What’s the British equivalent of “Deliverance”? It’s the Pub I went to this weekend love.

Bullet Tooth Tony: You should never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.

I would be remiss if I didn't start with the almighty British Pub (short for Public House) but I REALLY have to start with Pub culture because this weekend I experienced a real honest to goodness Pub Fight!! Replete with shattered glass, lager sprayed everywhere and a very dangerous pool cue stick.

Now, I’ve been to an English pub before but never one like this.  This was truly a proper “common-folk loiter”.   And honestly it was entirely my idea to go there.  Must get the full experience mustn’t I?

We started the evening in quite the normal establishment.  Apparently George Orwell took a dump and thought of “Animal Farm” right on this very spot… when I mentioned that I saw another “REAL” English pub in my day’s wanderings that I thought would be good to go to (you can’t just do one pub’ on Friday night, its just unheard of).  I mean it was called the “Old Crowne”, it had a picture of AN OLD CROWN on the sign…  I mean it HAD to be authentic didn’t it, …  I almost wanted it to have “ye olde crowne” and then it would have been perfect.  Right… off we go “To The OLD Crown then!!’  I damn near said “Tally Ho and actually jaunted over there.

The first thing as the door opens I see… is that a … uhmm yah that is a little blonde child no older than 6 years of age – Riiiigghtt oh and 2 of her little friends, gingers both complete with freckles and like I said, no older than 6.  Ok so its about 10:00 PM but then I saw the “Happy Birthday” sign so I thought “Oh it’s a private party, no experiencing a traditional pub this night” but ah trusty Mr. G says to  try to get the barmaid’s attention and see if she’ll serve us.  Lo and behold, she’s serving, “certainly love, what would you like?”  “A Pint of Stella for the fella and a double vodka for me please”.  ( BTW the whole measuring of spirits is whole other blog – lets just say tiny swallows of liquor just doesn’t quite describe it)

A couple of double vodka’s in and I’m beginning to actually enjoy the Karaoke man screaming “Insert Unintelligible English Song Title Here” and am over how small (I mean compact) the pool table and cue balls are. I’ve even made new friends with some of the local “tarts”.  I even begin to think its normal that toddlers are running around at half 11PM  requesting Justin Beiber (god he’s infiltrated everything hasn’t he).

Then everything goes suddenly awry – there’s a hard working proper geezer (40-something run-of-the-mill blue collar worker for us yanks) and a young-ish “tosser” who apparently has tried to skip the geezer in the turn of the game.  “You bloody saw my pound there” “Ah I’m not the one, mate”

Then there’s a smash of pint glass on the ground and a brandishing of a cue stick, a grab of my arm “Natty we’re going NOW” and a scream of “Leave my Daddy alone”… and then… a pause… and the music starts again and I shit you not the whole bar goes back to business as usual in about 2 minutes flat.  With even my newfound tartlet friends ordering a round of sickly sweet pinkish tequila shots “C’mere New York girl and join us” and the geezer has mysteriously disappeared and all is right in the Old Crown. 

I fancy this is how the west was won and I still have no idea how everything happened so fast but all that “its proper and polite” here was definitely disproven or... maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way.  Maybe it IS that they take manners way more seriously than I thought and I’m just the rude American who is sitting in judgment on my lofty “oh kids shouldn’t be in bars and tequila should be clear and definitely NOT pink” high horse.