A rare trip down the Gloucester Road last night to the Chimp House for highly enjoyable birthday party. As the party was nearing its conclusion, my partner and I decided to enjoy the Friday night scene, as an elderly person like me would describe it.
The pavements were extremely busy with people celebrating the fact it was Friday by getting absolutely legless. We called into the Hobgoblin pub which was rammed with students who were consuming Jaeger bombs. All very friendly, all very drunk and then, to my amazement, as the clock struck 11.00 pm it was “time at the bar”. At 11.00 pm. The beer was good, the light was too light but at last the air was not thick with cigarette smoke like it was the last time we visited many years ago.
Then, onwards and downwards to The Blue Lagoon and people were far more drunk than anywhere else we had been. It was just about warm enough to stand outside and inside the revellers sang along with a covers band, belting out highly predictable ditties like “Don’t Look Back In Anger” and various others from the Britpop era.
What struck me was the difference between the cafe culture just about everywhere abroad and the race to get as bladdered as possible in Britain. We stood near a gaggle of young girls who smoked and drank a rapid rate of knots until one of them was violently sick all over herself and all over the nearby furniture. She was moved unsteadily, to the edge of the pavement where she rolled around, stinking to high heaven of, I’m afraid, vomit, drink and cigarettes. And then a taxi arrived, driven by an Asian man, who was the victim of the usual casual racism I knew and hated from 20-odd years ago. I do not know if he accepted the fare from the girls – I wouldn’t have – but I’m afraid a large number of people at the pub – actually, it is hard to describe the Blue Lagoon as a real pub at all, so characterless and bland was it – were barely anymore sober. And at 11.30 pm the security man instructed us all to go inside. This would never happen abroad but then I can’t think of anyone in another country whose drinkers behave like this, unless they are on holiday from the UK.
I like a drink as much as, if not more than, the next man, but I have never gone out with the intention of getting completely bladdered. It has happened on occasions, when I allowed things to get out of control, but I never found it an enjoyable experience. Last night’s crowd seemed to have gone out with the sole intention of getting as drunk as possible.
Still, notwithstanding all that, the Gloucester Road does have an eclectic mix of decent pubs and eating establishments so we determined to come back again in a few weeks. And then we went to the bus stop.
For some years, Bristol’s bus stops have displayed electronic signs explaining when the next bus was due. We waited for ours when the bus simply disappeared from the display, presumably cancelled and it appeared was one after. We ended up getting a bus that dropped us off around a mile from our house. Not a disaster, but when you are a little tired and want to go home, it is not the best thing to have to trudge home.
It was the first time either of used a bus for many years and the experience was no better than it was before. On the way down, a bunch of lads sat at the back smoking “weed”, I didn’t think was allowed but I would not have liked to have been the driver who told them to stop smoking. And worse than that, the bus takes so long to get anywhere. If there were conductors, the journey time would be at least halved, but I suppose so would First Bus’s profits and that’s all that matters in the wacky world of privately run for profit public transport.
I wonder if we ever get to a place where we can be like our Dutch cousins who are capable of going out with getting bladdered and, in some instances, wanting to fight. It is obviously a cultural issue and one that boosts the profits of the drinks industries. We’ll do it again someday soon, but I think it might involve getting a train into town rather than the bus and we might just stick to traditional pubs with real beer than pretend pubs with fizzy, tasteless lager.
