#oneaday Day 964: Where Everybody Knows Your Name

As someone who suffers from social anxiety, I’ve never really been one to just “go out” unless I had a very good reason, usually in the form of some friends asking me to join them. (I have, of course, tried going out by myself a few times in the past, but as chronicled in this post, it rarely ended well.)

As such, I’ve never really had somewhere that I could call “my local” with any confidence, there’s nowhere that I could accurately describe myself as a “regular” of. I’m not really bemoaning this fact — I have plenty of better things to do than sit in the pub — but it’s an aspect of life that I feel may have passed me by somewhat.

It was a little different back when I was at university, of course. We regularly frequented a wide variety of places that could quite politely be described as “dives”, but all of them had their own unique charms.

In the first year, there was Chamberlain Bar, which was the “local” for a group of several university halls of residence in the area. It wasn’t a particularly exciting bar, bearing a closer resemblance to the sort of half-hearted establishment that exists to make a few extra pennies for a community recreation centre than a jumpin’ nightspot, but it was “home” for a while. It was where most of us discovered the “Juicy Lucy” (pint glass, vodka, blue curaçao or however you spell it, double shot of Taboo, topped up with equal amounts orange juice and lemonade) and the “Passion Wagon”, officially the laziest cocktail of all time (shot of Passoa with a bottle of Reef emptied into it). It also had a tendency to throw crap events — our flat were the only attendees to dress up for “Seventies Night” and a Hawaiian-themed evening consisted of them turning the heating up full and serving nothing but the aforementioned Passion Wagons all night.

Southampton had one big club at the time when I was studying at the university. I’m not sure what it’s called now, but it used to be called Ikon and Diva, as it was one of those weird places that was split into two separate mini-clubs inside. It was shit. It was the sort of place that you went after you got really drunk and consequently barely remember anything from. Consequently, I barely remember anything about this place save for the fact I was clearly so impressed by it that I never went there ever again after my first visit.

There were plenty of smaller clubs, though. One that springs immediately to mind was New York’s, which has been closed and derelict for several years now. It was also shit, and like Ikon and Diva, it was the sort of place you only went to when absolutely off your tits. I only have random flashes of memories of the one (I think) time I went to New York’s, but I vividly recall looking down from a balcony to a stage-like area below, where a bunch of drunk men and women were stripping because the DJ had asked them to. Sure, I got to see tits, but even in my horrendously intoxicated state, I found the complete lack of human dignity on display to be more obnoxious than titillating. Consequently, I never went back there, either.

Then there was Lennon’s, which I think is probably home to most of my best “going out” memories, perhaps largely because it’s the place that several of us tended to frequent most often. I’m not entirely sure why this was, as Lennon’s was a fairly bare-bones club, being essentially a moderately-sized wooden room with a bar on one side and a DJ on the other, occasionally accompanied by a nice man named Vince who sold chips. They played good music, though, and often played host to live bands. I even performed there myself on a couple of occasions, with our university band the Coconut Scratch Orchestra discovering the folly of leaving drumbeats up to a backing track rather than a live drummer. (We all swore after that to never, ever play Mission: Impossible again.) It was also nice in that it was not frequented by the sort of waxed-chest, greasy-haired chav that frequented places like Ikon and Diva.

Would I describe myself as a “regular” at any of those places, though? No, probably not. I see a “regular” as someone who knows the bar staff by name and is recognised by bouncers; someone who meets friends there without having to make prior arrangements; someone who sees it as a “home away from home” — a place to socialise, hang out and just relax. I never quite saw it that way — it was always fun to go to Lennon’s, sure, particularly if my friend had enough to drink to get to the stage where he thought kebabs made him literally invincible, but it was never a place that I felt like I was a “part of”.

I’m not really sure if I’ve “missed out” on something by not having that kind of experience. I guess I have another chance when I hit, what, 50 years of age and start liking real ales or something?

#oneaday Day 743: Out

It occurs to me that I haven’t “been out” for ages. Not literally; I left the house both yesterday and today and will probably do so again tomorrow. I’m referring to what people mean when they say they are “going out” for an evening — that is, hitting the pubs and clubs of the local area, and probably drinking heavily along the way. Motivations for “going out” may vary — meeting with friends, going on the pull or simply just for something to do — but the results are usually pretty similar.

The vast majority of my “going out” when I was younger (read: during the university years) was conducted in conjunction with my good friend and Agricola demon Sam. We had quite a few memorable nights over the years, but they often tended to follow a fairly similar pattern.

Sam and I, and possibly a few others, would decide that we wanted to go out for some reason. In fact, there wasn’t always an explicit reason — “Let’s go to Lennon’s” was usually reason enough.

Regardless of whether there was a reason or not, we would get ourselves into whatever we considered our glad-rags to be, and head out for our target — usually either the aforementioned Lennon’s or Kaos, two grotty little student-heavy nightclubs within easy staggering distance of most of our homes, and two places with a predilection for cheap drinks that were usually 1) a knockoff of a recognisable drink and 2) out of date. Lennon’s, in particular, proudly sported a fridge which noted “contents may be out of date” and the happily sold you said contents for £1 a bottle.

The reason we went to these places rather than somewhere bigger and (arguably) better? Stubbornness, partly, but also none of us were particularly hardcore clubbers. None of us were into doing the drugs (to my knowledge, anyway) and none of us were bigtime drinkers. Both Lennon’s and Kaos allowed you the authentic clubland experience of being in a dark, smelly room with music too loud to talk to your friends over, but were both small enough that you never lost track of your friends for very long. Lennon’s, in particular, was roughly the size of a large garden shed and entirely contained in a single room, so if you had reached the stage where you couldn’t find your friends in there, you had definitely had too much.

Part of the appeal of “going out” for some is going on the pull, hoping to score some sweet lovin’ from some trophy guy/girl that you’d had your eye on all night. Or, as the evening went on, anyone who looked vaguely in your direction or accidentally made eye contact.

Suffice to say, our attempts in that regard were usually confined to standing on the perimeter of the dance floor having picked a “target” that we decided we quite liked, and then staring at them off and on for most of the night. When closing time rolled around, we would then leave with the lingering sense of regret that we should have probably actually gone and tried to talk to them, or at the very least danced near them in the vain hope they might pay attention.

I can only remember a single successful instance of “pulling” in my entire life. I was at Kaos, this time with the university theatre group, as it was our wont to invade Kaos every Monday night and enjoy their plentiful stocks of Newcastle Brown Ale and vodka-fake Red Bull. On this particular occasion, I had had a fair amount of vodka and fake Red Bull, and was consequently of the opinion that my dancing was The Shit.

“You ever tried ecstasy, mate?” yelled some Neanderthal I didn’t know in my ear as I wildly flailed around the dance floor.

“No,” I replied honestly. Almost immediately afterwards I was grabbed by a nearby blonde girl (named Beki, as it turned out) who proceeded to snog my face off.

“Yeah,” said the guy to me after Beki had allowed me to come up for air. “You’d love ecstasy.”

Quite.

So why don’t I “go out” any more? Several reasons, really: I don’t really drink any more; I live a long way from anyone who might want to “go out”; but most of all, I’m not sure I see the point any more.

That said, I can think of two people offhand who may well be reading this for whom I would happily make an exception and subject myself to the cavernous depths of The Dungeon or the sticky floor of Lennon’s. But that’s more because I haven’t seen them for ages and miss them rather than any particular massive desire to go clubbing. I certainly don’t feel the same pressure I once did that I perhaps “should” go out, head off somewhere by myself and have a miserable experience of the type outlined here.

Perhaps I’m just an antisocial old bastard. We can probably all agree on that.

#oneaday, Day 123: Kiss My Ass, World Cup

So there’s some sort of football tournament soon. Those of you who know me well will be aware that I have tried and failed several times to be the slightest bit interested in football. People I tell this to normally respond with “Oh, well, there’s the World Cup coming up. Everyone enjoys that. Even people who don’t like football.”

Well I beg to differ. I don’t like football and therefore the World Cup or similar tournaments are a vision of Hell on Earth for me. It seems for weeks at a time the entire nation except me goes absolutely insane and shows levels of supposed “patriotism” that they’d never normally show, only to get all grumpy and depressed when the England team inevitably comes to a crushingly embarrassing defeat at the hands of someone that the pundits say we “should have beaten”. Well no shit. Of course we “should have” beaten them. That’s how you win the tournament.

Anyway, fuck the World Cup, and here’s why:

That horrible shouty-singy-chanting that drunken men do, inevitably in the middle of the night outside my window when I’m trying to sleep.

As a musician and someone who actually recognises good singing when he hears it, there is no sound more loathsome to me than the sound of football chanting, except possibly that horrible sound that polystyrene makes when you scrape it against something – ugh, it gives me goosebumps (in a bad way) just thinking about it. But yes. Hearing some drunken twats shouting “EN-GUH-LUHND” in a discordant manner is not musical. Nor does it make me particularly inclined to think that Enguhluhnd is a place to be especially proud of.

Not only that, but these chants are often “sung” with such aggression that I find them genuinely threatening. I guess that’s the point – to try and intimidate rival fans and the opposing team – but I don’t particularly like it when I have to walk past or near people who are doing it. It gives me a sensation remarkably akin to panic. I fear for my own safety. I’ve never had any problems with football fans (normally because I stay the hell away from them) but the point is, I don’t feel safe around shouting people as a general life rule.

The racists come out to play.

Police are going around to all pubs andclubs saying we cant wear our england tops for the footie and we havetotake our england flags down as it is offending ppl that aren’t fromengland !!now im NOT RACIST..BUT this is taking the piss!! THIS ISENGLAND & we need to make a stand!!! would u remove ur turban if itoffended me??? we need to stick together repost this as ur status andmake ur stand!!!! ENGLAND !

Seen this on Facebook recently? Leaving the appalling spelling, punctuation and grammar aside for a moment, it’s also not true. The England flag only ever comes out for football tournaments and people get very precious about it. Particularly racists. As a result, they make up bullshit like the quote above which quickly spreads itself around Facebook as one of those interminable copy-and-paste-this-as-your-status-if-you-don’t-have-a-mind-of-your-own-and-anything-interesting-to-say pieces of nonsense. It always comes back to the same few lines, too. “fuk of bak where u come frm” [sic], “wud u remove ur [turban/burka/sari] if it ofendid me” [sic] and numerous others. I’m sure you’ve seen them before.

The trouble is, the World Cup gets people into such a flap about the England flag that being racist about defending it suddenly becomes just peachy. Any excuse to blame the Muslims in particular is jumped on by the sort of people that support the BNP’s ideology. And that’s an ugly, ugly scene.

Pubs become a no-go area.

Sometimes you just want a quiet drink. Sometimes you want to chill out with friends. But at World Cup time, you try finding a pub that isn’t filled with 1) braying idiots and 2) a giant TV showing a match… even the ones that England aren’t involved with. It’s not easy. There are some out there, sure, but they’re not always easy to find. And should you find yourself stumbling into a pub which is showing the football at the time… well, I certainly find it a threatening environment. Light-hearted banter that “oooh, there’ll be riots if England lose” doesn’t help matters.

Forced joviality.

I hate hate hate it when people tell me what I should be excited about. I feel like a tool when I do any sort of “celebration” at the best of times, so there’s no way I’m going to make a twat of myself in front of the general public by trying to fit in with one of the communal bellows when one of the players does something that is apparently good. I feel like a fraud if I try (and I’ve tried) – so I’d rather not bother. I’d rather not be in that situation in the first place at all, thanks. But if I am forced to watch a football match, I’d much rather sit quietly with my drink and ignore what’s going on as much as possible, preferably with anyone who feels the same way.

Footballers.

Last of all, I really can’t get excited about something done by people I don’t have any interest in or even respect. I hate footballers. They’re overpaid prima donnas who can kick a ball around and get paid inordinately huge amounts of cash for it. And they are the most boring people on the planet. I can’t watch a footballer being interviewed. I have to switch over, because their droning voices and complete lack of personality make me want to summon a dimensional portal in my TV in order to let me slap them in the face until they wake up from their doziness.

“Oh, it’s jealousy,” you may say. Well damn right I’m jealous. I’d very much like to be paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a day for playing a game. But I’m not. So yes, I’m jealous. As are, I’m sure, many people out there who feel they make more valid contributions to society for a relative pittance.

So that’s why I hate World Cup time. I must confess, I don’t even actually know when it’s happening. This post was prompted by the fact that World Cup-themed adverts have started appearing on television, reminding me to grit my teeth and ride out the storm as I always do. And pray that if England do manage a successful bid to host the one in whatever year they’re trying to host it in, that I manage to emigrate or at least be temporarily out of the country while it’s on.

So, fuck the World Cup, and fuck football.