray every twenty minutes, ironically for hygiene purposes, was causing the cocktail of detrius to spill the contents of the tray out onto the floor and was only reported because someone was unhappy about it getting on their shoes....

Either way, we had a mess that needed to be cleaned up and dealt with. I donned my arm length rubber gloves, overalls and grabbed a screwdriver which which to lever up the grill that was in place, with the intention of letting it all flow down the drain. Unfortunately this also became blocked.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a plunger to deal with it properly, so I left instructions to the young lad I was training to stand at the door and make sure that people used the disabled toilet instead, so I could run a mile down the road to get to Wilkinsons, get the required tool, get back and get the matter dealt with.

Unfortunately my twat of a boss had other ideas. He knew that commercial drain unblockers used a jet of pressurised water to clear blockages and sent the trainee into the cellar to get the pressure washer. He hooked it up, turned it on, put the nozzle into the drain and pressed the trigger. From what I was told, a few seconds passed before the pressure had built up sufficiently to cause the faecal cocktail to spray back, coating him from head to toe.

To be fair, it did clear the blockage.... unfortunately it took a while longer than expected to clean and sort the place out.
( Muns, Thu 2 Feb 2012, 13:52, 5 replies)

hang on, what's the name of this pub?

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Thu 2 Feb 2012, 14:10, closed)

Name redacted to protect a nice pubs reputation.
Former Clientelle?
( Muns, Thu 2 Feb 2012, 14:50, closed)

Sandstone caves?
Could have sworn that would have been the Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem in Nottingham.
(The Luggage is haunted..., Thu 2 Feb 2012, 16:44, closed)

Quite a few of them have
Salutation, Royal Children, the Bell Inn, the Hole in the Wall. I actually used to maintain the trips cellars too on occassion, they were dry sandstone though which made life a lot easier. The Bell's were soaking wet after they built the hotel on Maid Marian Way and they burst an underground stream during the construction. The Sals are much the same as the Bells.
( Muns, Thu 2 Feb 2012, 19:14, closed)

that's the one i was thinking of.

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Thu 2 Feb 2012, 19:21, closed)