Pub Sayings And Quotes

I listen to the things people want out of love these days and they blow my mind. I go to the pub with the boys from the squad and listen while they explain, with minute precision, exactly what shape a woman should be, what bits she should shave how, what acts she should perform on which date and what she should always or never do or say or want; I eavesdrop on women in cafes while they reel off lists of which jobs a man is allowed, which cars, which labels, which flowers and restaurants and gemstones get the stamp of approval, and I want to shout, Are you people out of your tiny minds?

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.

Don’t make trouble at the pub tonight, Wayne,” the man intoned in response. “My temper is really short.” “Temper?” Wayne said, passing him. “That’s a funny name for it, mate, but if the ladies like you givin’ silly names to your body parts, I ain’t gonna say nothin’.

Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door. His name, as I ought to have told you before, Is really Asparagus. That's such a fuss To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus. His coat's very shabby, he's thin as a rake, And he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake. Yet he was, in his youth, quite the smartest of Cats — But no longer a terror to mice or to rats. For he isn't the Cat that he was in his prime; Though his name was quite famous, he says, in his time. And whenever he joins his friends at their club (which takes place at the back of the neighbouring pub) He loves to regale them, if someone else pays, With anecdotes drawn from his palmiest days. For he once was a Star of the highest degree — He has acted with Irving, he's acted with Tree. And he likes to relate his success on the Halls, Where the Gallery once gave him seven cat-calls. But his grandest creation, as he loves to tell, Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.

The scarily brilliant Romantic poet and visionary William Blake dared to say what many of us have perhaps thought but kept to ourselves: “A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there’s more conversation.

All right," said Ford. "How would you react if I said that I'm not from Guildford at all, but from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse?" Arthur shrugged in a so-so sort of way. "I don't know," he said, taking a pull of beer. "Why, do you think it's the sort of thing you're likely to say?" Ford gave up. It really wasn't worth bothering at the moment, what with the world being about to end.

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.

When I was in London in 2008, I spent a couple hours hanging out at a pub with a couple of blokes who were drinking away the afternoon in preparation for going to that evening's Arsenal game/riot. Take away their Cockney accents, and these working-class guys might as well have been a couple of Bubbas gearing up for the Alabama-Auburn game. They were, in a phrase, British rednecks. And this is who soccer fans are, everywhere in the world except among the college-educated American elite. In Rio or Rome, the soccer fan is a Regular José or a Regular Giuseppe. [...] By contrast, if an American is that kind of Regular Joe, he doesn't watch soccer. He watches the NFL or bass fishing tournaments or Ultimate Fighting. In an American context, avid soccer fandom is almost exclusively located among two groups of people (a) foreigners—God bless 'em—and (b) pretentious yuppie snobs. Which is to say, conservatives don't hate soccer because we hate brown people. We hate soccer because we hate liberals.

Maya’s story could easily have ended the same way as Ruth’s story. The things that took everything in a completely different direction were so small. A mom who fought, a dad who loved, a brother who was there, a best friend who took on the whole damn world. An old witch who owned a pub, who went into a meeting at the hockey club and spoke in Maya’s defense. And, last of all, a witness who had seen everything and eventually dared to say so out loud. That was all. No more than that.

Do you know,' she said one afternoon as they were reading in her study, 'do you know the area in which one would truly excel?' 'No, ma'am?' 'The pub quiz. One has been everywhere, seen everything, and though one might have difficulty with pop music and some sport, when it comes to the capital of Zimbabwe, say, or the principle exports of New South Wales, I have all that at my fingertips.

and I still have to quell an impulse to go up to strangers in pubs and restaurants and say, “Excuse me, can I give you a tip that’ll help stop those peas bouncing all over the table?” Germans are flummoxed by humor, the Swiss have no concept of fun,

Instructions for Dad. I don't want to go into a fridge at an undertaker's. I want you to keep me at home until the funeral. Please can someone sit with me in case I got lonely? I promise not to scare you. I want to be buried in my butterfly dress, my lilac bra and knicker set and my black zip boots (all still in the suitcase that I packed for Sicily). I also want to wear the bracelet Adam gave me. Don't put make-up on me. It looks stupid on dead people. I do NOT want to be cremated. Cremations pollute the atmosphere with dioxins,k hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide. They also have those spooky curtains in crematoriums. I want a biodegradable willow coffin and a woodland burial. The people at the Natural Death Centre helped me pick a site not for from where we live, and they'll help you with all the arrangements. I want a native tree planted on or near my grave. I'd like an oak, but I don't mind a sweet chestnut or even a willow. I want a wooden plaque with my name on. I want wild plants and flowers growing on my grave. I want the service to be simple. Tell Zoey to bring Lauren (if she's born by then). Invite Philippa and her husband Andy (if he wants to come), also James from the hospital (though he might be busy). I don't want anyone who doesn't know my saying anything about me. THe Natural Death Centre people will stay with you, but should also stay out of it. I want the people I love to get up and speak about me, and even if you cry it'll be OK. I want you to say honest things. Say I was a monster if you like, say how I made you all run around after me. If you can think of anything good, say that too! Write it down first, because apparently people often forget what they mean to say at funerals. Don't under any circumstances read that poem by Auden. It's been done to death (ha, ha) and it's too sad. Get someone to read Sonnet 12 by Shakespeare. Music- "Blackbird" by the Beatles. "Plainsong" by The Cure. "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim McGraw. "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" by Sufian Stevens. There may not be time for all of them, but make sure you play the last one. Zoey helped me choose them and she's got them all on her iPod (it's got speakers if you need to borrow it). Afterwards, go to a pub for lunch. I've got £260 in my savings account and I really want you to use it for that. Really, I mean it-lunch is on me. Make sure you have pudding-sticky toffee, chocolate fudge cake, ice-cream sundae, something really bad for you. Get drunk too if you like (but don't scare Cal). Spend all the money. And after that, when days have gone by, keep an eye out for me. I might write on the steam in the mirror when you're having a bath, or play with the leaves on the apple tree when you're out in the garden. I might slip into a dream. Visit my grave when you can, but don't kick yourself if you can't, or if you move house and it's suddenly too far away. It looks pretty there in the summer (check out the website). You could bring a picnic and sit with me. I'd like that. OK. That's it. I love you. Tessa xxx

/A weekend toward the end of September, the bell above the door rang and there he was in the shop. Same old feeling in my guts. I’ll go if you want me to, he said. I smiled, I was so fucking happy to see him. You’ve only just got here, you twat, I said. Now give us a hand with this, and he took the other end of the trestle table and moved it over to the wall. Pub? I said. He grinned. And before I could say anything else he put his arms around me. And everything he couldn’t say in our room in France was said in that moment. I know, I said. I know. I’d already accepted I wasn’t the key to unlock him. She’d come later. It took a while to acknowledge the repercussions of that time. How the numbness in my fingertips traveled to my heart and I never even knew it. I had crushes, I had lovers, I had orgasms. My trilogy of desire, I liked to call it, but I’d no great love after him, not really. Love and sex became separated by a wide river and one the ferryman refused to cross. The psychiatrist liked that analogy. I watched him write it down. Chuckle, chuckle, his pen across the page.

We were having dinner in a pub in the country, and I noticed a man kept staring at me. Outside, as I was leaving, he approached me quite innocently. ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but you look exactly like you’ve been drawn by Tim Burton. Do you know who I mean?’ I replied that not only did I know whom he meant but that I had two children by him and, in fact, he was standing behind him. The man looked round and nearly died. HELENA BONHAM CARTER Actress & Partner to Tim

I wanted you to kiss me, Jack," I say, bereft. It's not as if he isn't aware what I wanted back there; to be coy would be pointless. "I don't like myself for it." He strokes my hair, cups my chin, looks me in the eyes. "If I tell you something, do you promise to never tell another living soul, not even a goldfish?" I swallow, eye to eye with him as I nod, and he takes my face between both of his hands. Whatever he's about to say, I think it's something I'm going to remember forever. "I wanted to kiss you back there in the pub, Laurie, and I want to kiss you even more right now. You're one of the loveliest people I've ever met in my whole life." He looks away, down the length of the deserted street and then back at me again. "You're beautiful and kind, and you make me laugh, and when you look at me like that with your summer hedgerow eyes...only a fucking saint wouldn't kiss you." Then he leans me against the wall with the weight of his body, and because he isn't a fucking saint, he kisses me. Jack O'Mara dips his head and kisses me in the snow, his lips trembling and then hot and sure, and I'm crying and kissing him back, opening my mouth to let his tongue slide over mine as he makes this low, injured animal noise in his throat. I feel the relief of him in every follicle of my hair, and in every cell of my body, and in the blood in my veins. His breathing is as shallow as mine, and it's so much more than I've ever imagined, and trust me, I used to let my imagination run riot where Jack O'Mara was concerned. He holds my face as if I'm precious and then pushes his fingers into my hair, cupping my head in his hands when I tip it back. This is the only time we will ever kiss each other. He knows it, I know it, and it's so achingly melancholy-sexy that I feel tears threaten again.

My husband admired people with conviction, people who could firmly differentiate between yes and no . . my husband was incapable of saying no, he always agreed to everything, whenever anybody came over and invited him to the pub he was a pushover, even if he didn't want to go, he promised to write something with respect to their conversation, promised to make an appearance somewhere he'd rather not be, but my husband had no conviction, all he had was a feeling of guilt, and the fact he agreed to everything was his way of asking to be forgiven for even existing at all ...

It seems so easy now to destroy libraries--mainly by taking away all the books--and to say that books and libraries are not relevant to people's lives. There's a lot of talk about social breakdown and alienation, but how can it be otherwise when our ideas of progress remove the centres that did so much to keep people together? In the North people met in the church, in the pub, in the marketplace, and in those philanthropic buildings where they could continue their education and their interests. Now, maybe, the pub is left--but mainly nothing is left. The library was my door to elsewhere.

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!

Two guys in an English pub, one says ‘From your accent I guess you are Irish’. Second guy says, ‘Yes, from Dublin’. ‘Me too!’ first guy says. ‘I was raised in Drimnagh, went to St. Mary’s school’. ‘Drimnagh? St. Mary’s?’ Second guy can’t believe it. ‘I graduated from St. Mary’s in 1982’. First guy slaps his forehead. ‘Faith and begorah. I graduated from St. Mary’s in 1982 also!’ Bartender says,” Jones paused for breath, “he says to himself ‘This is going to be a long night. The Murphy twins are drunk again’.

he made Widecombe-in-the-Moor sound awfully pretty and I was curious to see to what extent it remained so. I am happy to say it is still a gorgeous place. It has a lovely church with a magnificent tower, a green, a pub, and a shop, and stands amid a symphony of rocky hills.

Bullshit,” says Viv. “Did you have your eyes open the other night in the pub? Mabe, I’ve never, ever seen him so happy and the way he was looking at you made even me melt. He’s in love with you.” “No, he isn’t.” “Yes, he is. It’s just unfortunate that he’s a fuckwit as well.

All of Man’s works, all his cities, all his empires, all his monuments will one day crumble to dust. Even the houses of my own dear readers must – though it be for just one day, one hour – be ruined and become houses where the stones are mortared with moonlight, windowed with starlight and furnished with the dusty wind. It is said that in that day, in that hour, our houses become the possessions of the Raven King. Though we bewail the end of English magic and say it is long gone from us and inquire of each other how it was possible that we came to lose something so precious, let us not forget that it also waits for us at England’s end and one day we will no more be able to escape the Raven King than, in this present Age, we can bring him back.” The History and Practice of English Magic by Jonathan Strange, pub. John Murray, London, 1816.

Arthur Church, who as I say took local journalism very seriously, wrote an eloquent defence of reporting even the nasty things. The gist of it was this, that it was in the public interest that the truth be known and known because it has been carefully reported and published. Without it, you are relying on the man in the pub, and rumour, possibly malicious rumour. If the local paper does for some reason get it wrong, then this would be known, and an apology and clarification would be made. This was not the best of all worlds, but better than the world of hearsay.

To look at Montmorency you would imagine that he was an angel sent upon the earth, for some reason withheld from mankind, in the shape of a small fox-terrier. There is a sort of Oh-what-a-wicked-world-this-is-and-how-I-wish-I-could-do-something-to-make-it-better-and-nobler expression about Montmorency that has been known to bring the tears into the eyes of pious old ladies and gentlemen. When first he came to live at my expense, I never thought I should be able to get him to stop long. I used to sit down and look at him, as he sat on the rug and looked up at me, and think: “Oh, that dog will never live. He will be snatched up to the bright skies in a chariot, that is what will happen to him.” But, when I had paid for about a dozen chickens that he had killed; and had dragged him, growling and kicking, by the scruff of his neck, out of a hundred and fourteen street fights; and had had a dead cat brought round for my inspection by an irate female, who called me a murderer; and had been summoned by the man next door but one for having a ferocious dog at large, that had kept him pinned up in his own tool-shed, afraid to venture his nose outside the door for over two hours on a cold night; and had learned that the gardener, unknown to myself, had won thirty shillings by backing him to kill rats against time, then I began to think that maybe they’d let him remain on earth for a bit longer, after all. To hang about a stable, and collect a gang of the most disreputable dogs to be found in the town, and lead them out to march round the slums to fight other disreputable dogs, is Montmorency’s idea of “life;” and so, as I before observed, he gave to the suggestion of inns, and pubs., and hotels his most emphatic approbation.

There's one big difference between the poor and the rich,' Kite says, taking a drag from his cigarette. We are in a pub, at lunch-time. John Kite is always, unless stated otherwise, smoking a fag, in a pub, at lunch-time. 'The rich aren't evil, as so many of my brothers would tell you. I've known rich people -- I have played on their yachts -- and they are not unkind, or malign, and they do not hate the poor, as many would tell you. And they are not stupid -- or at least, not any more than the poor are. Much as I find amusing the idea of a ruling class of honking toffs, unable to put their socks on without Nanny helping them, it is not true. They build banks, and broker deals, and formulate policy, all with perfect competency. 'No -- the big difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich are blithe. They believe nothing can ever really be so bad, They are born with the lovely, velvety coating of blitheness -- like lanugo, on a baby -- and it is never rubbed off by a bill that can't be paid; a child that can't be educated; a home that must be left for a hostel, when the rent becomes too much. 'Their lives are the same for generations. There is no social upheaval that will really affect them. If you're comfortably middle-class, what's the worst a government policy could do? Ever? Tax you at 90 per cent and leave your bins, unemptied, on the pavement. But you and everyone you know will continue to drink wine -- but maybe cheaper -- go on holiday -- but somewhere nearer -- and pay off your mortgage -- although maybe later. 'Consider, now, then, the poor. What's the worst a government policy can do to them? It can cancel their operation, with no recourse to private care. It can run down their school -- with no escape route to a prep. It can have you out of your house and into a B&B by the end of the year. When the middle-classes get passionate about politics, they're arguing about their treats -- their tax breaks and their investments. When the poor get passionate about politics, they're fighting for their lives. 'Politics will always mean more to the poor. Always. That's why we strike and march, and despair when our young say they won't vote. That's why the poor are seen as more vital, and animalistic. No classical music for us -- no walking around National Trust properties, or buying reclaimed flooring. We don't have nostalgia. We don't do yesterday. We can't bear it. We don't want to be reminded of our past, because it was awful; dying in mines, and slums, without literacy, or the vote. Without dignity. It was all so desperate, then. That's why the present and the future is for the poor -- that's the place in time for us: surviving now, hoping for better, later. We live now -- for our instant, hot, fast treats, to prep us up: sugar, a cigarette, a new fast song on the radio. 'You must never, never forget, when you talk to someone poor, that it takes ten times the effort to get anywhere from a bad postcode, It's a miracle when someone from a bad postcode gets anywhere, son. A miracle they do anything at all.

Sure you’re not going to miss it, Roy?’ ‘I’ll miss the camaraderie, but not the politics. Too much of that, these days. Know what I’m looking forward to most of all?’ ‘No – what?’ ‘It’s being able to go into a pub and say what I really think, without having to worry that one of my bosses gets to hear about it,

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’ -

To hang about a stable, and collect a gang of the most disreputable dogs to be found in the town, and lead them out to march round the slums to fight other disreputable dogs, is Montmorency’s idea of “life;” and so, as I before observed, he gave to the suggestion of inns, and pubs., and hotels his most emphatic approbation.

God is never impressed with the phony. He has no time or patience for the false; God deals only with truth. He says that to trust His Word as a plain statement of truth, ignoring all the mocking taunts of those who think they know better, will not be an easy path but it will be an absolutely sure one. That is what Hebrews 11 says to us.

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.

They say old age is a clever thief. He steals things without you noticing, until there’s nothing left. The same goes for urban development. It seemed like yesterday that Soho was a charming parish boasting peep shows, gambling dens and pubs full of pornographers and poets. Now it was all private members’ clubs and would you like a cinnamon sprinkle

And when the governor kept saying how 'we' wanted you to do this; and 'we' wanted you to do that, I kept looking round for the other blokes, wondering how many of them there was. Of course, I knew there were thousands of them, but as far as I knew only one was in the room. And there are thousands of them, all over the poxeaten country, in shops, offices, railway stations, cars, houses, pubs—In-law blokes like you and them, all on the watch for Out-law blokes like me and us—and waiting to phone for the coppers as soon as we make a false move. And it'll always be there, I'll tell you that now, because I haven't finished making all my false moves yet, and I dare say I won't until I kick the bucket.

Boxing Day. Country pubs. Saying 'you're the dog's bollocks' as an expression of endearment or admiration. Jam roly-poly with custard Ordnance Survey maps I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue Cream teas The shipping forecast The 20p piece June evenings, about 8pm Smelling the sea before you see it Villages with ridiculous names like Shellow Bowells and Nether Wallop

Imagine that the brain and the genitals are a couple of friends on vacation together, wandering down the street deciding where to have dinner. If they're women, it goes like this: The genitals notice any restaurant they pass, whether it's Thai food or pub grub, fast food or gourmet (while ignoring all the museums and shops),and say, "This is a restaurant. We could eat here." She has no strong opinion, she's just good at spotting restaurants. Meanwhile, the brain is assessing all the contextual factors [...] to decide whether she wants to try a place. "This place isn't delicious smelling enough," or "This place isn't clean enough," or "I'm not in the mood for pizza." The genitals might even notice a pet store and say, "There's pet food in here, I guess..." and the brain rolls her eyes and keeps walking. [...] Now, if the friends are men, it goes like this: The genitals notice only specific restaurants -- diners, say -- and don't notice any restaurants that aren't diners. Once they find a diner, the brain says, "A diner! I love diners," and the genitals agree, "This is a restaurant, we could eat here," unless there's some pretty compelling reason not to, like a bunch of drunks brawling outside.

I say, you know', said Dudley, awkwardly, 'if I'm in the way, you know, just speak the word and I'll race off to the local pub. I mean to say, don't want to butt in, I mean.' 'Not at all, Mr--' 'Finch.' 'Not at all, Mr. Finch. I am only too delighted', said Lady Wickham, looking at him as if he were a particularly loathsome slug which had interrupted some beautiful reverie of hers in the rose-garden, 'that you were able to come.

After Frank came out, Amy would begin a performance at a gig by walking onstage, clapping and chanting, ‘Class-A drugs are for mugs. Class-A drugs are for mugs …’ She’d get the whole audience to join in until they’d all be clapping and chanting as she launched into her first number. Although Amy was smoking cannabis, she had always been totally against class-A drugs. Blake Fielder-Civil changed that. Amy first met him early in 2005 at the Good Mixer pub in Camden. None of Amy’s friends that I’ve spoken to over the years can remember exactly what led to this meeting. But after that encounter she talked about him a lot. ‘When am I going to meet him, darling?’ I asked. Amy was evasive, which was probably, I learned later, because Blake was in a relationship. Amy knew about this, so initially you could say that Amy was ‘the other woman’. And although she knew that he was seeing someone else, it was only about a month after they’d met that she had his name tattooed over her left breast. It was clear that she loved him – that they loved each other – but it was also clear that Blake had his problems. It was a stormy relationship from the start. A few weeks after they’d met, Blake told Amy that he’d finished with the other girl, and Amy, who never did anything by halves, was now fully obsessed with him.

At least, man has always feared this 2x2=4 formula, and I still fear it. We may suppose a man may do nothing but search for such equations, crossing the oceans and dedicating his life to the quest; but succeeding, really finding them- I swear he will be afraid of that. Really, he will feel that if he finds them, he will have nothing left to search for. When workmen have finished work, they at least receive their money, they go and spend it in the pub, they get hauled off to the police- station- that's enough to occupy them for a week. But where can mankind go? To say the least, something uncomfortable is to be noticed to man on the achievement of similar goals. His likes progress towards the goal, but he does not altogether care for the achievement of it, and that, of course, is ridiculous. In short, mankind is comically constructed; all this plainly amounts to a joke.

Rea­sons Why I Loved Be­ing With Jen I love what a good friend you are. You’re re­ally en­gaged with the lives of the peo­ple you love. You or­ga­nize lovely ex­pe­ri­ences for them. You make an ef­fort with them, you’re pa­tient with them, even when they’re side­tracked by their chil­dren and can’t pri­or­i­tize you in the way you pri­or­i­tize them. You’ve got a gen­er­ous heart and it ex­tends to peo­ple you’ve never even met, whereas I think that ev­ery­one is out to get me. I used to say you were naive, but re­ally I was jeal­ous that you al­ways thought the best of peo­ple. You are a bit too anx­ious about be­ing seen to be a good per­son and you def­i­nitely go a bit over­board with your left-wing pol­i­tics to prove a point to ev­ery­one. But I know you re­ally do care. I know you’d sign pe­ti­tions and help peo­ple in need and vol­un­teer at the home­less shel­ter at Christ­mas even if no one knew about it. And that’s more than can be said for a lot of us. I love how quickly you read books and how ab­sorbed you get in a good story. I love watch­ing you lie on the sofa read­ing one from cover-to-cover. It’s like I’m in the room with you but you’re in a whole other gal­axy. I love that you’re al­ways try­ing to im­prove your­self. Whether it’s running marathons or set­ting your­self chal­lenges on an app to learn French or the fact you go to ther­apy ev­ery week. You work hard to be­come a bet­ter ver­sion of your­self. I think I prob­a­bly didn’t make my ad­mi­ra­tion for this known and in­stead it came off as ir­ri­ta­tion, which I don’t re­ally feel at all. I love how ded­i­cated you are to your fam­ily, even when they’re an­noy­ing you. Your loy­alty to them wound me up some­times, but it’s only be­cause I wish I came from a big fam­ily. I love that you al­ways know what to say in con­ver­sa­tion. You ask the right ques­tions and you know ex­actly when to talk and when to lis­ten. Ev­ery­one loves talk­ing to you be­cause you make ev­ery­one feel im­por­tant. I love your style. I know you think I prob­a­bly never no­ticed what you were wear­ing or how you did your hair, but I loved see­ing how you get ready, sit­ting in front of the full-length mir­ror in our bed­room while you did your make-up, even though there was a mir­ror on the dress­ing ta­ble. I love that you’re mad enough to swim in the English sea in No­vem­ber and that you’d pick up spi­ders in the bath with your bare hands. You’re brave in a way that I’m not. I love how free you are. You’re a very free per­son, and I never gave you the sat­is­fac­tion of say­ing it, which I should have done. No one knows it about you be­cause of your bor­ing, high-pres­sure job and your stuffy up­bring­ing, but I know what an ad­ven­turer you are un­der­neath all that. I love that you got drunk at Jack­son’s chris­ten­ing and you al­ways wanted to have one more drink at the pub and you never com­plained about get­ting up early to go to work with a hang­over. Other than Avi, you are the per­son I’ve had the most fun with in my life. And even though I gave you a hard time for al­ways try­ing to for al­ways try­ing to im­press your dad, I ac­tu­ally found it very adorable be­cause it made me see the child in you and the teenager in you, and if I could time-travel to any­where in his­tory, I swear, Jen, the only place I’d want to go is to the house where you grew up and hug you and tell you how beau­ti­ful and clever and funny you are. That you are spec­tac­u­lar even with­out all your sports trophies and mu­sic cer­tifi­cates and in­cred­i­ble grades and Ox­ford ac­cep­tance. I’m sorry that I loved you so much more than I liked my­self, that must have been a lot to carry. I’m sorry I didn’t take care of you the way you took care of me. And I’m sorry I didn’t take care of my­self, ei­ther. I need to work on it. I’m pleased that our break-up taught me that. I’m sorry I went so mental. I love you. I always will. I'm glad we met.

Yeah,’ I said. ‘A place of our own.’ That was what I wanted: a bed where Rosie and I could sleep through the night in each other’s arms, wake up in the morning wrapped together. I would have given anything, anything at all, just for that. Everything else the world had to offer was gravy. I listen to the things people want out of love these days and they blow my mind. I go to the pub with the boys from the squad and listen while they explain, with minute precision, exactly what shape a woman should be, what bits she should shave how, what acts she should perform on which date and what she should always or never do or say or want; I eavesdrop on women in cafés while they reel off lists of which jobs a man is allowed, which cars, which labels, which flowers and restaurants and gemstones get the stamp of approval, and I want to shout, Are you people out of your tiny minds? I never once bought Rosie flowers–too hard for her to explain at home–and I never once wondered whether her ankles looked exactly the way they were supposed to. I wanted her, all mine, and I believed she wanted me.

There were eight simple lessons in plain language anybody could understand, and I studied them just a few hours a night, then started practising on the wife. Soon found I could talk right up to the Super and get due credit for all the good work I did. They began to appreciate me and advance me fast, and say, old doggo, what do you think they're paying me now? $6,500 per year! And say, I find I can keep a big audience fascinated, speaking on any topic. As a friend, old boy, I advise you to send for circular (no obligation) and valuable free Art Picture to:— SHORTCUT EDUCATIONAL PUB. CO. Desk WA Sandpit, Iowa. ARE YOU A 100 PERCENTER OR A 10 PERCENTER?

...[W]hen's it all going to f***ing stop? I’m going to jump from rock to rock for the rest of my life until there aren’t any rocks left? I’m going to run each time I get itchy feet? Because I get them about once a quarter, along with the utilities bills. More than that, even… I’ve been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and frankly speaking, between you and me, I have come to the conclusion that my guts have s*** for brains. I know what's wrong with Laura. What's wrong with Laura is that I'll never see her for the first or second or third time again. I'll never spend two or three days in a sweat trying to remember what she looks like, never again will I get to a pub half an hour early to meet her staring at the same article in a magazine and looking at my watch every thirty seconds, never again will thinking about her set something off in me like "Let's Get it On" sets something off in me. And sure, I love her and like her and have good conversations, nice sex and intense rows with her, and she looks after me and worries about me and arranges the Groucho for me, but what does all that count for, when someone with bare arms, a nice smile, and a pair of Doc Martens comes into the shop and says she wants to interview me? Nothing, that's what, but maybe it should count for a bit more.

Warm tingles trail under my skin, and I shiver. “Please,” he says, dropping my hands so he can tuck one of his into my hair and tilt my head up to him. “Come with me to the symposium. And then come with me to the pub and the museum, to the park, to the sunset, to the sky.” His cinnamon breath is warm on my lips, and I remember the night on the balcony under the stars when I wanted so badly for him to close the distance between us. “You speak like a poet,” I whisper. When he laughs, I feel the rumble of it where my hands rest against his chest, and my whole body trembles. “Just say yes!” Lucy cries from behind the curtain. “For Artist’s sake, Myra!” “Go to sleep!” I shout back, not taking my eyes from August.

I didn’t know how to tell you . . .” “You didn’t know how to tell me? How about: ‘Cathy, I got fired because I was drunk at work’? How about that?” I flinch and her face softens. “I’m sorry, but honestly, Rachel.” She really is too nice. “What have you been doing? Where do you go? What do you do all day?” “I walk. Go to the library. Sometimes—” “You go to the pub?” “Sometimes. But—” “Why didn’t you tell me?” She approaches me, placing her hands on my shoulders. “You should have told me.” “I was ashamed,” I say, and I start to cry. It’s awful, cringeworthy, but I start to weep. I sob and sob, and poor Cathy holds me, strokes my hair, tells me I’ll be all right, that everything will be all right. I feel wretched. I hate myself almost more than I ever have.

It’s incredible, really, the amount of pain cricketers are prepared to put themselves through. Say you’re an opening batsman who gets out for a duck in the first over on day one. What compels you to hang around for the rest of the day, let alone turn up the following Saturday for day two? Yet you do, lest 10 blokes who you don’t even like think slightly less of you. You retain a sense of loyalty to the club, to your teammates, even though those same teammates will not hesitate to rate your girlfriend a ‘six out of 10’ in front of your face. During the time I’ve spent watching my teammates bat after getting out cheaply, I could have learned a language by now. I could be speaking Mandarin. Instead, all I’ve got to show for it is a career average of 13.6 and a 10 percent discount at our local pub.

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.

I listen to the things people want out of love these days and they blow my mind. I go to the pub with the boys from the squad and listen while they explain, with minute precision, exactly what shape a woman should be, what bits she should shave how, what acts she should perform on which date and what she should always or never do or say or want; I eavesdrop of women in cafes while they reel off lists of which jobs a man is allowed, which cars, which labels, which flowers and restaurants and gemstones get the stamp of approval, and I want to shout, Are you people out of your tiny minds? I never once bought Rosie flowers—too hard for her to explain at home—and I never once wondered whether her ankles looked exactly the way they were supposed to. I wanted her, all mine, and I believed she wanted me. Till the day Holly was born, nothing in my life has ever been so simple.

I keep to the light and look through the windows of restaurants and pubs. I climb up the stairs of a theater and see people inside standing around in little groups on a red carpet and talking. There are tall tables some stand around with bowls of sharing food on top---nuts and crisps and dips and olives. I keep walking, past an Italian bistro in which people are eating seafood pasta; in another restaurant, two people have a huge plate of oysters between them; a man and a woman are talking animatedly about something they have on their table---a thick wad of paper that has text on it and notes written in pen---while they share food in a Peruvian restaurant. "Have you tried the scallops?" someone says. "Have you had time to look at the menu?" says another person. Two women, all in black, with instrument cases, are sharing a bottle of wine outside. A waiter comes out with a platter of sushi.

In the OED editors’ defense, they have set out to accomplish something that is inherently impossible—to record the entirety of a language. It is only natural they should occasionally come across words that are virtually indefinable, or that have meanings that have been lost to the ages. Whatever failings or inconsistencies the editors may exhibit are certainly not for lack of effort. James Murray in particular was renowned for attempting to ferret out knowledge, writing letters to every authority he could think of and posting queries in newspapers begging for information on a word. When I read the definition of lege de moy (“App. the name of some dance”) I cannot help but imagine that they must have spent a tremendous amount of time looking for the meaning and roots of this word before one of the editors finally threw his hands up in disgust and exclaimed, “What the hell—just say it’s some kind of dance or something, and let’s get to the pub.” As

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.

All of the fucking in “The Art of Joy” could put it in a class with “Story of O” or “The Sexual Life of Catherine M.” But Sapienza’s novel is about sex only insofar as an account of a woman’s artistic, intellectual, and political maturation must include her sexual career. Or, better, the discovery of pleasure initiates Modesta’s appetite more generally—for knowledge, for experience, for autonomy. It turns her outward, toward nonsexual things, by inwardly sustaining her. Her childish sadism is less sexual than it is basically libidinal: her erotic interest in her sister’s or St. Agatha’s pain, or the way in which her hatred of Leonora transmutes into arousal—these are signs of an exultant urge to live. “The real way of living is to answer to one’s wants,” D. H. Lawrence says in a letter (written, incidentally, from Italy). “I want that liberty, I want that woman, I want that pound of peaches, I want to go to sleep, I want to go to the pub and have a good time, I want to look abeastly swell today, I want to kiss that girl, I want to insult that man.

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?

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!

She could envision Shakespeare's sister. But she imagined a violent, an apocalyptic end for Shakespeare's sister, whereas I know that isn't what happened. You see, it isn't necessary. I know that lots of Chinese women, given in marriage to men they abhorred and lives they despised, killed themselves by throwing themselves down the family well. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm only saying that isn't what usually happens. It it were, we wouldn't be having a population problem. And there are so much easier ways to destroy a woman. You don't have to rape or kill her; you don't even have to beat her. You can just marry her. You don't even have to do that. You can just let her work in your office for thirty-five dollars a week. Shakespeare's sister did...follow her brother to London, but she never got there. She was raped the first night out, and bleeding and inwardly wounded, she stumbled for shelter into the next village she found. Realizing before too long that she was pregnant, she sought a way to keep herself and her child safe. She found some guy with the hots for her, realized he was credulous, and screwed him. When she announced her pregnancy to him, a couple months later, he dutifully married her. The child, born a bit early, makes him suspicious: they fight, he beats her, but in the end he submits. Because there is something in the situation that pleases him: he has all the comforts of home including something Mother didn't provide, and if he has to put up with a screaming kid he isn't sure is his, he feels now like one of the boys down at the village pub, none of whom is sure they are the children of the fathers or the fathers of their children. But Shakespeare's sister has learned the lesson all women learn: men are the ultimate enemy. At the same time she knows she cannot get along in the world without one. So she uses her genius, the genius she might have used to make plays and poems with, in speaking, not writing. She handles the man with language: she carps, cajoles, teases, seduces, calculates, and controls this creature to whom God saw fit to give power over her, this hulking idiot whom she despises because he is dense and fears because he can do her harm. So much for the natural relation between the sexes. But you see, he doesn't have to beat her much, he surely doesn't have to kill her: if he did, he'd lose his maidservant. The pounds and pence by themselves are a great weapon. They matter to men, of course, but they matter more to women, although their labor is generally unpaid. Because women, even unmarried ones, are required to do the same kind of labor regardless of their training or inclinations, and they can't get away from it without those glittering pounds and pence. Years spent scraping shit out of diapers with a kitchen knife, finding places where string beans are two cents less a pound, intelligence in figuring the most efficient, least time-consuming way to iron men's white shirts or to wash and wax the kitchen floor or take care of the house and kids and work at the same time and save money, hiding it from the boozer so the kid can go to college -- these not only take energy and courage and mind, but they may constitute the very essence of a life. They may, you say wearily, but who's interested?...Truthfully, I hate these grimy details as much as you do....They are always there in the back ground, like Time's winged chariot. But grimy details are not in the background of the lives of most women; they are the entire surface.

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

Despite an icy northeast wind huffing across the bay I sneak out after dark, after my mother falls asleep clutching her leather Bible, and I hike up the rutted road to the frosted meadow to stand in mist, my shoes in muck, and toss my echo against the moss-covered fieldstone corners of the burned-out church where Sunday nights in summer for years Father Thomas, that mad handsome priest, would gather us girls in the basement to dye the rose cotton linen cut-outs that the deacon’s daughter, a thin beauty with short white hair and long trim nails, would stitch by hand each folded edge then steam-iron flat so full of starch, stiffening fabric petals, which we silly Sunday school girls curled with quick sharp pulls of a scissor blade, forming clusters of curved petals the younger children assembled with Krazy glue and fuzzy green wire, sometimes adding tissue paper leaves, all of us gladly laboring like factory workers rather than have to color with crayon stubs the robe of Christ again, Christ with his empty hands inviting us to dine, Christ with a shepherd's staff signaling to another flock of puffy lambs, or naked Christ with a drooping head crowned with blackened thorns, and Lord how we laughed later when we went door to door in groups, visiting the old parishioners, the sick and bittersweet, all the near dead, and we dropped our bikes on the perfect lawns of dull neighbors, agnostics we suspected, hawking our handmade linen roses for a donation, bragging how each petal was hand-cut from a pattern drawn by Father Thomas himself, that mad handsome priest, who personally told the Monsignor to go fornicate himself, saying he was a disgruntled altar boy calling home from a phone booth outside a pub in North Dublin, while I sat half-dressed, sniffing incense, giddy and drunk with sacrament wine stains on my panties, whispering my oath of unholy love while wiggling uncomfortably on the mad priest's lap, but God he was beautiful with a fine chiseled chin and perfect teeth and a smile that would melt the Madonna, and God he was kind with a slow gentle touch, never harsh or too quick, and Christ how that crafty devil could draw, imitate a rose petal in perfect outline, his sharp pencil slanted just so, the tip barely touching so that he could sketch and drink, and cough without jerking, without ruining the work, or tearing the tissue paper, thin as a membrane, which like a clean skin arrived fresh each Saturday delivered by the dry cleaners, tucked into the crisp black vestment, wrapped around shirt cardboard, pinned to protect the high collar.

There is a lot to life beyond the computer screen. There is food and music and art and friendship and talking and laughing and flowers and sports and, as you say, an argument down at the pub. To say that the internet changed everything is simply an alarming assertion for an intelligent person to make. You are spending way too much time in front of a computer screen.

I know what's wrong with Laura. What's wrong with Laura is that I'll never see her for the first or second or third time again. I'll never spend two or three days in a sweat trying to remember what she looks like, never again will I get to a pub half an hour early to meet her, staring at the same article in a magazine and looking at my watch every thirty seconds, never again will thinking about her set something off in me like 'Let's Get It On' sets something off in me. And sure, I love her and like her and have good conversations, nice sex and intense rows with her, and she looks after me and worries about me and arranges the Groucho for me, but what does all that count for, when someone with bare arms, a nice smile, and a pair of Doc Martens comes into the shop and says she wants to interview me? Nothing, that's what, but maybe it should count for a bit more.

One sunny day in Ireland, two men were sitting in a pub, drinking some Guinness, when one turns to the other and says "You see that man over there? He looks just like me! I think I'm gonna go over there and talk to him." So, he goes over to the man and taps him on the shoulder. "Excuse me sir," he starts, "but I noticed you look just like me!" The second man turns around and says "Yeah, I noticed the same thing, where you from?", "I'm from Dublin", second man stunned says, "Me too! What street do you live on?", "McCarthy street", second man replies, "Me too! What number is it?", the first man announces, "162", second man shocked says, "Me too! What are your parents’ names?", first man replies, "Connor and Shannon", second man awestruck says, "Mine too! This is unbelievable!"   So, they buy some more Guinness and they're talking some more when the bartenders change shifts. The new bartender comes in and goes up to the other bartender and asks "What's new today?" "Oh, the Murphy twins are drunk again.

It was an odd way to spend my day off. Not odd in the way that, say, dressing up in tin foil, claiming to be a potato, and asking people to bake me is. Besides, that was a one time deal, but only because I lost a bet. No,

Over the door of Bulfinche’s Pub, there was a saying in Gaelic, Maireann dóchas is gliodar. Translated it means hope and happiness never die. There have been times of late that they seemed to be on life support. With luck, they’d make a full recovery and spread all around our world. Corny? Yep, but I’ve been called worse. And honestly, if things were a little more corny, we might  all be a bit better off.

i promise will meet again subodh kumar "Love does not grow on trees or it can not be brought from the market, but if you want to be "LOVED" you must first know how to give unconditional LOVE.." The heart wants what it wants. There's no logic to these things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that's that. Nobody can ever say that love happens only once! And this love can happen at any age, anytime. But that story has got nothing do with anything that the modern world celebrates today. Yes!!! Today the so called "Love" has transformed a lot! Eye written statements of those earlier days turned into letters and this current world has got chatting, meeting, dating, pubs, parties, etc. I have written this book to tell the people about real love. And this is one such story! Not exactly a story, it could be like a stolen life of a true love relation. If you want to know the answer to it all, read the book.

As we started our long drive back to the zoo, we stopped at what could be called a general store. There was a pub attached to the establishment, and the store itself sold a wide variety of goods, groceries, cooking utensils, swags, clothing, shoes, even toys. As we picked up supplies in the shop, we passed the open doorway to the pub. A few of the patrons recognized Steve from television. We could hear them talking about him. The comments weren’t exactly positive. Steve didn’t look happy. “Let’s just get out of here,” I whispered. “Right-o,” he said. One of the pub patrons was louder than the others. “I’m a crocodile hunter too,” he bragged. “Only I’m the real crocodile hunter. The real one, you hear me, mate?” The braggart made his living at the stuffy trade, he informed his audience. A stuffy is a baby crocodile mounted by a taxidermist to be sold as a souvenir. To preserve their skins, hunters killed stuffys in much the same way that the bear poachers in Oregon stabbed their prey. “We drive screwdrivers right through their eyes,” Mister Stuffy boasted, eyeing Steve through the doorway of the pub. “Right through the bloody eye sockets!” He was feeling his beer. We gathered up our purchases and headed out to the Ute. Okay, I said to myself, we’re going to make it. Just two or three more steps… Steve turned around and headed back toward the pub. I’d never seen him like that before. My husband changed into somebody I didn’t know. His eyes glared, his face flushed, and his lower lip trembled. I followed him to the threshold of the pub. “Why don’t you blokes come outside and tell me all about stuffys in the car park here?” he said. I couldn’t see very well in the darkness of the pub interior, but I knew there were six or eight drinkers with Mister Stuffy. I thought, What is going to happen here? There didn’t seem any possible good outcomes. The pub drinkers stood up and filed out to face Steve. A half dozen against one. Steve chose the biggest one, who Mister Stuffy seemed to be hiding behind. “Bring it on, mate,” Steve said. “Or are you only tough enough to take on baby crocs, you son of a bitch?” Then Steve seemed to grow. I can’t explain it. His fury made him tower over a guy who actually had a few inches of height on him and outweighed him with a whole beer gut’s worth of weight. I couldn’t imagine how he appeared to the pub drinkers, but he was scaring me. They backed down. All six of them. Not one wanted to muck with Steve, who was clearly out of his mind with anger. All the world’s croc farms, all the cruelty and ignorance that made animals suffer the world over, came to a head in the car park of the pub that evening. Steve got into the truck. We drove off, and he didn’t say anything for a long time. “I don’t understand,” I finally said in the darkness of the front seat, as the bush landscape rolled by us. “What were they talking about? Were they killing crocs in the wild? Or were they croc farmers?” I heard a small exhalation from Steve’s side of the truck. I couldn’t see his face in the gloom. I realized he was crying. I was astounded. This was the man I had just seen turn into a furious monster. Five minutes earlier I’d been convinced I was about to see him take on a half-dozen blokes bare-fisted. Now he wept in the darkness. All at once, he sat up straight. With his jaw set, he wiped the tears from his face and composed himself. “I’ve known bastards like that all my life,” he said. “Some people don’t just do evil. Some people are evil.” He had told me before, but that night in the truck it hit home: Steve lived for wildlife and he would die for wildlife. He came by his convictions sincerely, from the bottom of his heart. He was more than just my husband that night. He was my hero.

In that moment Paulette stepped outside anything that had ever hurt her before. Harve needed her more than she needed herself. But she had nothing to say. Nothing to offer him. She came up empty. “I may not have shot any of those babies in safety seats, but I took out my share o’ guys in a country I started thinking we had no right bein’ in. I could tell myself they’d signed up for it, knowing they might not go home, but that just didn’t cut it after a while.” … … “Oh, they were scumbags, alright. Other guys in my unit’d be ready to just level the kids too, cause they were getting in our way, but I said, Wait. Let me try goin’ in first. Let me come at ’em from the rear. “Other times I just lost myself in the righteous glory of cluster bombing the hell outa those bastards. “And for that one moment, in all the cheering and explosions it’s like all was right with the world. It was John Phillip Sousa at Disneyland. “But then you wake up a little. You just snuffed out future generations. Maybe bad guys can have good kids if you let ’em. We’ll never know now.” He was coming close to crying. “And then you see all those pieces; kid parts lying everywhere. “And their little faces. “If they even still had faces. “Once you finish throwing up, and then toss back a few at camp pub, your next job is to find something inside you that you can bury that under. “And then … what? Just go on living?” - From “The Gardens of Ailana

We drove into the Cradle Mountain resort still munching on raspberries. Emma and Kate waited with the kids in the car. “I’ll just be a minute,” I said. “I’ll check in and we’ll head to our rooms.” The currawongs were calling, and a padymelon, a small version of a roo, hopped off a wall just at the edge of the car park as I went in. “Where’s all the snow?” I asked the woman behind the desk. “It snowed this morning,” she said. “Well, good,” I said. “There’s hope.” Then she passed me a note. She said, “Frank called from the zoo.” “I’m not surprised,” I said. “I haven’t called the zoo all day, and Frank is always trying to track me down.” “Why don’t you come take the call in the office?” she said. I thought that was a little odd, since when I had been there before I’d always used the pay phone near the pub at the resort. But I entered the office and sat down in a big, comfortable chair. I could see the car park out the window. Emma and Kate were still out at the car. Robert had fallen asleep, and Kate sat inside with him. Bindi smiled and laughed with Emma. “How you going, Frank?” I said into the phone. He said, “Hi, Terri. I’ve been trying to get hold of you for a while.” His voice had a heavy, serious tone. “Well, I’ve just got here,” I said. “Sorry about that, but I’m here now. What’s up?” “I’m sorry to say that Steve had a bit of an accident while he was diving,” Frank said. “I’m afraid he got hit in the chest by a stingray’s barb.” I’m sure there wasn’t much of a pause, but I felt time stop. I knew what Frank was going to say next. I just kept repeating the same thing over and over in my head. Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it. Then Frank said the three words I did not want him to say, “And he died.” I took a deep breath and looked out the window. There was Bindi, so happy to have finally arrived at one of her favorite places. We were going to have fun. She had brought her teacher and Kate. She was so excited. And the world stopped. I took another breath. “Thank you very much for calling, Frank,” I said. I didn’t know what I was saying. I was overwhelmed, already on autopilot. “You need to cancel the rest of our trip, you need to contact my family in Oregon, and you need to get us home.” So it began.

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 other words,” I said. “If someone asked you why you hang around that sadist, you’ll say ‘beats me.

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

Our apocalyptic fiction depicts a world in which humans revert to the savagery of the jungle the moment our institutions fall, survivors tearing each other to pieces even as they are dying of plague or stalked by the undead. In our real history, we have been in that situation many times—left without government or law enforcement, none of the modern institutions we take for granted. From each of these scenarios what emerged was not savagery, but cooperation. When the pillars of our culture crumble, we rebuild them. [...] Mankind is, and always has been, much greater than the sum of its parts. A lone human may appear to be nothing special if observed, say, blearily standing in line at a convenience store at two in the morning, or spitefully ripping a toy from the hands of a middle-aged woman in the chaos of a Black Friday sale. Yet, the combined efforts of these confused and volatile primates result in gleaming cities and majestic flying carriages. They have split the atom and peered across the universe. In the blink of an eye, they have acquired the powers of gods. This, I believe, is the fate of humanity: to colonize the stars over the next thousand years, to set down settlements in our solar system and others. Then, many centuries from now, one of our descendants will be strolling along some marvelous domed paradise on some distant planet and will see a drunken youth in offensive clothing, vomiting in an alley outside a pub. The man will look sidelong at the youth in that shameful state, shake his head, and mutter to himself that humanity is a ridiculous, doomed species, incapable of anything worthwhile. He will believe it, because the true, wonderful, terrible, fearsome power of humanity is otherwise almost too much to comprehend. I recognize that not all of you share my faith, but you must admit that if gods are real and have observed humanity’s evolution from afar, they must shudder at the possibilities.

While I’m out working with Tommy Quinn, we get chatting about a session, a few nights previous, in a local pub called The Hill. It gets its name from the plain fact that it sits on top of a hill. The conversation moves on to the state of rural Ireland, and rural everywhere for that matter. He’s lived here in Knockmoyle for all of his life, so his opinions on the subject hold weight with me. He asks me what technology I think had the most dramatic impact on life here when he was growing up. I state what I feel are obvious: the television, the motor car and computers. Or electricity in general. Tommy smiles. The flask, he says. I ask him to explain. When he was growing up in the 1960s, he and his family would go to the bog, along with most of the other families of the parish, to cut turf for fuel for the following winter. They would all help each other out in any way they could, even if they didn’t always fully get on. Cutting turf in the old ways, using a sleán, is hard but convivial work, so each day one family would make a campfire to boil the kettle on. But the campfire had a more significant role than just hydrating the workers. As well as keeping the midges away, it was a focal point that brought folk together during important seasonal events. During the day people would have the craic around it as the tea brewed, and in the evenings food would be cooked on it. By nightfall, with the day’s work behind them, the campfire became the place where music, song and dance would spontaneously happen. Before the night was out, one of the old boys would hide one of the young lads’ wheelbarrows, providing no end of banter the following morning.

because she had no clue how to cope with the present or the future. ‘He lived in a fantasy world at times ‒ “always looking for excitement”, I used to say. More exciting things than we could give him. No surprise to me that he became a policeman.’ She managed a laugh. ‘He could be a little fibber, though. For the first two weeks he was with you, he told us he’d got shift work in a local pub.’ Penny could see that Maggie had taken this the wrong way. ‘Oh – he was never ashamed of you! He wanted to keep you all to himself, Maggie. That’s what it was . . . Look at him now. My beautiful boy walking beside my beautiful man one last time.’ Music began to play from inside the chapel and Penny’s grip on Maggie’s arm tightened. The five burly men and Ridley stepped up to the back doors of the hearse and formed two lines of three, opposite each other. The funeral director pulled the coffin far enough out for everyone to take up position on either side. Manoeuvring the weighty box up onto everyone’s shoulders was a jittery affair, but they all soon settled. The funeral director then led the way inside. Jack walked directly behind his dad. It took twenty minutes for everyone to file into the crematorium and find their seats.

There were certain people in the hardcore traditional or revivalist folk movement who saw us as perhaps encroaching on their territory and taking liberties with “their” music,’ says Simon Nicol. ‘It’s a preposterous attitude, because they’re just songs, they don’t exist under glass, they’re not exhibits in a museum that you have to preserve in amber.’ In any case, remembers Swarbrick, the English folk circuit was in a pretty stagnant state by the end of the decade. ‘I used to go out with Ian Campbell to pubs and all you could hear was the dominoes clinking. It was an effort to get things going.

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 –

I unbuttoned the top of my shirt as I looked at the Tongue & Buckle. I wasn’t used to button-up shirts. I only owned two. The one I had on was new, a gift from my sister. Just thinking about her made my fingers worry nervously at the next button. The shirt was black, short-sleeved with tiny little skulls on the pocket. On the back, a Day of the Dead style Virgin Mary. Haley has a wicked sense of humor.   James didn’t insist on much, but he did insist on dressing up for meetings. Ridiculous, since one of the members had a hard time wearing pants. Wait, what was I thinking? James insisted on tons of things. I undid another button.   “You’re one away from a nice seventies look.” Sean put his feet up on the dash.   “I’d need chest hair for that. And gold chains.”   “True.” He leaned farther back into the passenger seat, if that was even possible. Sean, at least, never bitched about my Subaru. “You know, you’re going to have to go in eventually. And the longer you wait, the longer you’re in those clothes.”   I flicked a piece of lint off the black slacks James had dug up for me. He’d grunted at inspection. That grunt probably meant he’d be taking me shopping soon. Or it might have been directed at my Cons. You never knew. He needed to cut me some slack. My last job had been flipping burgers. You didn’t buy dress shoes for a job like that. With a job like that, you couldn’t even afford dress shoes. Or clothes. You couldn’t afford anything, really.   Sean looked over at the pub. “What did Groucho Marx say about being aware of any job that requires new clothes?”   “The quote is that we should ‘beware of all enterprises that require new clothes,’ and it’s Thoreau, not Groucho Marx.”   “Oooh, listen to you. ‘It’s Thoreau.’ Well, we didn’t all go to college for a quarter.”   “I went for a year, not a quarter, and shut up.

…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...

If we train her, honing her skills as a chef to the very utmost of her considerable ability... ... then it's possible we could delay the day the storm takes her. We must raise Erina to be the greatest chef the Nakiri Family has ever produced! And to do so, we must find them! Find the perfect rocks that will polish her to a mirror shine... A Veritable Generation of Diamonds! Professor Hayama. I hear your student Shiomi has found an intriguing boy overseas." "S-Sir Senzaemon! How did you...?!" "Oh, I simply happened to overhear it. Have you thought of bringing that boy to Japan and enrolling him here?" "What?! B-but, sir! Not only is Akira a foreigner, he's an orphan of unknown origins! Is such a thing even possible?!" "I will speak with the Ministry of Justice. Whether it be through bribery or sheer force... I will see to it that they grant Akira Hayama Japanese citizenship." "Darling... You know that boy from the harbor pub? Now Alice is insisting that he come with her back to Japan, and she won't listen to reason. Father is right. For Mana's sake... ... I will help him with his plan. If Alice wants to bring Ryo Kurokiba, then so be it! He will learn at Totsuki alongside her! I've heard all the rumors about them, you know. So you have not one but two highly talented nephews? How wonderful! Their futures look bright indeed. Say... have you thought of sending them to our Institute? I'm sure the Aldini Brothers would do well there." "Okay, okay. You win. Geez. Stubborn old coot. But don't come crying to me... ... if Soma flips the tables on your grandkid and uses her as a steppingstone." Competing against Erina just may destroy the confidence of these children, but so be it! I'm fully aware that this plan is an imperious use of my power for personal gain... ... but I'm willing to make any sacrifice! I will do whatever it takes to make Erina into a light of hope! Then I will show her to Mana... Through her own daughter she will see... ... that there is yet hope and promise in cooking!"

You’re saying you would sit in my pub and talk into a wireless, and they would hear it in America?

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.

I shall always attribute my uncertain start in New Zealand to the fact that I was introduced too early to what is knows as the 'five o'clock swill'. The phrase has, when you consider it, a wonderful pastoral - one might almost say idyllic - ring to it. It conjures up a picture of fat but hungry porcines, all freshly scrubbed, eagerly and gratefully partaking of their warm mash from the horny but kindly hands of the jovial farmer, a twinkling eyed son of the soil. Nothing could be further from the truth. The five o'clock swill is the direct result of New Zealand's imbecilic licensing laws. In order to prevent people getting drunk the pubs close at six, just after the workers leave work. This means they have to leave their place of employment, rush frantically to the nearest pub, and make a desperate attempt to drink as much beer as they can in the shortest possible time. As a means of cutting down drunkenness, this is quite one of the most illogical deterrents I have come across.

I’m not bad enough for you,” James said with a soft chuckle. Luke’s thing for bad boys was well-documented. Luke groaned. “I don’t pick them on purpose. It just happens.” “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say.” James pulled his phone out and shot a quick text to Ryan. You can’t be taking a leak for an hour. If you think you’re being subtle, you’re not. Ryan returned to their secluded corner in the pub five minutes later and actually had the nerve to look displeased when he saw how far apart James and Luke were sitting. Taking one look at his face, Luke started laughing. “You were at the pub across the road, weren’t you?” Ryan didn’t even crack a smile. James had noticed that his mood was getting worse with the continued failure of his matchmaking efforts. James wasn’t sure what to think of it: he still tried not to be too obvious about his feelings in order to make Ryan more comfortable, but Ryan’s mood seemed to be darkening regardless of that. James had even tried to pretend to be enamored with the previous guy Ryan had pushed at him, but Ryan had seen through his bullshit immediately and they had a big, ugly fight. It looked like they were going to have another one tonight. Sighing, James decided they had better get somewhere private first. He made their excuses while Ryan remained silent and stony-faced by his side. They left the pub in silence.

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.

Cooper,” she said. “Cooper Jax.” As if saying his name would someone break the spell, vanquish the mirage she was still faintly hoping she was seeing. It didn’t. Instead it brought the mirage a few strides farther into the pub as folks moved to clear a path. “What are you doing here?” she asked as she moved forward until the two were standing no more than five yards apart, encircled by the completely hushed crowd. She wished she sounded strong, strident even. They were on her turf now, in her world. He was the interloper, the traveler. But her voice was hoarse even to her own ears, a mere rasp; her throat was too tight, too dry, too…everything, to manage anything more than that. His smile was brief, a slash of white teeth framed by a hard jaw, but his gaze never wavered. “It’s been a year, Kerry. More than. And I’ve come to realize there’s a question I didn’t ask you before you left. One I should have. And I can’t seem to get on with life until I know the answer.

Cooper,” she said. “Cooper Jax.” As if saying his name would someone break the spell, vanquish the mirage she was still faintly hoping she was seeing. It didn’t. Instead it brought the mirage a few strides farther into the pub as folks moved to clear a path. “What are you doing here?” she asked as she moved forward until the two were standing no more than five yards apart, encircled by the completely hushed crowd. She wished she sounded strong, strident even. They were on her turf now, in her world. He was the interloper, the traveler. But her voice was hoarse even to her own ears, a mere rasp; her throat was too tight, too dry, too…everything, to manage anything more than that. His smile was brief, a slash of white teeth framed by a hard jaw, but his gaze never wavered. “It’s been a year, Kerry. More than. And I’ve come to realize there’s a question I didn’t ask you before you left. One I should have. And I can’t seem to get on with life until I know the answer.” She had no idea what on earth he was talking about. She’d worked his cattle station for a year, the longest she’d ever stayed in one place. She’d left to come home for Logan’s wedding. And, if she were honest, to save herself from having to decide when to leave. Because she’d come close to admitting that maybe she didn’t want to. And she never let herself want. At least not something that wasn’t in her power to get. Fear. Of losing. If there was nothing to lose, there was nothing to fear. “What might that be?” she asked, having to force the bravado that was normally second nature to her. From the corner of her eye, she caught Fergus, his gaze swiveling between the two of them…a broad grin on his face. Auld codger. To think she’d stayed for him. He was the only one who knew. The only one she’d confided in. Of course he was loving this. Cooper walked closer and a murmur of unease swelled, but Fergus waved his good hand, like a silent benediction, approving of what was about to unfold, and they fell silent again. Cooper’s gaze was locked exclusively on hers, and suddenly it was as if they were the only two people in the room. Everything else fell away, and she felt herself getting pulled in, swallowed up. That was always how he’d made her feel, as if she was this close to drowning…and that maybe she should stop trying so hard to keep her head above water. He stopped a foot in front of her and she lifted her gaze--and her chin--to stay even with his. “Before, when you were there, working, living alongside us, I thought if I gave you room, gave you space, you’d figure out that Cameroo Downs was where you belonged,” he said.

Kerry had headed up the back stairs of the pub, and even as exhausted as she was, she’d still found it impossible to wipe that image of Cooper from her mind. The sun setting over his back, highlighting the breadth of his shoulders, sending shadows under those cheekbones, made more chiseled by the ridiculously gorgeous, shit-eating grin that had been on his face when he made it clear he was in town to stay. “For another twenty-nine days anyway.” Kerry pulled her pillow over her face and groaned. Part of her was still in utter shock that he was actually there, in her town. Hell, in her orbit at all. Other parts of her--most of them hormonally activated--were still all aquiver from that kiss. She groaned again and ground clenched fists into the mattress on either side of her hips. Damn, but that kiss… How many times had she lain in bed, just like this, only in a bunkhouse at Cameroo Downs, and wondered what it would be like to be kissed by Cooper Jax? Okay, okay, a whole lot more than kissed. But damn…that kiss alone had been worlds better than the best sex she’d ever had. So much so, he’d probably ruined her for having sex with mere mortals. So I guess you’ll just have to have sex with him, then. “Not helpful,” she grunted at her little voice, jerking the pillow off her face and thumping it on the bed beside her. Besides, even if she was willing to have some kind of fling with Cooper, fulfill even a sliver of the many, oh, so very many fantasies she’d had about the man, he’d made it clear from pretty much the moment he’d set foot back into her world that he wasn’t looking for a fling. He’d strolled right in and made it clear he was looking for a--no. She squeezed her eyes shut and tightened her lips, willing her mind to go blank. It didn’t work. She couldn’t shut it out. Cooper Jax had, basically, proposed to her. Then he’d walked all up and down a kelp-covered, low-tide seashore and listened to her enumerate the reasons why they couldn’t even contemplate such a union. Right before kissing her in a way that defied science and made her wonder if she might need a pregnancy test, before pretty much declaring he was going to spend the next four weeks making it as impossible for her to say no to his doing that again, and maybe more, as he could.

The way I see it,” she went on, “our friendship, and our working relationship, were solid foundations we built over time. Now you’re here wanting more, and the way we started that next step was with a kiss. So I feel like we’ve done just about everything two people can do in getting to know each other except…finish that kiss. It seemed to me that the logical next step, the next piece of information we needed to know, was what comes next when we let that kiss go to its natural conclusion.” She did smile then, and her emerald green eyes blazed as she let down a guard he didn’t know she’d still had erected, letting him see for the first time the rest of what she was feeling. “Or at least that was my rationale for finally letting myself have what I fantasized about having, all those months I worked next to you.” He opened his mouth, then shut it again when her words sank in. “I--what did you just say?” Her smile remained, but there was a new light flickering in the depths of her eyes now, one that somehow managed to look bold, excited, and endearingly nervous all at the same time. “You weren’t alone, Cooper, in wanting…what you wanted. At least the physical attraction part anyway. I should have been more forthright about that when you showed up at the pub, or afterward. But at least try to see this from my perspective. Suddenly, out of the blue, the man I lusted after all those months was standing, quite improbably, right in front of me, in his full, Technicolor gorgeousness, looking even better than the guy I was sure I’d exaggerated and romanticized. Right there, in the flesh. And before I could even begin to get a grip on that, you went all going down on bended knee on me, and--it was all so much, too much, to even begin to process.” She let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Maybe if you’d just dragged me into your arms and not given me a chance to think, I might have surrendered right there on the spot, and the rest of the Cove be damned. But instead you’re all sincere, with your big, beautiful heart hanging on your sleeve, all earnest and lovely, and I so didn’t deserve anything like that, not after the way I left things between me and your entire family. I didn’t have the first clue what to do with that. With you.” Her smile turned decidedly rueful. “So, naturally, I resorted to form. I shut you down, told you to go away. If I couldn’t run away, I was going to make damn sure you did. I mean, it was one thing to leave Cameroo, then insult you and your family by not keeping in touch. It was another thing entirely to do it again, right to your face.” “I hate to interrupt,” he said, trying like hell not to grin, then drag her into his lap to do what he apparently should have done the moment he’d laid eyes on her again. “But I haven’t heard a word you’ve said since that part where you’ve been lusting after me for two years.

Where were you planning on heading next, then, if not Australia?” Fiona asked. “Oh, I’ll just toss a dart at the map like I usually do,” Kerry said, as blithely as she could. Fiona eyed her closely, as if checking her sincerity. “Well, whenever you do head back out--wherever and with whomever that might be--we’ll make sure Gus hires someone to help him with the pub. So, you know, don’t let that part affect your decision making or anything.” “‘Wherever or with whomever’?” Kerry repeated with a roll of her eyes. Fiona beamed sweetly again. “Just saying.

Where were you planning on heading next, then, if not Australia?” Fiona asked. “Oh, I’ll just toss a dart at the map like I usually do,” Kerry said, as blithely as she could. Fiona eyed her closely, as if checking her sincerity. “Well, whenever you do head back out--wherever and with whomever that might be--we’ll make sure Gus hires someone to help him with the pub. So, you know, don’t let that part affect your decision making or anything.” “‘Wherever or with whomever’?” Kerry repeated with a roll of her eyes. Fiona beamed sweetly again. “Just saying.” “All kidding aside, I’m not the settling down type, Fi.” At the flash of real sadness Kerry saw flicker through her too-optimistic-for-her-own-good sister, she made a show of sliding Fiona’s arm out from where it had been looped through hers and dropping it as if she was suddenly contagious. “Don’t go trying to spread all your bride cooties on me,” she teased, hoping to shift them back to their more comfortable pattern of affectionately swapping insults, and far, far away from delving in to the fears and worries that were truly the reason behind her defensive attitude. Kerry knew her family and extended family--hell, everyone in the Cove--only wanted what was best for her, wanted her to be happy. She just wanted the space and time to figure out what, exactly, that was going to be, all by herself. “Some of us aren’t meant for home and hearth. For white picket fences. Or silly cattle dogs and stone fire pits.” It was only when Fiona’s gaze sharpened again that she realized she’d said that last part out loud. A knowing smile played at the corners of Fiona’s mouth and her eyes sparked right back to matchmaker life. “Don’t,” Kerry warned. “Whatever do you mean?” Fiona said with false innocence. “I hear what you’re saying. And I believe you. At least, I believe you believe you.

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.

Neve didn’t know why she’d bothered trying to shine some light on the darkest, most secret places of her psyche. In fact, she didn’t even know why she’d come to the pub to suffer this emotional abuse when she could have been tucked up on her sofa with a nice bowl of home-made vegetable soup and the new issue of the London Review of Books. She got to her feet and stuck out her hand in Max’s general direction. ‘It was nice to see you again but I really have to go now.’ ‘Oh, don’t be like that.’ Max took her hand but only so he could stroke her knuckles. ‘You really have to stop taking everything so personally. It must be exhausting.’ ‘Goodbye,’ Neve said sharply, removing her hand from Max’s grasp and snatching up bag, coat, scarf, hat and gloves, and wishing that it wasn’t winter because it was impossible to make a speedy getaway when you had so much cold-weather gear to put on first. ‘Tell Bridie to put your drinks on the Slater tab,’ she added, because God forbid that Max should think ill of her. Or more ill of her.

I say he hurled himself into the sea because he couldn’t live with what he’d done.” Anger burned briefly in his friendly face but was quickly snuffed out when another patron called out to him. He snapped the beard back into place. “Turned out he’d mortgaged the pub to the hilt. There were massive debts to clear, so they sold the old cottage to Mark Bowers. He rents it out to holiday-makers now. The girls were happy to sell the pub on to me with the

A toast — may you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live.” We each have a sip of our drinks and then Ben says, “I heard that the other night at a crazy little Irish pub.

The knot in Kim’s stomach hardens and she turns to Megs and she says, ‘What the fuck is the matter with you? Huh? I mean, what the fuck is the fucking matter with you? Our kids have been missing for three days. Three days! And all you can do is moan and tut and sigh and act like this is all some kind of massive inconvenience. Well, I’m so sorry to drag you out of the pub, out of your back garden, so sorry to keep you from getting on with your day.

If she knew I went out again,' he said, 'I could get youth custody.' 'If she shopped you, you mean?' He nodded. 'But... sod it... to cut a foot off a horse...' Perhaps the better nature was somewhere there after all. Stealing cars was OK, maiming racehorses wasn't. He wouldn't have blinded those ponies: he wasn't that sort of lout. 'If I fix it with your aunt, will you tell me?' I asked. 'Make her promise not to tell Archie. He's worse.' 'Er,' I said, 'who is Archie?' 'My uncle. Aunt Betty's brother. He's Establishment, man. He's the flogging classes.' I made no promises. I said, 'Just spill the beans.' 'In three weeks I'll be sixteen.' He looked at me intently for reaction, but all he'd caused in me was puzzlement. I thought the cut-off age for crime to be considered 'juvenile' was two years older. He wouldn't be sent to an adult jail. Jonathan saw my lack of understanding. He said impatiently, 'You can't be underage for sex if you're a man, only if you're a girl.' 'Are you sure?' 'She says so.' 'Your Aunt Betty?' I felt lost. 'No, stupid. The woman in the village.' 'Oh... ah.' 'Her old man's a long-distance truck driver. He's away for nights on end. He'd kill me. Youth custody would be apple pie,' 'Difficult,' I said. 'She wants it, see? I'd never done it before. I bought her a gin in the pub.' Which, at fifteen, was definitely illegal to start with. 'So... um...,' I said, 'last night you were coming back from the village... When, exactly?' 'It was dark. Just before dawn. There had been more moon light earlier, but I'd left it late. I was running. She-Aunt Betty-she wakes with the cocks. She lets the dogs out before six.' His agitation, I thought, was producing what sounded like truth. I thought, and asked, 'Did you see any ramblers?' 'No. It was earlier than them.' I held my breath. I had to ask the next question, and dreaded the answer.

This nanny state, the worst this country has known since the days of Cromwell,” and then went on to say that if the pub, that centre of social life in the village, closed down, then the village would lose its heart.

Sardines have been considered a low-grade fish since the old days. Unlike sea bream, left-eyed flounder and sweetfish, they're never used in first-class restaurants. They've always been used as fertilizer in the fields or food for fish farms. People treat them as the lowest fish there is." "Hmm..." "Recently the size of the sardine catch has decreased, so people have begun to value them. But the chef here has been making sardine dishes since back when people thought of them as worthless. You could almost say the chef here... ... has staked his life on this fish. This place may seem shabby compared to a luxurious ryōtei that takes pride in using expensive ingredients... But the food here is sincere and earnest. This restaurant is far more attractive to me than the average first-class ryōtei. It may look shabby, but his spirit is noble. That's because the chef believed in himself and created this place from scratch by his own effort.

This is an eel roll-up skewer. It's thinly sliced eel meat wrapped around a skewer." "What do you mean by the eel meat?" "Take a look at the diagram behind you." "Hmm! It's been separated into so many different parts! It's soft, meaty and fatty... I can enjoy the flavor of the eel to the fullest!" "I must say... this skewer tastes good." "The taste of the eel is a lot richer since it hasn't been steamed like a Tokyo-style kabayaki! And it's a lot more soft and succulent than the kansai-style kabayaki!" "It's the very essence of the eel's flavor." "This is the liver. I can only get one liver out of an eel, so I can only provide the customers with a limited amount each day." "Oh, but isn't the liver the guts?" Ah, look at the diagram. At my place, the liver is one specific part while the guts are the whole thing." "Ooh, I see. That's what it means." "Animal guts have a distinct smell to them. But the eel liver has no smell at all!" "Unlike an ordinary liver skewer... I've taken out the gall bladder, so it's not bitter. Next come the grilled ribs. The ribs are the abdominal bones in the eel that you get rid of when making kabayaki. I skewer and grill them.

Actually, a vast number of men, even when they are in the springtime of their lives, “kill” time by reading “shockers”, solving crossword puzzles, studying the worthless tips of racetrack touts, by loafing on the street corner or in pubs and by scores of other time-wasting devices. In most cases, time is all they have. It is their only capital. And their steady desire is to destroy it. Speaking of crossword puzzles, Mr. Esme Wingfield-Stratford truly says: “Energy must find an outlet somewhere, even in the most atrophied mind, and that it may drain itself easily and agreeably into vacancy, puzzles and competitions are devised, culminating in the invention of the crossword, perhaps the most scientific of all time-killing devices, with its capacity for holding the attention just sufficiently to keep the brain employed in the most useless of all possible activities for hours on end.

for pub meals and never forgot either of their birthdays. The truth was, if he could ask Cadi if she minded, she’d probably stare at him with big brown eyes, curled up on the sofa next to her Golden Lab pal Bouncer, and likely say, ‘And your point is?’ Molly, on the other hand, was a different kettle of herring. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before,’ she said when he explained that he was unlikely to be home at anything like a reasonable time and so had okayed it with the Dawes for Cadi to stay with them overnight. That way, he was certain she’d get a walk. ‘I could have done that,’ Molly said, piqued. ‘Yes, I realise that, but the weather is, for want of a better word, shite. And you’re still at Gwen’s, right?’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘You told me this morning.’ ‘Did I? For a minute there I thought you had a GPS tracer on my car.’ ‘That can be arranged. I’m well aware you can look after yourself, Molly, but the whole point of you staying at mine is that I’m there.’ ‘As a minder?

The Irishman raises his beer and says "sluncha" or "slawn chair" or something like that, obviously a Gaelic toast, and we bellow "sluncha!" and clink glasses and take long, deep, manly, Irish pub drinks.