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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

We sat on the top deck and spent the journey sharing stories from the places we passed. Pubs where I'd died at open mic nights, bars where she'd gone on bad dates. Every road offered another destination of a bad past date.

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’ -

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.

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.

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. *

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

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.

So tell me what C and A means.’ Ana was flailing her arm around, scowling at Jessica but knowing she wasn’t going to get her own way. ‘It’s a, how you say… a bar.’ ‘A pub?’ ‘Crown and Anchor.’ How a group of police officers had managed to miss the name of a pub, no one seemed quite sure. It was like someone being knocked over in front of a solicitors’ office and none of them realising, or a celebrity being shagged in the reception area of a newspaper and journalists walking past. Frankly, it was embarrassing.

It was a popular and trendy neighborhood, but there was something bland about the bars and restaurants we visited. San Diego was nice - nice weather, nice beaches, and nice people - but it wasn't great. The diversity and texture I'd come to appreciate on the East Coast seemed to have been smoothed away by the surf and sand in sunny SoCal. I missed the tiny Ecuadorian restaurant a block from our Baltimor row home that served the best fried plantains, and our tiny local pub where we knew all the bartenders and they knew what we liked to drink. I missed houses built from bricks, and when summer changed into fall, most surprisingly, rain.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Did you know that you can now have that rustic outdoor bar anywhere you want? Middle of a field, inside that old Barn you have always wanted to get married in or in the middle of the meadow beside your favourite pub. Bar & Tender can set up their mobile outdoor bar pretty much anywhere, are fully licenced to run the bar, supply and or sell Alcohol.We also take care of the Temporary Event Notice on your behalf to make sure your event goes without a hitch.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Four Courts Irish pub was where we held all our memorials. It had a unique place in my heart because a bunch of assassins had tried to kill me inside the place a long time ago. Bryce wasn’t read into our program, but he believed in what we did, even if he didn’t know what that was. We’d shown up one day toasting a fallen soldier, and then we’d kept showing up, until he’d pulled me aside one afternoon. He’d seen us keeping to ourselves, knowing we didn’t want to be disturbed, and had told me if we wanted privacy the next time, the bar was ours. He’d never asked any questions, and being located so close to the CIA, I’m sure he thought that was where we worked, and I didn’t disabuse him of the notion. All I knew was that when I showed up, he shut down the bar. He flipped the sign on the door to closed and said, “I’ll be serving the drinks.” “I appreciate that. I really do.” I’d initially tried to pay to rent the place, but he was having none of it. He didn’t even let us pay for our drinks.

The focal point, where Heather would set up the tasting, was a hand-carved pub-style mahogany bar I had imported from France.

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.

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!

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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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.

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.

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.

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

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. 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Uma Thurman

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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

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

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.

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

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.

The Caribou Cafe and Pub had a dance floor with a drain in the middle of it. But it had been many years since anybody danced there, except for an occasional sloppy pirouette off a bar stool en route to the toilet.

There was no bar on, and the other two pubs in town shut for the night when they heard about the punk gig, but a few lads broke into one of the pubs, turned the pumps on and started serving themselves! Obviously the cops were called, so they ran back to the gig, and when the police turned up, we all pelted them with snowballs. John Hall, of Society’s Victims, was grabbed and thrown in the back of a cop car, and when the copper went to use his radio, John reached over and ripped it out. He got a smack in the mouth for that. Vans soon arrived with dogs and chased us all over the place, and we kept chucking snowballs at them. About half of us were taken to the police station, and it made the front page of the Matlock Mercury: ‘Punk Rockers Run Riot’!

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.

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.

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.

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

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