Any chance of a game? : a season at the ugly end of park football by Barney Ronay (Ebury Press 2005)

Warming up

You always know when it’s Friday. Friday has something about it right from the moment you wake up. It’s the same with every other day of the week. They all have their own distinct feel. Monday is just Monday morning all day. Tuesday is hard work all around. Important things happen on Wednesday; it’s a grown-up kind of day. Thursday feels like now we’re really starting to get somewhere. And Friday is special. There’s no other day quite like it.

“Cheers,” Dan says, taking his drink. “What’s this?” “Peanuts.”

“Salted. I said dry roasted.”

“Yeah, well I don’t like dry roasted. The dust at the bottom of the bag feels like it’s dissolving your mouth. What’s it meant to taste of anyway?”

“The dust,” Dan says, raising his glass, “is the whole point.” But the best thing about Friday is Friday night. That first drink of the evening, I don't just want to drink it. I want to eat it. I want to get inside the glass and swim in it. Not that it usually lasts very long. It’s like what someone once said about drinking. Getting drunk is great. Those first few minutes are as good as it gets. Being drunk, on the other hand, isn’t always quite as much fun.

“As soon as he leaves I’m going over there,” Dan says, eyeing the fruit machine.

“It’s too crowded. You’ll never make it.”

“The same bloke has been feeding the same machine all night. It’s ready to pay out.”

“Before you go, just tell me why you’re dressed like that.” “Dress-down Friday,” he shrugs.

“You look like Prince William.”

“New rules,” Dan says, looking over my shoulder at a group of about fifteen women who’ve just arrived at the far end of the bar. “No jean-cut slacks allowed. These are chino-cut.” We’re standing in a corner of the Itinerant Goat, a new pub with wooden floors and rows of champagne bottles behind the bar. Next to us a circle of fat-necked men in stripy shirts are laughing slightly too loudly. They look ready for a big night out, one that has started already at 6.30, with the light fading outside and the beery glow from the lamps near the ceiling only just starting to take over.

Looming at least a head taller than most of the crowd, a familiar figure has appeared by the door and started to work his way towards us. Simon has his long coat buttoned all the way up to his neck and a bag strapped across his shoulders. The only thing the Itinerant Goat really has going for it is that it’s the nearest pub to where we all work.

“Drink?” he shouts when he gets close enough. We hold up our empty glasses and he turns towards the scrum at the bar.

“That’s better,” he says when he’s finally made it across, and after he’s spent a few moments trying to get most of his pint glass actually inside his head.

“I spoke to Keith today,” he adds.

“That’s nice for you.”

“He said we’re at home to Parsons Green on Sunday. They’re good. Fifth in the table. And we’ve only got ten so far.” “Not again. What is wrong with people?”

“Keith told me he’s got this idea for a reality TV show. It’s like the reverse of Sunday football. You get Premiership footballers to spend a day doing a Sunday player’s weekday job, but only something really difficult. Roy Keane organising a conference in Frankfurt. Michael Owen teaching Japanese.”

“That’s his idea?”

“He said it’s genius.”

“Would you like to help fight against animal experiments?” A middle-aged woman with immaculate blonde hair has appeared out of the crowd. She shakes a tin at us. She seems to be actually expecting an answer.

“Er. All right then,” 1 say, fumbling for some change. “Thanking you so much.”

She turns to Simon and stares at him until he gives in and finds some coins. Only Dan doesn’t flinch and soon she’s moved on to the circle of crew cuts next to us.

“Always seems a bit weird. Collecting in a pub.”

“They know people are going to feel guilty,” Simon mutters.

“I think it’s a bit out of order,” Dan says. “You come in here to forget about everything. Not to get chased around by equal rights for dogs.”

“I meant normal people,” Simon says, but I’m not really listening as I spot another familiar face near the bar.

Laura has started to nudge her way through the crush of bodies towards our end of the room. It’s always weird seeing a familiar face in a crowd of strangers. She’s dressed smartly, her brown hair tied back with just a single strand falling across her face, and I keep watching, waiting for the moment she looks up and finally sees us. The thick-necked blokes part respectfully to let her through.

“You could have found a darker corner to hide in,” she says, squeezing my arm.

“Yeah. But then you might have found us hours ago.” “Don’t listen to him,” Dan says, kissing her cheek. “He's a very rude man. It’s my round.”

“White wine spritzer.”

“Ha ha. Make sure you say, ‘for the lady’.”

It's Not a Runner Bean...: Confessions of a Slightly Successful Comedian by Mark Steel (The Do-Not Press 1996)

Geordie

'This is Mark, he's a comedian,' the man who'd set up the comedy night in Newcastle told his four mates. They looked like the four people you would choose from thousands if you wanted extras for a film set in a Newcastle pub.

'Ar, so yoor the comedian, well ah hoop yoor funna mairt,' they chipped in. We all went to the bar and ordered a round of drinks, and the stockiest among them decided to tell me a joke.

Ay, what do yer chuck a Paki when he's drooning? His wife and kids.' The others laughed.

What to do? Walk away and they'd have just thought I was weird, whereas anything that might have ended in violence was hardly an option.

The tough part of these situations is that when bigotry hides behind a joke, it's so much trickier to deal with. Launching into a tirade about racism would have only made them think, 'What a stuck-up, miserable bastard’. 'All right, it's only a joke,' they'd have said. And gone off muttering, 'He's not much of a comedian.' Besides it was quite possible that he wasn't a serious racist but had never come across the idea that jokes like that are just appalling.

The one thing I decided in the two seconds after he'd finished was that I'd say something. 'What's the matter?' he said, perturbed that I wasn't laughing. 'Doon't yer get it?’

’Na.he's a comadian,' said his mate. 'He's hewered it before.'

There's probably one time in most people's lives when, instead of thinking of the perfect answer the day after the event, it comes out at the time. I don’t remember thinking it but from somewhere came, 'Yeah, I have heard it before. But I heard the funnier version. What do you chuck a Geordie when he's drowning?'

There was another silence and for a moment I was expecting to end up lying on the floor, clutching my ribs, with blood pouring from my nose, mumbling, 'I was only making a point.'

But at the end of this tense three seconds he burst out laughing and said, 'Ya can see wha he's a comadian.'

With any luck he'll now be the Equal Opportunities Officer for the Anglo-Asian Community Relations Department on Tyneside Council.

Blood Sympathy by Reginald Hill (Harper 1993)

Lutonians talk about Hermsprong with a muted horror which is almost pride. Here is the original urban black hole into which all social subsidy and welfare work is sucked without trace. Perhaps the best account of the estate was given by its senior social worker on Radio Luton shortly before her breakdown.

‘Hermsprong is a truly organic community,’ she said in a very quiet, very restrained voice. ‘Here everyone has a place and a function. Here there are none so poor they cannot be robbed, none so insignificant they cannot be reviled, none so inoffensive they cannot be hated. This is the far end of Thatcherism. On Hermsprong they need no nanny state, they already take care of each other.’

Compared with this, Rasselas was a health resort.