He's a big fucker this boy. Tall but not broad. The worst kind...

Wiry muscles are always under greater strain when stretched over so long a frame. If he kicks off he'll thrash wildly like a demonic flaying machine been designed by a medieval torturers assistant in an attempt to impress the boss.

He's also Irish... This always means the extra added bonus of street fighting techniques only the scummyist people learn. And learn fast... There is no mercy for the weak in the concrete jungle of the inner cities and the kid who doesn't figure out that the main point in a street fight is to make sure you whack the bastard attacking you into the ground before he does the same to you doesn't get to grow up and have kids.

He's been drinking heavily all day, chasing Guinness down his throat with whisky and water. The sure sign of a hardened drinker. Guinness on it's own is bad enough in the wrong hands but those who drink double whiskies to keep it company are often skittish, volatile and unpredictable from one second to the next.

He is talking to me. Or attempting to anyway.

The words are slurred but the eyes are sharp. He's drunk but edgy. There is a strange brown sludge covering the hand he is offering me in a gesture of friendliness. I consider the possibility that it is his own faecal matter and decide the consequences of not shaking his hand may well be him taking umbrage and lashing out at me. I shake his hand and quickly empty one of the drip trays into the sink so I have an excuse to wash my hands as soon as possible and hope he doesn't think I am washing my hand because I shook his hand and think it's dirty in some way. The outcome of this could also be him taking umbrage and lashing out but it's fine and he continues his slurred speech.

An old trick used by barmen the world over is listening without actually listening. I practise the discipline, and believe me there are wise, bald monks in temples who cannot do it, for the next hour. He finally succumbs to the inevitable: The bar closing; and sinks the remainder of his pint. his hand is offered again but tbis time he has decided I am worthy of a friendly hug. I give him a hug hard enough to show him I am on his side, but won't be pushed, and he nods his head and gives me a look to show he knows the score...

We are kindred spirits. Brothers in arms. Fellow soldiers in the War between Us and Them.

"Politics is the art of controlling your environment" Hunter S Thompson.

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Now playing: Oasis - Cigarettes & Alcohol

My new work...

Having been sacked once before for blogging...

I know it's a rocky road to write about anything work related as it could mean I end up getting shitcanned for voicing my opinion on anything to do with my new job. This, however is no longer a worry as I was one of the two people responsible for the wording of the blogging policy. The general gist of it is as follows...

"Write whatever you want, just don't name names."

So from here onwards anything to do with my work will contain veiled references to people I work with.

We had our opening night on Saturday with a private function for friends and family and all went smoothly. A good time was had by all and there was no drama. The new crew are a good bunch of people to work with and I can see myself settling in nicely. Some of them are old friends and some are new people to me but they all seemed perfectly reasonable and able to do the job.

First off there's The Big Boss Lady who is a very old friend of mine from way back in the mists of time and her hubby, who shall be referred to as Man Mountain, who are the owners of the place.

Next on the list of staff is The Lovely Gee who is a great laugh and who is the sister of the BBL.

Up next is Dexy's, or alternatively The Midnight Runner, who is a workmate from a previous place of employment for me.

Next in line is Tomb Raider. (A sweet young woman who will be irreversibly corrupted by me within a month or so of her working with me on a regular basis.)

The other member of staff, and whom I am yet to meet and therefor does not have a nickname, will be known as T'other One until I get to meet her and see what she's like.

Memories from an old work place...

Ahh, those were the days... Days filled with witty banter that would make Oscar Wilde chuckle gaily into his handkerchief and order a round of sherry for the whole bar whilst the well to do crowd sat ribalded and enthralled by tales of charm so sweet an... Nope, fuck it, I can't keep typing this without laughing at the imagery so hard it hurts my kidneys.

Anyway, to get you up to speed on the trials of life as experienced by yours truly I've quit my job and have a couple of days off until I begin work at a new place.

The old place was, to be perfectly blunt, a breeding ground for bigots, bawheads and belligerent old bastards that was slowly driving me insane. The new place however is under new management and is the dream of a dear friend of mine who is stupid enough, Oops, I mean willing enough to hire me as a manager.

In other news...

I'm now a reviewer for an international news agency and as such will be working during the festival fringe reviewing comedy shows and judging acts for contention in an international comedy award. Anyone know a good pseudonym?

It was small mercys...

that kept me going at work in the last few weeks.

Small Mercy's like a wireless connection to the Internet which allowed me to escape from the miserable surrounds, even more miserable decor, and still more depressing customers whenever the doom and gloom got to me and I felt like walking out.

The other way of escaping I found was the jukebox. Which, despite being mostly populated with the latest dance chartoppers, golden oldies, seventies music and the eighties big-hair-and-make-up shit that was dull then and is even duller now, actually managed to keep me sane.

Top tunes these last few weeks have therefor been as follows...

Jeff Buckley - Lilac Wine.
Peter Gabriel - Biko.
Madness - Our House.
Queen - Killer Queen.
David Bowie - Starman.
Pink Floyd - Wish you were here.

Judging by the first question I'm most often asked...

When standing behind the bar at work, I'd say that the people who frequent the place are more often than not brainless idiots...

It's been about three weeks since I started my new job and without fail whenever a new face (new to me anyway) comes in the most popular question is "What football team do you support?"[1] To me this suggests one of two things. Either A.) They are brain-dead. Or B.) They are mindless idiots who measure a man, not by his deeds or his actions, but by which colour the overpaid Prima Donnas kick an inflated pigs bladder around a field he supports wears.[2]

Both of these things are not good. Not good in the extreme if you ask me. I mean what kind of retard judges a man based solely on the football team he supports? Yes, you got it, the kind that likes to drink heavily, watch football and beats the shit out his girlfriend on a regular basis. In other words, my customers.

Seriously, what is the mindset of someone who will come to a judgement on someone based on whether or not he follows the fortunes of the same football team as he supports? To me that's as moronic as it can possibly get. It's akin to judging someone by the amount of sugar they take in their tea, if they prefer cheese or pickle on their sandwiches or whether they like cheese flavoured Doritos or cool original flavoured.

So what, I hear you ask, is my answer?

Well, I don't support a football team because football is as interesting to me as shoving a cocktail umbrella into the urethra of my penis and seeing if I can open it. In other words, it's not high on my list of things to do. In fact I would say that shoving a cocktail umbrella into my urethra is way above joining the herds of football fans on the planet because I don't want to lower my intelligence to that of a retarded monkey who suffers from down syndrome.

[1] Football as in Soccer.
[2] I've come to the conclusion it's a combination of both.

Tonight I learned...

That no matter how hard you wish and plead to the fairies, or kiss a lucky cloverleaf, or click your heels together and recite "There's no place like home... There's no place like home... There's no place like home..." or pray to the very Gods themselves... You cannot transport yourself through the sub ether (Or whatever the correct terminology is) and materialise on a beach in Mozambique.

This was not an easy thing to accept at the time, as I was standing behind a bar trying not to scream in someones face "YOU'RE AS INTERESTING AS A SECOND HAND TEABAG! GET OUT MY SIGHT BEFORE I STAB YOU IN THE HEAD WITH A PEN!", so I focused my concentration and tried for somewhere closer to home... Specifically, Wales.

Don't ask why my mind chose Wales, because I don't know. Of all the places I could have chosen that are closer to my house than Mozambique, which is six thousand and forty three miles away, at the time Wales seemed as good a place as any. Despite the fact that to my knowledge most of Wales is as interesting as watching flies fuck.

After at least a minute of focused concentration I gave in and tried for somewhere even closer to home. More precisely, home itself. The place that, technically, should be the easiest of all. After another couple of minutes of intense and focused concentration I opened my eyes to find that I was still standing in a dive of a bar, in a crappy suburb of an even shittier city.

To my utter surprise the person, whose face I was attempting not to scream at, was still standing in front of me talking away about the most mundane thing ever to have breath wasted on.

"Hello..." I said. "Anyone home?"
"Eh?" Came the monosyllabic response.
"I was just wondering if you were planning on noticing that I'm as interested in this conversation as I am in sampling chocolate covered dog shit." I said, praying that the person to whom I was speaking would chalk it up to humour and not punch me in the face.

The gimp laughed and continued uninterrupted, due to me being busy attempting to make their heart grind to a scrunching, and hopefully very very, painful halt. Once more I was confounded by the powers that be and the person did not seize their chest and die in abject agony.

"Look, sorry, don't take this the wrong way will you but this whole conversation is the mental equivalent of sweetcorn. It's only purpose is to waste my energy." I stated. Making damn sure that the look in my eyes, and on my face, conveyed my heartfelt sincerity on the matter. Jackie Braindead, however, was having none of it. And continued.

For the next five minutes or so I focused all my energy onto making my head go thermonuclear and explode, hopefully taking out as many of these idiotic people as possible. Call it a Smart Bomb... Yet again I was unsuccessful. Though to be fair I did have quite a good headache which may either be ascribed to the concentration level or the annoying sound of their voice, and promised myself that I would try harder next time.

Then came three of the most beautiful words I have ever heard in my entire life...

"Well, that's me."
I steadied myself on the bar, as I had been slightly confused by the the words.
"What?" I asked.
"I'm off." The troglodyte said, draining the dregs of his glass and picking up his mobile phone.

A "Hallelujah" resounded in my head and a small brass band began to play an upbeat tempo'd tune that wouldn't go amiss in a hip and fashionable club in Bourbon Street. Did I hear right? Had the gods observed my plight and saved me from having to listen to the ignoramus in front of me?

I watched in stunned silence as the neanderthal pressed buttons on his mobile and waved goodbye as it headed towards the door.

"Aye man, so anyway, mind I was saying she said that he said that the wifey from the chipshops daugthers cousins pal told her that there's some bird doing tricks for taxi drivers to avoid paying the fare... Well you'll never guess who it is..." It said into its mobile as it walked towards the door, leaving me to ponder if there was some kind of mental deficiency they suffered from that made them talk utter crap constantly.

I turned around and looked at the old guy at the end of the bar who, like so many others in pubs across the world, sits quietly, observing, collating and calculating the ups and downs of pub life and only ever says one of three words at a time*, and raised my eyebrows in a way that I knew would convey the sentence "That guy's a test of your patience is he not?"

The old guy lifted his glass and took a long, drink.

"He's a fucking arsehole and the sooner he's killed by a runaway truck the better." He said.
"Pint?" I asked.
"Nip." He replied.

* The three are the following,..
1. "Pint."
2. "Nip."
And 3. "Taxi."