It is an immutable law of the universe that if you go into any pub or bar, at any time of the day, there will be a Scotsman in there. He may only be drinking coffee, but he will be there. I’m not sure if it’s different Scotsmen or one legendary man who has the ability to be in all bars at all times; destined to wander the planet for ever sometimes sober, sometimes not, striking up unintelligible conversations with the unwary.
One such being was in the Wetherspoon’s in Chichester this morning. We had gone over so I could visit my chiropractor, John, to sort my back out. Once he has used ultrasound on the affected area and manipulated my spine like some piece of origami paper, we wandered along to said establishment for a coffee and some breakfast. Sat next to us was a gentleman who had purchased himself 2 pints of beer and had settled down to read the paper. It was ten past nine in the morning! Shortly, he was joined by the ubiquitous Scotsman and they chatted for some considerable time. Looking around I noticed many people enjoying their breakfast and among them many enjoying their liquid, alcoholic breakfast. Now I’m partial to a pint or 3 but at 9 o’clock in the morning?! This is a phenomenon I have noticed previously. In my previous job we would wander over to the local Wetherspoon’s for breakfast at weekends when the canteen was shut. We’d go in about 8 am but already there were people in there waiting for 9 o’clock when beer would be served. This happened on Saturday and Sunday and it was always the same people. Talking to the staff we discovered that there were 3 distinct sets of regulars; those that were in before 9am and stayed until about 1 pm, those who came in about 11am and stayed until about 5pm, and finally those who came in about 4 pm until closing time.
On one occasion 4 of us had gone in for breakfast one Sunday morning and had chosen a table near the front windows. We were sitting eating when an old man came in, dressed in a suit, and carrying several carrier bags full of cigarettes. The pub is large and there weren’t many people in, but he made a point of sitting at the table right next to us, making sure his chair was right up against our table. He muttered a lot. I don’t know whether he was Scottish, but when he talked to the other regulars he was certainly unintelligible to us. This may have meant he was just a drunk South London local of course. When we got up to leave, he immediately moved, with a speed which belied his age, into one of our vacated seats. One of the guys was still in the act of standing. We must have committed the cardinal sin of occupying ‘his’ table, the one where he carried out his, presumably illegal, cigarette dealing.
It makes you think how easy it could have been to end up like our itinerant tobacco salesman. What brought him to this way of life and could it have been different? I like pubs, not the ones which seem prevalent today which are just filling stations for youngsters, but real ones which act as social centres, where people meet up and enjoy the company. These are rare now, most having been turned into gastro pubs or worse just to make a living. If I won the lottery I’d think about buying one and making it just the sort of place I like to drink in.
Maybe I’d call it ‘The Ubiquitous Scotsman’ and have my own tartan.
No comments:
Post a Comment