Alan Coleman

It was after I read an article somewhere a few years ago that I began to think that things were going wrong for British Pubs. I can’t remember what it was in or when, but it was about John Illsley, former Bass player from Dire Straits taking over a pub in Hampshire, which turns out to be called the East End Arms. He made a comment about the kind of clientele he’d like to attract, something along the lines of replacing the lagers with real ales in an attempt discourage the “Lager crowd”.

The reason I’m talking about this now is on the back of some reading I did yesterday about the Government and Local Authorities trying to regulate how and where we use our local pubs. Typical New Labour stuff, no standing at the bar, no swearing, children welcome, you know. I put two and two together and came to the conclusion that New Labour and John Illsley are actually after the same things. Gentrification and profit.

When John Illsley spoke of the “Lager crowd” what he meant was people like you and me. People that use pubs in the way that they we’re always intended, rather than his idea of them as restaurants for his own kind of people.  No more faded pictures of the 1979 pub football team, no more fruit machines, no more carpet complete with engrained filth, no more coloured curved glass hiding drinkers from prying eyes, no more raucous laughter, no more waiting for years to finally be let in. That’s all been replaced by inclusive entertainment for all the family. A restaurant, and a profitable one too.

I guess that’s what happened. The locals at the East End Arms were made to feel unwelcome, the place was stripped of any individuality and transformed into a hearty gastropub full of occasional diners and ‘hand cooked’ crisps. You could argue that it’s been voted one of the top 50 pubs in Britain, but by whom? The Guardian? What would anyone that writes or has ever read The Guardian know about local pubs? Nothing apart from the fact that the Sunday Roast can be ‘very pleasant’ when mum comes to stay and that the double buggy can fit through the doors that where widened for disabled access.

So John Illsley finally got the kind of gentrified clientele he wanted after installing “The Guest Ales”, an ordered and pleasant slice of New Labour’s soulless and boring middle classes.

I’m referring to the state of chaos and confusion that is the country of Greece this week, two before Christmas. It seems that the ignition for this spate of rioting was the shooting of a fifteen year old boy by Police, but I think that the real momentum is probably rooted in more wide ranging issues.  The Greeks have had enough, they’re fed up and pissed off and they’re releasing their anger by rioting in the streets and generally smashing things up. And good luck to them too.

I’ve always said that one of the defining moments for the British people, within my lifetime, was the manner in which we stood up to the Poll Tax (notice I use the word ‘we’ with a sense of pride). The widow learnt her lesson that day, humiliated by a mass disobedience that would end in tears of self pity. The politicians lined up with the usual rhetoric, but by then it’s too late because the damage had been done. Not by thugs or hooligans, but by people who were pushed too far. The reoccurring theme of a smaller group who consider the interests of an even smaller group to be of more importance.

We have to ask ourselves why and when civil disorder became uncivilised, frowned upon by middle aged men in suits and rebranded as thuggish, when the reality is that civil disorder results from people being badly treated.  Also, if it is our wish to smash the place up then why shouldn’t we? After all it does belong to us, we shouldn’t be made to feel as though our habitat has been provided for our use by graceful politicians, only to be handed a good helping of disappointment after we misbehave.

The right wing press poured scorn on protesters who gave a statue of Winston Churchill a green Mohican a few years ago. What happened to our sense of humour? That was a truly funny moment. Besides that, Churchill was a politician which means we have the right to lampoon him in life and death. Further still, it was he that played such a vital part in securing freedom during the Second World War, but he didn’t win the war on his own and even if he did, we still have the right to use that freedom how we choose.

Sometimes I think that peoples idea of democracy is just having things how they want it, or am I missing something?

Civil disorder keeps a country on its toes, it reminds the establishment that they can only have their way most of the time, and it reminds us that we still have some fighting spirit left.

The only problem the world has with civil disorder is there’s not enough of it.

I see him every morning in the park, watching intently as his pedigree Beagle shits in the flowerbed.

Dogs? Pet fucking dogs.

He stands upright and moans to other dog walkers about the state of the country, young people and insolence.

He wants to move on but the animal wants to stay and sniff, so they both block the path with their ridiculous retractable lead as he shouts the dogs name over and over and over again.

The voice of the old fashioned East End gent is inches from my hangover and fear. I tell him to get out of the way. He asks me who I’m talking to and I say you, and fucking that, jabbing my finger at the animal.

He spits with fury, the white hair and the brown winter coat. He’s foul mouthed, like me. The pet fucking dog has a go at me as the East End gent flicks the switch to let out yet more retractable lead.

So now I can’t walk through the park anymore through fear, it’s my own fault. I’m bored of it anyway, Lincoln’s inn fields. The ‘pleasant’ urban space for smug lawyers, personal trainers, tennis, tabloid newspapers, the middle classes and dog shit.

I’m learning how to play guitar, Mandy brought me one as a present for my birthday and I’m properly getting in to it. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do as it’s been my favourite sound for as long as I can remember.

I used to play the Saxophone, grade 8, although that means nothing really as I was never actually any good. It was enjoyable from a technical perspective, playing in a band and keeping the thing in tune and playing the notes in the right place. It’s just that I’m not a natural musician so was only going to go far. Also I was playing in an Army Band, and in that environment unless you’re exceptional at your chosen instrument you’re treated like something scraped off the shoe. Men can be very bitchy.

Who wants to play the Sax anyway? As an instrument it’s always going to be associated with greasy pony tails rather than Stan Getz and John Coltrane. Anything on the sax post 1970 will always sound smug.

A guitar on the other hand is the embodiment of Rock ‘n Roll music. It’s what it’s all about, from 1950s America to the Mersey and from Zappa to Sonic Youth. Stuff marching around in a red uniform, that was a waste of everybody’s time.

I used to play guitar when I was younger, at primary school. The head teacher, Mr Atkins, would spend the best part of Friday afternoon teaching chords and songs to anyone that came along with a guitar. I used to ask myself why anyone would want to sit in a classroom learning arithmetic when you could be sat in the sunshine learning E minor, G and D7. The shoving parents of today would have had none of it. My child, the targets, push to the front. Judging children by sneering at league tables in grubby Sunday newspapers. Nice.

Mr Atkins was notable for another reason, he had a strange infatuation with the Parachute Regiment. If any child dared break rules the resulting lecture would probably involve a comparison with one of the British Army’s finest fighting units. “Do you think that’s acceptable behaviour do you? Eh?! Wouldn’t get away with that in the Parachute Regiment would you? No!! So why in Gods name do you think it’s okay to forget your sports kit here then?!!” There’s nothing more comical than an unintentionally funny person.

Mr Atkins, guitar player, great bloke and comic genius.

There comes a point in a mans life when he has to take responsibility for his own actions, put the past behind him and start thinking for himself. For most people this change usually occurs between the ages of 18 and 25, a time when the heady excess of youth gives way to a more measured approach to living.

In short, growing up.

However there are a few people that somehow manage to bypass this transformation. Individuals who, not through any choice of their own, still find themselves behaving like excitable school leavers after a few bottles of cider in the local park.

Although now it’s after a few pints of Vodka and Orange down the local pub, and during uncontrollable laughter the person you’re shouting obscenities at is not the spotty kid from across the road that smelt of piss. It’s the local Policeman or captain of the rugby team, or his wife or daughter or probably both.

Fat Collin is one such person, and one hot night in Kos a few years ago stands out as a shining example of the man himself.

Picture if you will, a busy street on a Greek island, full of neon lit bars packed with young people enjoying themselves in the fun filled atmosphere of a sticky evening. As I sit outside one of these bars talking to a couple from Barnsley I can see a sort of semi commotion making its way down the street towards me. Somehow FC has rolled out of the beach bar in which he’s spent most of the week and has managed to find the busiest part of the resort in which to be, FC.

I can picture it now. He is wearing flip flops, shorts and an XXL vodka stained Arsenal top that struggles desperately to cover an enormous gut that he describes as, “More to push it in with”. The look of demented glee on his face is broken periodically with lines from Rabbit by Chaz ‘n Dave, complete with hand movements directed at passers by who look on in amazement.

He is uncontrollably drunk, and I quickly shield my face so to avoid recognition.

Tripping up the steps he crashes into the bar opposite, in which the rest of the customers decide quite quickly that they no longer want to be. Their departure is accompanied by another somehow familiar Chaz ‘n Dave song that has found its way on to the sound system. Incredible.

Finishing up I make my way over to the now private bar, only to find fatty rolling about on the floor laughing uncontrollably, singing, “I like Piccalilli” at the top of his voice. As I watched, filled with both embarrassment and pride, it seemed like he had not a care in the world. I often wonder how anyone can enjoy a life filled with so much humour and joy whilst being a successful businessman with a great family.

Maybe there’s a lesson to be learnt here?

Anyway, where am I going with this? Bored with being barred from, or beaten up in local pubs, FC has opened a bar of his very own. It opens at 4 O’clock, and in a moment of sheer inspiration he called it, The 4 O’clock bar.

Genius.