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 That’s all been replaced by inclusive entertainment for all the family.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.

Two Things. The first is the London Marathon. I’d only ever watched this on TV before and always considered it quite tedious, all those wacky costumes and over enthusiastic charity types seemed a little bit too much. We went to see some friends who live in Canary Wharf on Sunday so got caught up in the crowds on the way there, and bloody brilliant it was too. Despite my ill informed judgment (who would have thought it?) about the event it turned out to be not only really good fun, but also quite inspiring. Moreover, in the current climate of hysteria surrounding our identity here we have an event that shows that we can be a great nation without necessarily involving the tabloid press.

The costumes, the pain, the smiles and the decency all underpinned a general feeling of pride both in the spectators and the runners. As the Samba bands played in the sunshine, and pubs spilled out onto the cracked pavements on the Isle of Dogs, we suddenly had a glimpse of how life can be lived without politics, greed and Richard Littlejohn.

The second thing is a gig I went to at the Electric Ballroom last week. And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead has been one of my favourite bands (aren’t they all?) for years, and last Thursday didn’t disappoint. I won’t bother using F7 to come up with a load of adjectives other than to say that they’re the real deal, and as I’ve said time and again, all the best bands are American.

Things are looking up!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alcoleman/sets/72157617401351574/

http://www.trailofdead.com/

The expression ‘British jobs for British workers’ is quite simply laughable. The biggest hole in the current argument involving contractors at the Lindsey Oil Refinery in North Lincolnshire is that they are not British jobs at all, in fact they are French. French jobs that have been won, fair and square, by an Italian contractor who has every right to employ whoever it wants. Being British does not entitle anyone to work or special treatment within the EU. Again, they are not ‘British Jobs’ and the locality of an employer in relation to ones abode carries with it no obligation. Moreover, the benefits of EU membership has been carrying our economy for years, which is why the comforting and mythical idea of the British job and the British worker is as laughable is it is ludicrous.

When Clement Attlee created the National Coal Board after the war, he did so with no real intention of creating British jobs. It was just assumed that the coal would continue to be mined by the same communities as it always had. So when Margret Thatcher’s Conservative government closed the coal mines in the early 80s, preferring instead to rely on a cheaper imported product, the communities that had done the work previously had a fair claim to a British job. This is where the double standards start to emerge, and it doesn’t take the brains of an English craftsmen to know who is behind it either.

So what we’re really talking about is British jobs for British workers, just as long as it’s economically viable and certain other considerations are taken into account. Oh, and it helps if the media are on your side. Which is why striking miners spent two whole years fighting the media and the Government for real British jobs, and the argument for non British jobs was settled in a week. Shameful.

And since when has the tabloid press been a supporter of the striking worker? The swap from ‘The enemy within’ to ‘The honest working lads’ has been an overnight sensation, literally. The Daily Mail supporting Trade Unionism, who would have thought it? Strange times indeed, or an alternative agenda at play? Given the press and their historical attitude towards industrial action, it’s a little difficult to reconcile the cosy relationship that has developed without pointing to a common denominator. Foreigners.

Amazingly, they do have trades in other countries. Maybe they don’t aspire to the same level of craftsmanship that built our proud empire, but they probably get by with enough skills to build everything the British do, but somehow far better. Further still, we don’t have a problem with foreign children making our trainers in sweatshops for practically nothing do we? The reason being that it suits the economics of our vanity and is somehow justified by being a luxury item. This where the ‘British jobs for British workers’ argument finally crashes and burns.

And please don’t try and tell me that this isn’t a race issue when the idiocy that is the BNP are using it as their latest nationalist soundbite, and they’re not racist are they? Nick Griffin says so. ‘British jobs for British workers’ is a logical progression from ‘Jobs for whites’, only slightly more politically correct. It’s a shame that the working lads couldn’t have made their voice heard without appealing to the current zeitgeist of nationalism in the same manner as the pro Israel lobby.

It’s just all to easy. The flag, the aggressive rhetorical questioning and blatant ugliness of misguided British superiority. Things are changing, and sitting around watching Jeremy Clarkson tell you otherwise only reinforces the underpinning concept of this entire argument. We’re just not the country we used to be.

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 can’t help but pick up on the latest tabloid hysteria, what with millions of examples left strewn across London on a daily basis. It is rubbish, which probably says a lot more about the people who read the stuff and cast it aside for someone else to pick up, before and after work.

Anyway, this entry isn’t about free papers and rubbish, it’s about one particular episode that quite literally screamed up from the gutter about a month ago. You may remember, apparently a soldier had been turned away from a Hotel in Surrey because it was the establishments policy not rent rooms to servicemen.

Oh how the hysteria caught hold! From Talk Sport to Radio 4 and from the Metro to the Sun. Shock horror, the death of respect and the end of decency! What have we come to? Why oh why?! You could just see Jeremy Clarkson spitting with fury over his stupid fucking walnut dashboard. My Brother even rang me up to ask me why, like I had the answer.

The rhetoric still continues to this day, most if it aimed at how servicemen are treated in the USA, the cheap travel and the whooping high fives in the shopping mall. This isn’t the States though, and young working class men in Great Britain join the military to serve in one of the finest armed forces in the history of warfare itself, not to pick up the odd free Chai Latte at Starbucks. There’s more at stake in the military than the trivialities of daily civilian life.

The thing is, there must have been some reason in the past why this decision was made at the Hotel in question. Someone just didn’t pipe up at a meeting on Monday morning and suggest a blanket ban on servicemen based on short hair and a slightly awkward appearance. No, more likely it was a decision based on a culmination of events probably involving alcohol, violence and the Police. Anyone reading this who has served amongst the ordinary ranks will have a good idea of what went on, and are probably smiling at the thought of it. In short, they didn’t behave themselves.

And as any soldier will tell you, not having to behave properly is one of the more enjoyable aspects of service life. But you can’t have it both ways. And it’s precisely the reason that these people are barred from these kinds of places that makes them so successful in their chosen profession. No?

And what of the outraged Daily Mail readers with their rose tinted idea of soldiers as the last great hope of British decency and service? Are they going to throw open the doors of those cherished little B&Bs down in the Cotswolds? Or how about allowing a Platoon from 3 Para to have their Christmas party in the local Crouch End Gastro “Boozer”?

Don’t fancy it? No.

Tabloid newspapers: You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.