Pub Bar Quotes

The poor man’s face twisted into a grimace and he pounded on the bar, protesting loudly. “Oh, you shush,” Kim demanded as she continued to knead his shoulders, jerking his whole body as she worked. “You’ll like this in a minute.

I like reading in a pub rather than a library or study, as it's generally much easier to get a drink.

There’s something wonderful about drinking in the afternoon. A not-too-cold pint, absolutely alone at the bar – even in this fake-ass Irish pub.

The prospect of his future life stretched before him like a sentence; not a prison sentence but a long-winded sentence with a lot of unnecessary subordinate clauses, as he was soon in the habit of quipping during Happy Hour pickup time at the local campus bars and pubs. He couldn’t say he was looking forward to it, this rest-of-his-life.

When a white man goes to the pub, he is a socializer; a Brown man in a bar is a drunkard. A white arrogant man is an alpha male; headstrong Indians are pricks. A white man sleeping around is a lover; an Indian on multiple dates is a womanizer. White men make love, we Brown Indians f*ck

Equally arresting are British pub names. Other people are content to dub their drinking establishment with pedestrian names like Harry’s Bar and the Greenwood Lounge. But a Briton, when he wants to sup ale, must find his way to the Dog and Duck, the Goose and Firkin, the Flying Spoon, or the Spotted Dog. The names of Britain’s 70,000 or so pubs cover a broad range, running from the inspired to the improbable, from the deft to the daft. Almost any name will do so long as it is at least faintly absurd, unconnected with the name of the owner, and entirely lacking in any suggestion of drinking, conversing, and enjoying oneself. At a minimum the name should puzzle foreigners-this is a basic requirement of most British institutions-and ideally it should excite long and inconclusive debate, defy all logical explanation, and evoke images that border on the surreal.

I was particularly taken with an article about a pub called the White Post on Rimpton Hill on the Dorset–Somerset border. The county boundary runs right through the middle of the bar. In former times when Dorset and Somerset had different licensing laws, people had to move from one side of the room to the other at 10 pm in order to continue drinking legally until 10.30. I don’t know why but this made me feel a pang of nostalgia for the way things used to be.

Good. Now let's go down to the pub and meet the townsfolk," Iain said. "Bar," Euann corrected, just to be contrary. "Let's go down to the pub before I hit ya with a bar," Iain said.

A bar, as any good dictionary will tell you, is a rod of wood or iron that can be used to fasten a gate. From this came the idea of a bar as any let or hindrance that can stop you going where you want to; specifically the bar in a pub or tavern is the bar-rier behind which is stored all the lovely intoxicating liquors that only the bar-man is allowed to lay is hands on without forking out.

This is so much like the old days. And, again, I have mixed feelings. In some ways it's good and comfortable to be fitting straight back in like I've never been away, but, on the other hand, I'm getting this constrictive feeling as well. It's the same places - like the bars and pubs on Friday night - the same people, the same conversations, the same arguments and the same attitudes. Five years away and not much seems to have changed. I can't decide if this is good or bad.

An Irishman walks into a pub,” she begins and the bar went silent. “The bartender asks him, ‘What'll you have?’” Her Irish accent was spot on. “The man says, ‘Give me three pints of Guinness, please.’ The bartender brings him three pints and the man proceeds to alternately sip one, then the other, then the third until they're gone. He then orders three more. “The bartender says, ‘Sir, no need to order as many at a time. I’ll keep an eye on it and when you get low, I'll bring you a fresh one.’ The man replies, ‘You don't understand. I have two brothers, one in Australia and one in the States. We made a vow to each other that every Saturday night we'd still drink together. So right now, me brothers have three Guinness stouts too, and we're drinking together.’ “The bartender thought this a wonderful tradition and every week the man came in and ordered three beers.” January’s playing and voice became more solemn, dramatic. “But one week, he ordered only two.” The crowd oohed and ahhed. “He slowly drank them,” she continued darkly, “and then ordered two more. The bartender looked at him sadly. ‘Sir, I know your tradition, and, agh, I'd just like to say that I'm sorry for your loss.’ “The man looked on him strangely before it finally dawned on him. ‘Oh, me brothers are fine - I just quit drinking.

The weekend break had begun with the usual resentment and had continued with half-repressed ill humour. It was, of course, his fault. He had been more ready to hurt his wife's feelings and deprive his daughter than inconvenience a pub bar full of strangers. He wished there could be one memory of his dead child which wasn't tainted with guilt and regret.

One of them was the usual Irishman who stands by the bar of every pub selling talk for beer, one of the oldest professions.

The Albion was a spacious pub, built in the days when a public house with any pretensions to gentility had to have fourteen foot ceilings, brass taps and a polished wooden bar you skate down. ... Bert, in his reflective moments, considered that if heaven didn't have a well-appointed pub where a man could sit down over a beer for a yarn with the other angels, then he didn't want to go there.

Terry’s the “fun guy” of the boys you’d see at a pub quiz machine. The one who never gets laid but talks like he’s screwed every girl in the bar. That guy, but twenty years on. Still “fun,” still not getting any.

It was the sort of pub Alan liked, furnished with wall- to-wall forty-five-year-old gin-and-tonic drinkers. A notice on the wall behind the bar read: Please do not ask for credit, as a punch in the mouth often causes offence.

There is nothing quite like the drama and suspense of a penalty shootout. The player tasked with taking the penalty can thunder the ball home or smash it against the crossbar, or even sky it completely over the bar. Nothing will bring housewives out of the kitchen or shush the pub into complete silence quite like the theatre of the penalty shootout, no matter who’s playing. No one can be apathetic about the penalty shootout It’s as if for just those few seconds a player’s soul is laid bare for the entire world to see. The camera pans in and we can clearly see the hesitancy and heroics, the expectation and exultation, the self-doubt or self-glorification, the uncertainty and relief ….. or disappointment. Nothing matches the thrill!

It’s a much more beautiful city than I’d imagined, soaring gray buildings and grand, imposing architecture. Perhaps it’s the fact that the streets glitter with frost and there are snowflakes blowing in the air, but there’s a magical edge to it. It’s Christmas in two days; revelers spill onto the cobbled pavements from the bars and pubs, and it’s wall-to-wall festive music on the cab radio.

The youth did not gather in a cozy pub for a pint of ale in order to talk about big ideas, as C. S. Lewis and his literary friends did at Oxford. No, they spent hours in bars, losing count of how many drinks they were consuming and hooking up with total strangers for sex.

It was after midnight by a mile when I slid off the bar stool at O’Malley’s and began to walk home. O’Malley’s is an old Irish pub and though I wasn’t Irish, nor did I drink like a lot of other newspaper reporters I knew, I stopped by for a Coke nearly every evening. I liked listening to other reporters — and cops, who also frequented O’Malley’s — shoot the breeze and relate old stories that hadn’t been completely true the first time they’d been told. O’Malley’s was just somewhere to go which made every guy sipping a beer or doing shots feel a little less alone in a city like Los Angeles. Some of them still had wives, but you could tell they were lonely. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been hanging around a bar at that hour; they’d have been finding solace in soft flesh and perfume. Maybe their wives would have been finding some solace too, and more of them would have stayed married. Most of those guys, cops and reporters alike, were working on their second or third marriage. I didn’t think they were working hard enough, but maybe that was because I didn’t have anyone to go home to.

Sometimes you see English people going out to pub, bar or disco with friends, standing awkwardly together drinking beer or gin and tonic and waiting for something ‘romantic’ to happen. Usually nothing happens apart from everybody getting drunk, which is hardly romantic. So, typically, instead of meeting Mr or Miss Right they meet Mr or Miss Right Now, which lasts as long as there is enough alcohol circulating in the blood vessel.

Sean's Bar on Main Street, Athlone, on the West Bank of the River Shannon, claims to be the oldest pub in Ireland, dating back to AD 900. The bar holds records of every owner since its opening, including gender-bending pop sensation Boy George (born George Alan O'Dowd to an Irish family), who the premises briefly in 1987

over the chatter of the busy London pub. The Irish theme bar was heaving with twenty- and thirty-somethings – mostly city workers celebrating the end of the working week and the beginning of a long

They were in a pub called the Chough when Nick returned from his investigation of every corner of the place to find Jamie sitting at the bar exactly where he had left him.  He had not left him penned in by two men, however. Nick’s first thought was of magicians, and he reached for his nearest knife before it occurred to him that Jamie’s earring probably had more to do with this situation than his demon’s mark.  It had been a long and frustrating search already. Nick was itching for a fight.  “These guys bothering you?” he asked Jamie softly, and gave the two men his coldest look. One of them stepped back.  “No, no, no,” Jamie said at once, looking wildly around at empty air, as if Nick had started to throw knives.  Nick could throw knives quite well, but that was beside the point. 

The only thing you can rely on in all towns, big and small alike, is that there will be broken people. It's nothing to do with the place, just life; it can beat us up. And if that happens, it's easy to find your way to a pub; bars can quickly become sad places. Someone who has nowhere else to go can grasp a glass a little too tightly; someone who's tired of falling can take refuge in the bottom of a bottle, seeing as you can't fall much further from there.

The woman behind the bar called out: ‘Why do you stand like hypnotized fish? Did you come to drink beer or to eat food?’ ‘Be patient,’ said Gersen. ‘We are making our decision.’ The remark annoyed the woman. Her voice took on a coarse edge. “Be patient,’ you say? All night I pour beer for crapulous men; isn’t that patience enough? Come over here, backwards; I’ll put this spigot somewhere amazing, at full gush, and then we’ll discover who calls for patience!

Near where I grew up in northern England is the town of Saltaire, created by Sir Titus Salt, a Victorian wool magnate who believed so strongly in temperance that the town was built without a single pub. (The principle has been undermined in recent years by the opening of a bar called Don’t Tell Titus.)

I was working as a radio producer and Douglas was doing things like writing with Graham Chapman—an absolutely bizarre experience, as they used to get phenomenally drunk. Graham had a room in his house entirely devoted to gin: it was just gin bottles (he later went on the wagon) that lined the walls, and occasionally when I was working in BBC Radio I’d go up there at lunchtime. They’d have a few gins before lunch, then they’d go to the pub and do all the crosswords in every paper. Then they’d get roaring drunk, and usually Graham would take his willy out and put it on the bar… it was quite entertaining.

Olsons P.I. 'Kenny Jones' as he approaches a barman in a notorious Bangkok Gay bar as part of an investigation - 'I was tempted to ask him if he had heard the one about the two condoms walking down Soi Rome when they see The Balcony Pub. One condom turns to the other and says ‘Let’s go in there and get shit-faced’ -

The prospect of his future life stretched before him like a sentence; not a prison sentence, but a long-winded sentence with a lot of unnecessary subordinate clauses, as he was soon in the habit of quipping during Happy Hour pickup time at the local campus bars and pubs. He couldn’t say he was looking forward to it, this rest-of-his-life.

One beer too many, and a verbal dispute suddenly and unexpectedly explodes into a punching match. Such things happen every night in bars, pubs, and cafés all across the world, but the bloody noses and aching jaws that generally follow from these dustups in Canada, Norway, or France often turn out to be gunshot wounds in the United States.

I’d never set foot on the AT, but I’d heard much about it from the guys at Kennedy Meadows. It was the PCT’s closest kin and yet also its opposite in many ways. About two thousand people set out to thru-hike the AT each summer, and though only a couple hundred of them made it all the way, that was far more than the hundred or so who set out on the PCT each year. Hikers on the AT spent most nights camping in or near group shelters that existed along the trail. On the AT, resupply stops were closer together, and more of them were in real towns, unlike those along the PCT, which often consisted of nothing but a post office and a bar or tiny store. I imagined the Australian honeymooners on the AT now, eating cheeseburgers and guzzling beer in a pub a couple of miles from the trail, sleeping by night under a wooden roof. They’d probably been given trail names by their fellow hikers, another practice that was far more common on the AT than on the PCT, though we had a way of naming people too. Half the time that Greg, Matt, and Albert had talked about Brent they’d referred to him as the Kid, though he was only a few years younger than me. Greg had been occasionally called the Statistician because he knew so many facts and figures about the trail and he worked as an accountant. Matt and Albert were the Eagle Scouts, and Doug and Tom the Preppies. I didn’t think I’d been dubbed anything, but I got the sinking feeling that if I had, I didn’t want to know what it was.

I’ve kept a tally of the alcohol Ellie’s consumed—three martinis at the dinner reception and four whiskeys neat at the pub. She downs a fifth one like water. “You’re a Viking!” Henry encourages her. “Vikings!!!” Ellie shouts. When the Prince calls the bartender for another, I push my way through the crowd to Henry. “She’s had enough,” I tell him quietly. “She’s fine.” He waves his hand at the air. “She’s just a girl,” I insist. Ellie takes exception, poking my arm with her finger and slurring. “Hey! I resent that. I’m a matter adult. Mattur. Ma-ture.” She tilts her head, gasping. “Oh my God, I just realized that except for one letter, mature and manure are the same word! That’s so weird.” I turn back to Prince Henry. “Like I said . . . more than enough.” He leans across the bar towards Ellie, holding up two fingers. “Ellie, how many fingers do you see?” Ellie squints and strains, until finally she grabs Henry’s hand and holds it still. “Four.” “Brilliant answer!” “Was I right?” Ellie asks hopefully. “No—if you’d gotten it right, I’d be really concerned.” Then he bangs the bar with his palm. “Another round!” That’s when Ellie slides clear off her stool. I catch her before she hits the floor, but just barely. And then I glare at Henry. “Mmm . . . perhaps we have reached our quota for the evening.” He puts his hand on Ellie’s arm, lifting his chin a little as he says, “It’s always important to be able to actually walk out of the pub on our own two feet. Dignity and all that.” Ellie’s head lolls on her neck until she rests it on my shoulder, her puffs of breath brushing my throat. “M’kay

Ron said nothing. He hadn’t mentioned Viktor Krum since the ball, but Harry had found a miniature arm under his bed on Boxing Day, which had looked very much as though it had been snapped off a small model figure wearing Bulgarian Quidditch robes. Harry kept his eyes skinned for a sign of Hagrid all the way down the slushy High Street, and suggested a visit to the Three Broomsticks once he had ascertained that Hagrid was not in any of the shops. The pub was as crowded as ever, but one quick look around at all the tables told Harry that Hagrid wasn’t there. Heart sinking, he went up to the bar with Ron and Hermione, ordered three butterbeers from Madam Rosmerta, and thought gloomily that he might just as well have stayed behind and listened to the egg wailing after all. “Doesn’t he ever go into the office?” Hermione whispered suddenly. “Look!” She pointed into the mirror behind the bar, and Harry saw Ludo Bagman reflected there, sitting in a shadowy corner with a bunch of goblins. Bagman was talking very fast in a low voice to the goblins, all of whom had their arms crossed and were looking rather menacing. It was indeed odd, Harry thought, that Bagman was here at the Three Broomsticks on a weekend when there was no Triwizard event, and therefore no judging to be done. He watched Bagman in the mirror. He was looking strained again, quite as strained as he had that night in the forest before the Dark Mark had appeared. But just then Bagman glanced over at the bar, saw Harry, and stood up. “In a moment, in a moment!” Harry heard him say brusquely to the goblins, and Bagman hurried through the pub toward Harry, his boyish grin back in place.

There’s the reassuring smell of a coal fire and beeswax polish, and the dark-green leather button-back booths are deep and comfortable, built for long, relaxed drinking sessions. An old man and his snoozing Jack Russell are the only other patrons. It’s one of those unpretentious, end-of-the-world pubs that you know hasn’t changed much in decades, ruddy quarry tiles and a brass surround running the length of the well-stocked bar.

Ring-ring. Ring-ring. Ring-ring. “Hello, yes? Yes, that’s right. Yes. You’ll ’ave to speak up, there’s an awful lot of noise in ’ere. What? “No, I only do the bar in the evenings. It’s Yvonne who does lunch, and Jim he’s the landlord. No, I wasn’t on. What? “You’ll have to speak up. “What? No, don’t know nothing about no raffle. What? “No, don’t know nothing about it. ’Old on, I’ll call Jim.” The barmaid put her hand over the receiver and called over the noisy bar. “ ’Ere, Jim, bloke on the phone says something about he’s won a raffle. He keeps on saying it’s ticket 37 and he’s won.” “No, there was a guy in the pub here won,” shouted back the barman. “He says ’ave we got the ticket.” “Well, how can he think he’s won if he hasn’t even got a ticket?” “Jim says ’ow can you think you’ve won if you ’aven’t even got the ticket. What?” She put her hand over the receiver again. “Jim, ’e keeps effing at me. Says there’s a number on the ticket.” “ ’Course there was a number on the ticket, it was a bloody raffle ticket, wasn’t it?” “ ’E says ’e means it’s a telephone number on the ticket.” “Put the phone down and serve the bloody customers, will you?

The pub, like pubs all over the world, was a place for debate and discussion, for the exchange of views and opinions, for argument and for the working out of problems. It was a forum, a parliament, a fountain of wisdom and a cesspool of nonsense, it was a centre for the lost and the despairing, where cowards absorbed dutch courage out of small glasses and leaned against the shiny, scratched and polished mahogany counter for support against the crushing burdens of insignificant lives. Where the disillusioned gained temporary hope, where acts of kindness were considered and murders planned.

But afterwards in the pub, they had dreamed about the big stories and talked for hours of how they would never be satisfied with the conventional or the shallow but instead would always dig deep. They were young and ambitious and wanted it all, all at once. There were times when Levin missed that, not the salary, or the working hours, or even the easy life in the bars and the women, but the dreams—he missed the power in them. He sometimes longed for that throbbing urge to change society and journalism and to write so that the world would come to a standstill and the mighty powers bow down. Even a hotshot like himself wondered: Where did the dreams go?

Syn pulled Furi to his chest. “Furi, I want you to go back through the bar and go wait at my place. I’m going to have a little chat with your ex-husband,” Syn said extra loudly. Furi huffed in annoyance, “Syn, I took six months of self-defense courses at the YMCA this year. I can fight for myself.” Syn looked at Furi like he’d lost his damn mind. “At the Y? Well hell, that’s great Furious. If you ever get jumped by the Village People, feel free to pull out those moves. As for now, I want you to take your karate-kicking-YMCA-going-ass back to my apartment,” Syn snarled at Furi, urging him toward the door, having neither the time nor the patience to argue with his ridiculous pride. Thankfully, with one final glare Furi went back into the pub. When Syn turned back, God and Day were looking back and forth between him and his two foes. “What’s going on here, fellas?” God asked casually, not acknowledging Syn.

they’re bloody good ones too. I thought we’d finished with this nonsense last year when we raided that house out on the Limerick road and found the printing press. But these are much higher quality. It wouldn’t have been detected at all except for the banknote counting machine that spat it out.” “Where did they come from?” Lyons said. “Oh, the usual. These two came from different pubs in the city when the landlord was doing the lodgement after the weekend, and I’m sure we’re not finished with them yet. I’ve put out a notification to all the pubs and restaurants to be sure to use their pens on all twenties, but you know yourself, when they are busy they don’t bother. Will you take Eamon out to the bars that these came from and see if there’s any CCTV, or if the barmen remember anything about who might have passed them?” Hays said. “Yes sure, no problem. I never need much encouragement to go calling on pubs, as you know!” Lyons said. *

Dear Lily Don't think me silly, but I forget what time you said. Are we meeting at two thirty? It's gone right from my head. Did you say Monday or Thursday? I have quite forgotten what day. Was it late lunch, or afternoon tea? Tell me, what did you say? I think I would like to do Tuesday. Let's go for a lovely lunch. Or, if you prefer we could even go early, and settle for brunch. A lovely Bistro or Cafe Bar, or maybe a country pub. I don't really mind that much, as long as we get some grub. Dear Maisie, Are you going crazy? We didn't set a date. You needed to check your diary. I think you are losing it, mate. But since you are free on Tuesday, and that day suits me fine. Could we meet, about twelve…ish? Its early I like to dine. You mentioned the pub, or Bistro, or some fancy Cafe Bar. Not sure I like the sound of that, and I'm not coming in the car. If the weather is bright and sunny, we could always dine al fresco. Failing that, we could just go get a cake and a cuppa in Tesco.

YOU CAN COME to the end of talking, about women, talking. In restaurants, cafés, kitchens, less frequently in bars or pubs, about relatives, relations, relationships, illnesses, jobs, children, men; about nuance, hunch, intimation, intuition, shadow; about themselves and each other; about what he said to her and she said to her and she said back; about what they feel. Something more definite, more outward then, some action, to drain the inner swamp, sweep the inner fluff out from under the inner bed, harden the edges. Men at sea, for instance. Not on a submarine, too claustrophobic and smelly, but something more bracing, a tang of salt, cold water, all over your calloused body, cuts and bruises, hurricanes, bravery and above all no women. Women are replaced by water, by wind, by the ocean, shifting and treacherous; a man has to know what to do, to navigate, to sail, to bail, so reach for the How-To book, and out here it’s what he said to him, or didn’t say, a narrowing of the eyes, sizing the bastard up before the pounce, the knife to the gut, and here comes a wave, hang on to the shrouds, all teeth grit, all muscles bulge together. Or sneaking along the gangway, the passageway, the right of way, the Milky Way, in the dark, your eyes shining like digital wristwatches, and the bushes, barrels, scuppers, ditches, filthy with enemies, and you on the prowl for adrenalin and loot. Corpses of your own making deliquesce behind you as you reach the cave, abandoned city, safe, sliding panel, hole in the ground, and rich beyond your wildest dreams!

Bookish folk aren’t what they used to be. Introverted, reserved, studious. There was a time when bookish folk would steer clear of trendy bars, dinner occasions and gatherings. Any social or public encounters would be avoided at all costs because these activities were very un-bookish. Bookish people preferred to stay in, or to sit alone in a quiet pub, reading a good book, or getting some writing done. Writers, in fact, perhaps epitomised these bookish traits most strongly. At least, they used to. These days, bookish people, such as writers, are commonly found on stage, headlining festivals, or being interviewed on TV. Author events and performances have proliferated, becoming established parts of a writer’s role. It’s not that authors have suddenly become more extroverted – it’s more a case that their job description has changed. Of course, not all writers are bookish. Not in the traditional sense of the word anyway. Some are well suited for public life, particularly those from certain academic backgrounds where public speaking is encouraged and confidence in social situations is shaped and formed. These writers may even be termed ‘gregarious’, and are thus happy being offered up for speaking engagements, stage discussions and signings. Good for them. But the others – the timid, shy and mousy authors – they’re being thrust into the limelight too. That’s my lot. The social wipeouts. Unprepared and ill-equipped to face our reader audience. What’s most concerning is that no one is offering us any guidance or tips. We’re expected to hit the ground running, confident and ready, loaded with banter, quips and answers. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.

Meanwhile, Trucker and I, through all of this, had been renting that cottage together, on a country estate six miles outside of Bristol. We were paying a tiny rent, as the place was so rundown, with no heating or modern conveniences. But I loved it. The cottage overlooked a huge green valley on one side and had beautiful woodland on the other. We had friends around most nights, held live music parties, and burned wood from the dilapidated shed as heating for the solid-fuel stove. Our newly found army pay was spent on a bar tab in the local pub. We were probably the tenants from hell, as we let the garden fall into disrepair, and burned our way steadily through the wood of the various rotting sheds in the garden. But heh, the landlord was a miserable old sod with a terrible reputation, anyway! When the grass got too long we tried trimming it--but broke both our string trimmers. Instead we torched the garden. This worked a little too well, and we narrowly avoided burning down the whole cottage as the fire spread wildly. What was great about the place was that we could get in and out of Bristol on our 100 cc motorbikes, riding almost all the way on little footpaths through the woods--without ever having to go on any roads. I remember one night, after a fun evening out in town, Trucker and I were riding our motorbikes back home. My exhaust started to malfunction--glowing red, then white hot--before letting out one massive backfire and grinding to a halt. We found some old fence wire in the dark and Trucker towed me all the way home, both of us crying with laughter. From then on my bike would only start by rolling it down the farm track that ran down the steep valley next to our house. If the motorbike hadn’t jump-started by the bottom I would have to push the damn thing two hundred yards up the hill and try again. It was ridiculous, but kept me fit--and Trucker amused. Fun days.

A week before, snow had been forecast. Snow was gathering in the north and would, by the weekend, come down on the West County like a fist. Extra food and fuel were ordered, sheep herded lower down the valley, and the bird table in the postmistress's garden was made up like the spare room. But the threatened snow had not arrived. And that evening in the village pub, the Pike, the talk had scornfully left the present to dig up winters past, their iron ghosts clanking and blowing now around the small, log-warmed bar.

Every year, there is a Santa pub-crawl where everyone gets dressed as St. Nick and hops from bar to bar, drinking themselves into a holiday stupor. 

Y Talbot in Tregaron, Wales On the town square in Tregaron, a convenient base for exploring the Cambrian Mountains or the western coast, the 17th-century Y Talbot inn, above, offers board and bed in a stone-constructed pub with nine rooms. The rooms were recently updated with bright décor, and while each is distinct in layout, several offer walkout access to or balcony views over a rear garden. The pub champions local and sustainable ingredients, and the bar features Welsh cask ales brewed nearby. Doubles from 110 pounds, or about $159 at $1.44

If you do drink, surround yourself with loving individuals. Your weakened aura loses strength as negativity from others attaches itself to you. You may feel emotions such as anger, fear, anxiety, depression, or hate. Clearly, clubs, pubs, and bars are not good places. They’re filled with lower energies and earthbound spirits who are trying to continue their addictive behaviors.

I thought about my goal of having a beer at a bar with an age-appropriate friend and decided a pub was even better, because I really didn’t want to be near douche bags trying to copulate.

As I’ve said before, I never understand why people ski down a slope to a bar and then go on a lift so they can ski down the same slope again. That’s like walking to the pub on a Sunday, then going home and walking to the pub again. Madness.

Most of the pubs had barred Des, but he came in to the Tiger bar and he points to me and says, ‘And you, out! I want you by the back of the car park.’ So I obliged him and proceeded to kick the poor cunt all around the car park, he ended up in hospital for a week! Eventually, when he came out of hospital he said that I was the best thing that had happened to him, I’d cured him!

In a normal bar, I would say tip the bartender and people would give me money. Here, I say tip the bartender and someone tries to knock me over.       -John Murphy, Bartender at

No, the world is not perfect, but at least there are those who are trying. You can find some of them bellying up to the bar in a place called Bulfinche’s Pub. Follow the brightest rainbow in the sky. Let it lead you past the ills of the world to a safe haven where the drinks are cold, the food hot, and the company exceptional. The bartenders are pretty darn good, too. Next time the pot of gold calls to you, come in and see us. First drink is on the house.

She haunted many a low resort, Round the grimy road of Tottenham Court. She flitted around the no man’s land From The Rising Sun to The Friend At Hand And the postman sighed as he scratched his head You really would have thought she ought to be dead And who would ever suppose that that Was Grizabella The Glamour Cat. And that was not all. There was a letter from Tom Eliot to his publisher Geoffrey Faber about an event which brought all the Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats together who then ascended to the “Heaviside Layer” in a great big air balloon. There was even a couplet to go with it: “Up, up, up, past the Russell Hotel, / Up, up, up, to the Heaviside Layer.” So Eliot himself had an idea for a bigger structure for these poems, very vague, but it was there. I knew then that I had the bare bones of a stage musical. Most importantly Grizabella the Glamour Cat gave me a tragic character, a character who you would really care about. I asked Cameron and Gillie to join Valerie and Matthew, and the excitement was tangible. There were other poems too, the story of a parrot called Billy McCaw, who lived on the bar of an East End pub. There was the saga of a Yorkshire terrier called Little Tom Pollicle which was apparently Eliot’s nickname, and a long poem about a man in white spats who meets a casual diner in a pub called the Princess Louise and starts talking about “this’s and thats and Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats.” I asked Valerie what the words “Pollicle” and “Jellicle” meant. She explained it was Eliot’s private joke about how the British upper class slurred the words “poor little dogs” and “dear little cats.” She also revealed that Eliot intended the “Princess Louise” poem, as we came to call it, to be the preface of a book about dogs and cats, but in the end cats prevailed. “The Awefull Battle of the

What the virus did to us. It has always been unimaginable that this pub could be empty while the music played. I am going to talk about what the virus did to us: Do you remember when we sat under trees fighting over which drink we should… drink? How can you possibly forget? We would wake up and imagine what we were going to be in future. We would open our windows and touch each other like we were keys on a pianoforte Do you remember? When we said we were going to go to London Pose in front of The Louvre And raise our hands to the blinding lights on Time Square. We would lay down on the pale moonlight cry and curse the white men for not giving us visas! Do you remember? We had high hopes. Then the virus came omne autem inuicem We watched it like a car without breaks And when it came windows bolted, The music faded, The city of London lost its light, Cafes in Italy bolted and owners run without knowing where they put their keys Times Square became a ghost town And our very little bar we used to insult —— no longer played music And when at night, We sat down to count who we have lost, It didn’t matter if we cried anymore What mattered was when Others would count our dead bodies Like how they count damaged mangoes In the fruit lane at the market.

A guy walks into a bar. It's the oldest setup there is. But what happens next? I was at my local pub contemplating a water-ringed beer list, a wall of tap handles, and a packed fridge. I saw a pale ale brewed 20 million gallons at a time and a triple IPA made in a jerry-rigged turkey frier in a garage down the street. I saw a traditional, light-bodied British porter and an extra-strong, cacao-infused imperial stout stored in bourbon barrels. One beer was brewed with hours-old hops, freshly plucked in an Oregon field; another had been aged for eighteen months with acidic bacteria--critters more common in vinegar and pickle brines. There were pilsners and ambers, red ales and browns, wheat beers and rye beers and spelt beers; there were three-dollar happy hour specials and thirty-dollar vintage bottles, corked and foil-wrapped like fine Champagne. Bitter or sweet, smooth or strong, fruity or dry, dark or light, it was all there, in dizzying glory. So--the bartender tapped his fingers--what'll it be?

Cards on the table, girls? Karl has served a sentence at Exeter prison for assault; Antony for theft. Karl was merely sticking up for a friend, you understand, and – hand on heart – would do the same again. His friend was being picked on in a bar and he hates bullying. Me, I am struggling with the paradox – bullying versus assault, and do we really lock people up for minor altercations? – but the girls seem fascinated, and in their sweet and liberal naivety are saying that loyalty is a good thing and they had a bloke from prison who came into their school once and told them how he had completely turned his life around after serving time over drugs. Covered in tattoos, he was. Covered. ‘Wow. Jail. So what was that really like?’ It is at this point I consider my role. Privately I am picturing Anna’s mother toasting her bottom by her Aga, worrying with her husband if their little girl will be all right, and he is telling her not to fuss so. They are growing up fast. Sensible girls. They will be fine, love. And I am thinking that they are not fine at all. For Karl is now thinking that the safest thing for the girls would be to have someone who knows London well chaperoning them during their visit. Karl and Antony are going to stay with friends in Vauxhall and fancy a big night to celebrate their release. How about they meet the girls after the theatre and try the club together? This is when I decide that I need to phone the girls’ parents. They have named their hamlet. Anna lives on a farm. It’s not rocket science. I can phone the post office or local pub; how many farms can there be? But now Anna isn’t sure at all. No. They should probably have an early night so they can hit the shops tomorrow morning. They have this plan, see, to go to Liberty’s first thing because Sarah is determined to try on something by Stella McCartney and get a picture on her phone. Good girl, I am thinking. Sensible girl. Spare me the intervention, Anna. But there is a complication, for Sarah seems suddenly to have taken a shine to Antony. There is a second trip to the buffet and they swap seats on their return – Anna now sitting with Karl and Sarah with Antony, who is telling her about his regrets at stuffing up his life. He only turned to crime out of desperation, he says, because he couldn’t get a job. Couldn’t support his son. Son? It sweeps over me, then. The shadow from the thatched canopy of my chocolate-box life –

So we talked about the weather and did the one thing we all knew how to do: get pissed. I watched stupendous bar bills turn into group song and shoving matches and urine and vomit well before the pubs closed their doors at eleven. One day, I thought, standing outside the toilet of a dodgy dance club, waiting for one of my new acquaintances to finish retching, one of these tossers is going to get himself elected to Parliament.

The No-name Rule In purely social situations, the difficulties are even more acute. There is no universal prescription of handshakes on initial introduction – indeed, they may be regarded as too ‘businesslike’ – and the normal business practice of giving one’s name at this point is also regarded as inappropriate. You do not go up to someone at a party (or in any other social setting where conversation with strangers is permitted, such as a pub bar-counter) and say ‘Hello, I’m John Smith,’ or even ‘Hello, I’m John.’ In fact, the only correct way to introduce yourself in such settings is not to introduce yourself at all, but to find some other way of initiating a conversation – such as a remark about the weather. The ‘brash American’ approach: ‘Hi, I’m Bill, how are you?’, particularly if accompanied by an outstretched hand and beaming smile, makes the English wince and cringe. The American tourists and visitors I spoke to during my research had been both baffled and hurt by this reaction. ‘I just don’t get it,’ said one woman. ‘You say your name and they sort of wrinkle their noses, like you’ve told them something a bit too personal and embarrassing.’ ‘That’s right,’ her husband added. ‘And then they give you this tight little smile and say, “Hello” – kind of pointedly not giving their name, to let you know you’ve made this big social booboo. What the hell is so private about a person’s name, for God’s sake?’ I ended up explaining, as kindly as I could, that the English do not want to know your name, or tell you theirs, until a much greater degree of intimacy has been established – like maybe when you marry their daughter. Rather than giving your name, I suggested, you should strike up a conversation by making a vaguely interrogative comment about the weather (or the party or pub or wherever you happen to be). This must not be done too loudly, and the tone should be light

…American men actually engage most in hunting and fishing. The desire of men in wealthy societies to re-create the food-gathering conditions of very primitive people appears to be an appropriate comment on the power of the hunting drives discussed earlier. Not only is hunting expensive in many places – think of the European on safari in Africa – but it is also time-consuming, potentially dangerous, and frequently involves considerable personal discomfort. Men do it because it is ‘fun’. So they say, and so one must conclude from their persistent rendition of the old pattern. What is relevant from our point of view is that hunting, and frequently fishing, are group activities. A man will choose his co-hunters very carefully. Not only does the relative intimacy of the hunt demand some congeniality, but there is also danger in hunting with inept or irresponsible persons. It is a serious matter, and even class barriers which normally operate quite rigidly may be happily breached for the period of the hunt. Some research on hunters in British Columbia suggests the near-piety which accompanies the hunt; hunting is a singular and important activity. One particular group of males takes along bottles of costly Crown Royal whisky for the hunt; they drink only superior whisky on this poignant re-creation of an ancient manly skill. But when their wives join them for New Year's celebrations, they drink an ordinary whisky: the purely formal and social occasion does not, it seems, merit the symbolic tribute of outstanding whisky. Gambling is another behaviour which, like hunting and sport, provides an opportunity in countless cultures for the weaving of and participation in the web of male affiliation. Not the gambling of the London casino, where glamorous women serve drinks, or the complex hope, greed, fate-tempting ritual, and action of the shiny American palaces in Nevada, and not the hidden gambling run by racketeers. Rather, the card games in homes or small clubs, where men gather to play for manageable stakes on a friendly basis; perhaps – like Jiggs and his Maggie – to avoid their women, perhaps to seek some money, perhaps to buy the pleasant passage of time. But also to be with their friends and talk, and define, by the game, the confines of their intimate male society. Obviously females play too, both on their own and in mixed company. But there are differences which warrant investigation, in the same way that the drinking of men in groups appears to differ from heterosexual or all-female drinking; the separation of all-male bars and mixed ones is still maintained in many places despite the powerful cultural pressures against such flagrant sexual apartheid. Even in the Bowery, where disaffiliated outcast males live in ways only now becoming understood, it has been noted that, ‘There are strong indications that the heavy drinkers are more integrated and more sociable than the light. The analytical problem lies in determining whether socialization causes drinking or drinking results in sociability when there is no disapproval.’ In the gentleman's club in London, the informally segregated working man's pub in Yorkshire, the all-male taverns of Montreal, the palm-wine huts of west Africa, perhaps can be observed the enactment of a way of establishing maleness and maintaining bonds which is given an excuse and possibly facilitated by alcohol. Certainly, for what they are worth in revealing the nature of popular conception of the social role of drinking, advertisements stress the manly appeal of alcohol – particularly whisky – though it is also clear that there are ongoing changes in the socio-sexual implications of drinking. But perhaps it is hasty to regard the process of change as a process of female emancipation which will culminate in similarity of behaviour, status, and ideals of males and females. The changes are still too recent to warrant this. Also, they have been achieved under sufficiently self-conscious pressure...

Syn didn’t even think twice. He made his way to the end of the bar and lifted the top, coming behind the bar. The two girl bartenders looked at him in shock and Syn flashed his badge again. “Where’s Furious?” he asked, using his authoritative cop tone. “He left,” they said in unison, still looking at him strangely. “Damnit,” Syn hissed and raced out of the pub. He looked anxiously up and down the sidewalk and saw Furious sitting on the bench, head hanging low, waiting on the bus. Even though he had a hoodie pulled up and hanging low over his forehead ... Syn knew it was his ma– He’s not my damn man, he’s just a friend. Syn approached his new friend with all the confidence in the world but wasn’t prepared for the angry, haunted eyes that looked up at him when he slowly removed Furious’ hood. Syn sucked in a hard breath and blew it out slowly before finally deciding to speak. “Furious. Are you okay?” No answer. “Are you hurt?” Syn was really concerned. Furious looked detached, closed in on himself. “Bab–” Shit. “Furi,” Syn quickly corrected. “Please answer me. Look my place is right there.” Syn pointed in the direction of his building. “If you want you can come up and talk. I can take you home later.” It was a few long and very intense minutes that Furious didn’t move or say anything. “We’ll just talk, okay?” Syn tried again. Thanks a lot MARTA. Perfect timing. Just Syn’s luck that the bus pulled up to the curb and the air doors swung open. “Furious, I just want to talk.” “No thanks, Detective.” Furious' voice was so deep and angry, it’d felt like Furi had struck him. Syn swallowed a hard gulp.

The world needs more men like you,” she added, plenty loud enough for those close by to hear over the sounds of a pub in full swing. Grinning at the hoots and hollers that got, she scooped up the tray and skirted the table, taking an order from the three men at the next table as she ducked by. Hardy eased forward just enough to crowd her pathway back to the bar. “Sounds like someone from your little Down Under adventure left a bad impression of men on you. Mate,” he added pointedly, copying the bit of Aussie accent that crept into her voice now and again, usually when she was cheering or swearing. So, fairly often.

She was in the back of the pub, delivering another round to the guys playing pool at the table Hardy and Perry had left behind for a rousing game of darts, when a hush fell over the folks crowded around the bar and the front door to the place. A man’s deep, accented voice boomed through the sudden hush. “I was told I might find her here, mate,” the man was saying to someone. “Kerry? Kerry McCrae. Her uncle owns the place, yeah?” If Kerry’s heart had clutched in her chest before, it stopped functioning altogether the moment that voice reached her ears. This is why you don’t let yourself think about him, because then you won’t stop thinking about him. And now you’re hearing things.

She was in the back of the pub, delivering another round to the guys playing pool at the table Hardy and Perry had left behind for a rousing game of darts, when a hush fell over the folks crowded around the bar and the front door to the place. A man’s deep, accented voice boomed through the sudden hush. “I was told I might find her here, mate,” the man was saying to someone. “Kerry? Kerry McCrae. Her uncle owns the place, yeah?” If Kerry’s heart had clutched in her chest before, it stopped functioning altogether the moment that voice reached her ears. This is why you don’t let yourself think about him, because then you won’t stop thinking about him. And now you’re hearing things. Even as she thought the words, knowing rationally that there was no way she’d heard his voice, not for real, some small part of her understood that the impossible had actually just happened. She looked up, a fierce expression on her face, one meant to forestall even the remotest possibility that he was indeed right there. In the pub. Her pub. Looking for her. It didn’t work, of course. Because he was there. And she thought her heart might beat right through her chest wall. So much for being fearless. Someone--she didn’t even notice who--took the badly wobbling tray of drinks from her hand as she went toward him, seemingly without even moving her feet. It was like a dream. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe this whole night had been a dream and she was in bed, right now, and would wake up any second and laugh at herself, then swear at herself, for letting him into her dreams. Again. But it sure didn’t feel like she was dreaming.

The local pub, The Red Lion, has the double distinction of being the only pub in Britain to be surrounded by a stone circle and be voted one of the top 10 most haunted bars in the world. The pub has quite a bit of history. It started as a farmhouse in the early 17th century before becoming a coaching inn in 1802, acting as a rest stop for the growing network of horse-drawn coaches taking passengers and mail between cities. It continues to serve drinks to this day. The Red Lion’s landlord says there are at least five ghosts in his pub. The best known is a young woman named Florrie, who married a local soldier in the 17th century. When he went off to fight in the English Civil War, she took another lover. The soldier returned unexpectedly, discovered them together, and shot the man who had cuckolded him before stabbing Florrie and throwing her down a well located inside the building. The well is still there today, and she is often seen hovering nearby or floating in and out of it. Sometimes, she is not seen, but acts as a poltergeist, throwing small objects across the bar.

Christopher Westcott slowly drank his pint of ale at the Bird and Baby, as locals liked to call the Eagle and Child, and basked in the familiar smells- old wood bathed in lemon oil, braised beef, stale beer that spackled the bar. The pub was a popular mecca for those who admired J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and their entire literary giants they called Inklings. Christopher wasn't even close to being a literary giant nor was he a tourist, but he enjoyed writing and liked to feign himself one of the professors who might have basked in the lively readings and debates of the Inklings instead of just the aromas of this pub. Personally, he admired the writings of George MacDonald, the man C.S. Lewis considered his mentor. MacDonald was a writer and professor. And he was a frequently unemployed Scottish minister due to his views on God's love and grace. The man could speak the language of theologians at the same time he wrote books for children and readers of all ages whom he described as "child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five." MacDonald was a man of integrity who believed that God did not punish His children except to amend and heal them. A man who believed God's love and grace was available to all people- a direct affront to the Calvinists in his era.

The 15-layer was already spoken for, of course, in its capacity as the sympathy group. The 5-layer seemed to function as the support clique – the small group of people willing to provide unstinting emotional, physical and financial help and advice. I often refer to this layer as the shoulders-to-cry-on friends. The 15-layer is probably where you draw most of your everyday social companions from – the people you invite round for a quiet dinner or an evening out at the pub or theatre. I am inclined to think of the 50-layer as your party friends: the people you would invite round for a weekend BBQ or a celebratory birthday or anniversary party. The 150-layer is what you might call the wedding/bar mitzvah/funeral group – the people that would turn up to your once-in-a-lifetime events. It also probably contains most of the children of your closer friends. Otherwise, our women’s network data suggest that this layer is mainly populated by members of your extended family – people whose friendship does not need much regular reinforcement because it is held in place by the ties of kinship.

Raffe lifted the latch on the heavy door and sidled in. As usal, he gagged as he took his first breath in the cloying, fishy stink of the smoke that rose from the burning seabirds, which were skewered on to the wall spikes in place of candles. In the dim oily light, he could make out the vague outlines of men sitting in twos and threes around the tables, heard the muttered conversations, but could no more recognize a face than see his own feet in the shadows. A square, brawny woman deposited a flagon and two leather beakers on a table before waddling across to Raffe. Pulling his head down towards hers, she planted a generous kiss on his smooth cheek. Thought you'd left us,' she said reprovingly. You grown tired of my eel pic?' How could anyone grow tired of a taste of heaven?' Raffe said, throwing his arm around her plump shoulders and squeezing her. The woman laughed, a deep, honest belly chuckle that set her pendulous breasts quivering. Raffe loved her for that. 'He's over there, your friend,' she murmured. 'Been wait ing a good long while.' Raffe nodded his thanks and crossed to the table set into a dark alcove, sliding on to the narrow bench. Even in the dirty mustard light he could recognize Talbot's broken nose and thickened ears. Talbot looked up from the rim of his beaker and grunted. By way of greeting he pushed the half-empty flagon of ale towards Raffe. Raffe waited until the serving woman had set a large portion of eel pie in front of him and retreated out of earshot. He hadn't asked for food, no one ever needed to here. In the Fisher's Inn you ate and drank whatever was put in front of you and you paid for it too. The marsh and river were far too close for arguments, and the innkeeper was a burly man who had beaten his own father to death when he was only fourteen, so rumour had it, for taking a whip to him once too often. Opinion was divided on whether the boy or the father deserved what they suffered at each other's hands, but still no one in those parts would have dreamed of report ing the killing. And since the innkeeper's father lay rotting somewhere at the bottom of the deep, sucking bog, he wasn't in a position to complain.

Finally, she snatched the key from the counter, hung it back on its hook, and took another. “You’ll hear the pub, but no one’ll be singing until Friday.” She leaned over the bar. “Allen! Come show the lady to her room.

Work in the kitchen and in the home has been systemically devalued and outright dismissed for thousands of years. It's impossible to confine alcohol or cocktail history to the bar because so many types of people were not allowed to work or drink there until very recently in modern history. Alcohol was a deeply important part of the private home lives of people all over the world in the nineteenth century, not just the goings-on in the public taverns, hotels, saloons or pubs. Many of women's recipes and innovations are what various alcohol industries and companies are built on.

Now, the tourists clustered in groups, whispering over well-worn copies of A Tradition of Tragedy. The recent bestseller had exposed the death tournament and Ilvernath’s surviving vein of high magick…and had catapulted their remote city into the international spotlight. “I didn’t believe the Blood Moon was actually scarlet,” Alistair overheard one of them whispering. “I thought it was just a name.” “The tournament is a high magick curse. High magick is always red,” another answered. “Or maybe,” drawled a third voice. “It’s called the Blood Moon because a bunch of kids spend three months murdering each other under it. Ever think of that?” Alistair and Hendry avoided the tourists as they shuffled through the pub. “Do you think Grandma will start getting fan mail?” asked Hendry, snickering. “I heard there’s a photograph of our whole family in the first chapter. I hope I look good.” “Sorry to break it to you, but that picture is from ten years ago,” Alistair said flatly. Hendry looked momentarily disappointed, then delighted. “So the entire world knows you had a bowl cut?” Alistair rolled his eyes and headed to the bar.

Pintman Paddy Losty. Some of Dublin's great pintmen have been known to put away thirty pints or more in a day

This isn’t some council-estate pub where people are barred for unruly behaviour. She was asked not to attend because of the effect she had on the congregation.

London returns in damp, fragmented flurries when I should be doing something else. A scrap of song, a pink scarf, and I’m back to curries and pub food, long, wet walks without a map, bouts of bronchitis, a case of the flu, my halfhearted studies, and brooding thoughts and scanning faces in every bar for you. Those months come down to moments or small plots, like the bum on the Tube, enraged that no one spoke, who raved and spat, the whole car thick with dread, only to ask, won’t someone tell a joke? and this mouse of a woman offered, What’s big and red and sits in the corner? A naughty bus. Not funny, I know. But neither’s the story of us.

I struggle most when Hydra headed truth arouses itself and insists on being beautiful." Steve Spire in Shades Of Persephone "I turned towards the Pan Pub & Bacchus Bar, where oblivion was an item on the drinks list." Steven Spire

I struggle most when Hydra headed truth arouses itself and insists on being beautiful." Steve Spire in Shades Of Persephone "I turned towards the Pan Pub & Bacchus Bar, where oblivion was an item on the drinks list." Steven Spire "Over Akrotiri, wisps of her image now streak the evening sky like lines of haiku." Steven Spire "I watch her now: how she takes the cup to her lips, how she swallows, how her eyebrows move as she reacts to sensation. I watch the fly that will not leave her alone, like Krikri metamorphosed. Always there is something beyond our control as a commentary on our limitations, something not anticipated in the perfect design of a scene, something not included on the menu, a doubt with dark, diaphanous wings." Steven Spire

side of the square-shaped bar. ‘There’s this kid outside. Watching the place. Have you seen him?’ ‘Eh?’ ‘A kid. Just stands over the road. And stares at the pub. Wondered if you’d seen him.’ Quin looked at Seth as if his words confirmed something he’d long suspected: He’s gone a bit funny in the head, this one. Up there on his own all the time. No girlfriend. No visitors. Shrugging, Quin turned to stuff

In high summer males can be very common. They sit around on flowers drinking nectar. They prefer flowers with big sturdy heads such as thistles and natweeds and gangs of males can often be seen clustered together, reminiscent of a group of men propping up the bar in a pub.

him about the proposed change in name. He thought it sounded like nonsense then and hadn’t changed his mind yet. ‘To answer your question though, I think it will depend on how many other crimes they are able to sew up with this discovery. All the different piles of goods in there might each represent a separate reported theft. They could clear a list of crimes and, if they are finding fingerprints or other physical evidence, they might be able to catch multiple criminals. They’ll be trying to find Karl Tarkovsky, but I doubt he’s in the country. I reckon he took the van full of Stilton and fled, getting across the channel before anyone even had a chance to report the van stolen, let alone the cheese.’ ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Dave agreed. ‘It’s a shame for the festival. And for the dairy, but they’ll recover sure enough. The insurance will pay for it and it’s not like suppliers can go elsewhere to get it. Stilton isn’t Stilton if it’s made by anyone else,’ the security guard said knowingly. He lapsed into silence and neither man spoke for a moment. It became an awkward silence after about ten seconds, at which point Dave said, ‘Well, must be off. Goodnight.’ ‘Goodnight,’ Albert called after the man as he vanished into the dark again. It was good of him to check on Oxford, especially given the day he’d had. Albert watched the police working in the lockup for a few seconds as he continued to chew over the misalignment of clues in his head. The counterfeit note didn’t fit. In fact, the only way he could make it fit, was to assume it appeared in Karl’s room out of pure coincidence, and he didn’t like that at all. Unable to shift the feeling that he was blind to the truth, he turned around and started back towards the pub. Perhaps a gin and tonic to help him sleep was in order. The imagined taste hastened his steps, but he might have walked faster yet had he known what waited for him in the bar.

After the brutal gang rape of a pub employee by six men in Gurgaon in 2014, the police proposed a blanket curfew on working women after 8 p.m., under which no woman would be allowed out of the house without prior permission from the government labour department. The proposed ban was revoked after a public outcry. The police said they could not provide security for girls and women because the ones who are out, especially at night and especially in bars, invite rape. Women should stay at home if they want to be safe.

The dockers were the hardest men in the world. Their guts were lined with coal dust and pitch. They came to work armed with blades, iron bars, bale-hooks, their own knuckle-dusters. They drank to wake up in the early houses before work. And they drank during work, washed down the world’s dirt and grit and fed the headaches. And after work when they went to collect their wages, in Paddy Clare’s or Jack Maher’s, the dockers’ pubs, they drank what was left in their hands after the stevedore had finished doing his sums. While their children starved - and their wives too, on top of being fucked by the stevedore after he’d drunk his cut of the wages or sold them back to Paddy Clare - the dockers drank themselves into fighting form and looked around for some poor goat to take the place of the stevedore. Glasses of whiskey went into the pints of porter. And God help any poor eejit who walked in on top of a roaring docker swinging his belt. Harmless men ended up in the river and some of them never climbed out; they went under the lock and fed the mullet. The dockers were beyond the law. They knew no rules except their own and the stevedore’s. They were heady company for a young man who’d been left all alone by the dead. And I started to keep up with them.

And that was not all. There was a letter from Tom Eliot to his publisher Geoffrey Faber about an event which brought all the Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats together who then ascended to the “Heaviside Layer” in a great big air balloon. There was even a couplet to go with it: “Up, up, up, past the Russell Hotel, / Up, up, up, to the Heaviside Layer.” So Eliot himself had an idea for a bigger structure for these poems, very vague, but it was there. I knew then that I had the bare bones of a stage musical. Most importantly Grizabella the Glamour Cat gave me a tragic character, a character who you would really care about. I asked Cameron and Gillie to join Valerie and Matthew, and the excitement was tangible. There were other poems too, the story of a parrot called Billy McCaw, who lived on the bar of an East End pub. There was the saga of a Yorkshire terrier called Little Tom Pollicle which was apparently Eliot’s nickname, and a long poem about a man in white spats who meets a casual diner in a pub called the Princess Louise and starts talking about “this’s and thats and Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats.” I asked Valerie what the words “Pollicle” and “Jellicle” meant. She explained it was Eliot’s private joke about how the British upper class slurred the words “poor little dogs” and “dear little cats.” She also revealed that Eliot intended the “Princess Louise” poem, as we came to call it, to be the preface of a book about dogs and cats, but in the end cats prevailed. “The Awefull Battle of the

Havana Cafe Bar de temática cubana ubicado en la principal playa de Palma de Mallorca, la Playa de Palma. Disfruta de un cóctel mientras contemplas las espectaculares puestas de sol sobre el mar Balear. Los cruceros se deslizan lentamente hasta el puerto deportivo de Palma y los turistas y lugareños pasan junto a ti en el paseo marítimo. Palma, promociones en bebidas, bares, clubes, lounges, pubs, clubes nocturnos, vida nocturna, entrada con lista, calendario de eventos, música en vivo, horarios de espectáculos, promociones bebidas, happy hour. La salsa, el baile y las risas son una constante en Havana Café, Mallorca. Dirección: Carretera Arenal 4 Playa de Palma, 07610 Palma de Mallorca, Majorca Spain para más información haga clic aquí

The door of the bar swung open and a tangle of British ‘blokes’ sauntered through, stinking of Ryanair-pre-planned-pub-crawling.

Flying Caterpillar in St Eval the most randomly named pub Ellie had ever frequented, it was also one of the nicest. More modern than the Seven Stars, it bridged the gap between pub and wine bar, with pristine white walls and dark walnut tables and bar-top, the soft furnishings lime green and neon pink, the bar taps brushed copper. It was a smidgen pretentious, but the mostly local clientele helped soften the edges, and it did a good selection of local wines.

In America, there are 62,000 bars7 and 384,000 churches.8 It’s a ratio of more than six to one in favour of churches. In Britain, there are 47,000 pubs9 and 16,000 churches.10 It’s a ratio of almost three to one in favour of pubs.

need say was I need some time off. But she couldn’t do it. “The St. James house at half-past seven,” she repeated. “Got it, sir.” He rang off. Barbara hung up. She tried to plumb the depths of her feelings, to put a name to what was slowly washing through her veins. She wanted to call it shame. She knew it was liberation. She went to tell her father that they would need to reschedule his doctor’s appointment for another day. Kevin Whateley had not gone to the Royal Plantagenet, which was the pub next door to his cottage. Rather, he had walked along the embankment, past the triangular green where he and Matthew had once learned to operate their pair of remote-control planes, and had instead entered an older pub that stood on a spit of land reaching like a curled finger into the Thames. He’d chosen the Blue Dove deliberately. In the Royal Plantagenet—despite its proximity to his house—he might have forgotten for five minutes or so. But the Blue Dove would not allow him to do so. He sat at a table that overlooked the water. In spite of the night’s falling temperature, someone was out, night fishing from a boat, and lights bobbed periodically with the river’s movement. Kevin watched this, allowing his memory to fill with the image of Matthew running along that same dock, falling, damaging a knee, righting himself but not crying at all, even when the blood began to seep from the cut, even when the stitches were later put in. He was a brave little bloke, always had been. Kevin forced his eyes from the dock and fastened them on the mahogany table. Beer mats covered it, advertising Watney’s, Guinness, and Smith’s. Carefully, Kevin stacked them, restacked them, spread them out like cards, restacked them again. He felt how shallow his breathing was and knew that he needed to take in more air. But to breathe deeply was to lose his grip for an instant. He wouldn’t do that. For if he lost control, he didn’t know how he would get it back. So he did without air. He waited. He didn’t know if the man he sought would come into the pub this late on a Sunday night, mere minutes before closing. In fact, he didn’t even know if the man came here at all any longer. But years ago he’d been a regular customer, when Patsy worked long hours behind the bar, before she’d got her job in a South Kensington hotel. For Matthew’s sake, she had said when she’d taken on the

Thoughts on a Tree (as it might have been written by Robert Frost) When I walk out alone at night to pubs, Is it the moaning of the trees I hear, The soft, subdued lament of leafy shrubs That are outsiders from the world of beer? For how unsociable, how sad they are, These rooted things, fated to stand and watch And know that they can never reach a bar Themselves, that they will never taste a scotch. And yet we are alike in many ways – I tend to be an introvert when drunk, Just as the tree, on harsh and snowy days, Takes refuge in its sturdiness of trunk. Oh tree, unable as you are to frolic, At least you won’t become an alcoholic.

My idea of hiking is a pub crawl

Do you serve anything that isn’t alcoholic?’ The barman very carefully hung the tankard on a hook over the bar and then looked directly at Vimes and said, without rancour, ‘Well, you see, sir, this is what we call a pub. People gets stuffy about it if I leaves out the alcohol.

Today was his thirty-first birthday, Valentine’s Day. None of his friends were in the pub, trying to impress the missus or girlfriend, taking them out for dinner. There were no flowers in the bar to celebrate Valentine’s, no complimentary chocolates on the counter, nothing, just hard drinking by the down-and-outs, seated and separated out evenly across the place.

The Mouse On The Bar Room Floor Some Guinness was spilt on the bar room floor When the pub was shut for the night. Out of his hole crept a wee brown mouse And, in the pale moonlight, He lapped up the frothy brew from the floor, Then back on his haunches he sat. And all night long you could hear him roar, ‘Bring on the goddamn cat!’ —An Irish Tall Tale

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Now, call me shallow, but if I walk into a pub and there are girls dancing on the bar, I tend to stick around.

Although there are some conflicting stories regarding the discoveries of the mid-Atlantic islands, it is safe to assume that in 1501 João da Nova discovered Ascension Island. The desolate island remained deserted until it was rediscovered two years later on Ascension Day by Alfonso de Albuquerque. He was also the first European to discover the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The last time I was on Ascension Island I went to “The Pan American Club” which was the Island Pub. There were a few locals drinking at the bar but outside was a donkey looking for something to drink, which the locals gladly provided. It didn’t take much, and after a few bottles of beer the donkey fell down in a drunken stupor. It was the only time in my life that I actually saw a drunken ass! (True story!)

Matthew looked up the street. The pub on the corner was the centre of a mob of people kicking, gouging and biting each other to get to the bar. An upstairs window shattered and a stream of people fell twenty feet to the hard concrete pavement. The courting couple lay in the middle of the junction having loud and enthusiastic sex, the crowd around them either openly masturbating or dropping to the ground in groupings of naked limbs.

Just warning you,” Lilly’s message read. “Patrick is here.” Cassie’s lip curled in an involuntary sneer. Looking up, she searched through the pub until she saw him. Patrick Dunham, otherwise known as Jack’s best friend, wingman and a man-whoring chauvinistic pig. She’d been forced to share oxygen with him since Lilly met Jack and Patrick had become part of their circle. And there he was, sauntering into the bar like he owned it.

Dread flooded Harry at the sound of the words. . . . He turned and looked. There it was, hanging in the sky above the school: the blazing green skull with a serpent tongue, the mark Death Eaters left behind whenever they had entered a building . . . wherever they had murdered. . . . “When did it appear?” asked Dumbledore, and his hand clenched painfully upon Harry’s shoulder as he struggled to his feet. “Must have been minutes ago, it wasn’t there when I put the cat out, but when I got upstairs —” “We need to return to the castle at once,” said Dumbledore. “Rosmerta” — and though he staggered a little, he seemed wholly in command of the situation — “we need transport — brooms —” “I’ve got a couple behind the bar,” she said, looking very frightened. “Shall I run and fetch — ?” “No, Harry can do it.” Harry raised his wand at once. “Accio Rosmerta’s Brooms!” A second later they heard a loud bang as the front door of the pub burst open; two brooms had shot out into the street and were racing each other to Harry’s side, where they stopped dead, quivering slightly at waist height. “Rosmerta, please send a message to the Ministry,” said Dumbledore, as he mounted the broom nearest him. “It might be that nobody within Hogwarts has yet realized anything is wrong. . . . Harry, put on your Invisibility

While I struggled with the menu, a handsome middle-aged guy from a nearby table came over to help. "You like sashimi? Cooked fish? Sushi?" he asked. His English was excellent. He was originally from Okinawa, he said, and a member of Rotary International. I know nothing about the Rotarians except that it's a service organization; helping befuddled foreigners order food in bars must fall within its definition of charitable service. Our service-oriented neighbor helped us order pressed sweetfish sushi, kisu fish tempura, and butter-sauteed scallops. Dredging up a vague Oishinbo memory, I also ordered broiled sweetfish, a seasonal delicacy said to taste vaguely of melon. While we started in on our sushi, our waitress- the kind of harried diner waitress who would call customers "hon" in an American restaurant- delivered a huge, beautiful steamed flounder with soy sauce, mirin, and chunks of creamy tofu. "From that guy," she said, indicating the Rotarian samaritan. We retaliated with a large bottle of beer for him and his friend (the friend came over to thank us, with much bowing). What would happen at your neighborhood bar if a couple of confused foreigners came in with a child and didn't even know how to order a drink? Would someone send them a free fish? I should add that it's not exactly common to bring children to an izakaya, but it's not frowned upon, either; also, not every izakaya is equally welcoming. Some, I have heard, are more clubby and are skeptical of nonregulars, whatever their nationality. But I didn't encounter any places like that. Oh, how was the food? So much of the seafood we eat in the U.S., even in Seattle, is previously frozen, slightly past its prime, or both. All of the seafood at our local izakaya was jump-up-and-bite-you fresh. This was most obvious in the flounder and the scallops. A mild fish, steamed, lightly seasoned, and served with tofu does not sound like a recipe for memorable eating, but it was. The butter-sauteed scallops, meanwhile, would have been at home at a New England seaside shack. They were served with a lettuce and tomato salad and a dollop of mayo. The shellfish were cooked and seasoned perfectly. I've never had a better scallop.

He’d been so sure he’d never cheat, contemptuous of friends and colleagues who risked perfectly good marriages because they couldn’t keep their pants zipped. Until that night at the new pub across from the courthouse, when Detective Jesca Ashton had grinned at him from down the bar, hair waving to her waist, China-doll teeth glinting in the dim light. When he was young he’d had a thing for long hair.