Saturday 20 June 2015

Saturday Morning

Last night I did a shift of bar work. 8am - 3am. It was a private party for the 18 year old son of nice middle-class parents. So, basically - 200 middle-class kids, and some of their parents early on.

The building where I have my studio has a bar in the basement and a dance floor and further bar on the first floor. It's a really nice place and the work has been done really well. Last night was kind of a test night - there will be more regular opening hours later in the year.

Observations. The music was terrible, really terrible. Girls insist on wearing shoes that they cannot walk in, presumably in the belief that they will get used to them later on. They never do. Nothing sadder than a girl with a fixed middle distance stare, trying to walk in baby steps, so overcome with pain she cannot even talk. Just take them off!

Kids are actually quite dull, the clothes are dumbed down versions of what their parents would wear. Kids are drunk. I cannot believe how much they drink. They were given coloured straps when they came in so we knew who was over 18, and they were not allowed to buy drinks for other people. many had already been drinking before they arrived. We had no card readers so they couldn't go wild (most were totally incredulous they couldn't buy a single drink on a card) and we didn't serve doubles -which probably prevented some being hospitalised. I didn't serve anyone who was drunk, we gave everyone free water and at the end of the night we gave them all platters of hummus and pitta bread - 8 hours of solid drinking needed soaking up. Still, they drank, mostly spirits (staggeringly bad value for money - literally pissing it away) or Jaeger bombs. A foul, over-priced and filthy concoction that they neither enjoyed nor appreciated. Most will wake up this morning very ill.

The  boys were all really nice, friendly - quite happy to be told they had drunk enough,. the girls were different, either a bit dim after a few drinks, or really quite unpleasant. It's an an odd phenomena, being sober in a room full of total drunks. There is a big debate about how vulnerable women are when they are drunk. No clearly means no - but there were girls last night who went to a lot of trouble to let several boys at the same time think they had said yes, mostly for drinks. Some - generally the ones who were better looking and better dressed, were quite arrogant and had a lot of attitude - but generally, most were sweet, well behaved, and on the way to liver failure. There wasn't a single one who had a soft drink, all wanted to work their way through a bottle of vodka. many complained at first that they couldn't taste the drinks - realising later that everywhere sells doubles really cheaply and that's what they were used to.The only problems we had were the nice middle class parents. They really were something else.

I'm still genuinely shocked at how much they all drank, and clearly how used to it all they were.

When I came out - all the bars and clubs were still open. The police were about, as well as many street pastors. That part of town is full of clubs and night spots.

Quite a lot of work to do next week. I'm actually doing something for £25 - generally with jobs like that I'd say I'll do it for free - but that's not the way the world is anymore.

I had a bit of a red mist moment earlier in the week. I came home after just an hour outside the house and found this. Took me quite a while to calm down.



Here is a nice one of me at The Havelock in Hastings, an old town centre pub with spectacular tiled friezes. They are listed which makes the building difficult to uses - it has changed hands constantly over the years and is in the wrong place. The guys running it now are just 'wrong' - but the tiles are nice. It's the one pub that reminds me of Liverpool. I look staggeringly old and bald.


6 comments:

Anne Roy said...

How good to see a photo of you.

Sorry about your sofa ... the dogs might get lonely when you are out of the house. I have a friend in Canada who puts their dog in a cage when they leave the house ... a very big cage with all creature comforts.

Anne Roy said...

You have not posted for nearly a fortnight. I hope everything is all right there ...

Anne in Cambridge (the U.K.one)

Anna said...

I keep checking to see if you've posted aanything... I do hope you're all right....

Letterslive said...

Getting worried about you...
Frances

landscape said...

You are starting to worry me now.Are you ok?

Anne Roy said...

I even looked at the Hastings newspaper to see if I could see anything about an accident etc. ...

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