Saturday, September 18, 2021
Ageing Rock Stars as Wetherspoons Regulars
Baz, Neil and Kenny are Real Ale fans from Doncaster who are filling in time until the next Beer Festival. Neil will always ask the duty manager to put the horse racing on, although Baz and Kenny prefer the snooker, or BBC News 24:
Derek is a former biochemist at the Environment Agency, who has a regular seat by the window. He used to come in on Fridays with his wife Janet for the fish and chips, although since she sadly passed away he tends to keep himself to himself. People who have spoken to him say that he is "an intelligent guy" who "knows lots of things":
Ian, Geoff and Rob like to take advantage of the cheap Abbott on Mondays, although Geoff's nephew Chris (pictured, left) prefers cider. They know each other from their days as refuse collectors with the Council. Rob is sometimes joined by his daughter Emma, who likes to cause a stir among the patrons with her outrageous clothes:
Keith comes in during the afternoon to play the fruit machines. His wife Judy manages a care home, which leaves him at a bit of a loose end. He is known for his dry sense of humour and as a source of cheap tobacco, which he sources from a bent copper in Barnsley:
Gaz and Pat run a successful scrap metal business. They pride themselves on always giving a fair price, while never being taken advantage of. Pat owns a villa on the Algarve, where he also has part ownership of a golf club. They both lament that Wetherspoons out-competes locally owned pubs, although Pat concedes that "you can't argue with the prices." Gaz's son Liam, also pictured, runs the local branch of SportsDirect.
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I met Ronnie Wood in a pub once - a tiny man surrounded by 6 foot models, who followed him everywhere like bodyguards.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you are aware of the pastime of 'pub ticking' - vising every pub in CAMRA's Good Beer Guide? There are several people who do it and blog about it. I've come to think that Retiredmartin's is probably one of the best guides to what Britain is really like now: https://retiredmartin.com/
I bought Mark E. Smith (who was very tall) a pint in The Leadmill in Sheffield back in the early nineties. He invited me to sit next to him but I couldn't think of anything to say, which was quite awkward. He then opined that "it's like the Seventies in here, innit?" It wasn't like the Seventies AT ALL, but I didn't really feel like contradicting him.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't heard of retiredmartin, but I suspect it's the way to go blogging and culture-wise, especially as the legacy mass-culture starts to fade out. Being idiosyncratic is very aquarian. This is the website you want, though:
https://www.wetherspoonscarpets.co.uk/
It's what William Morris would have wanted.
Deletei have been living too long outside the UK to fully understand the semiotics of Wetherspoons - something to do with the delocalised local? Does it belong in Mark Fisher's Boring Dystopia? Marc Auge's Non-Places concept?
ReplyDeleteIt's basically a chain pub with ultra-low prices that appeals to the impoverished and the stingy. It's kind of the Walmart of pubs, with a similar clientele, although in fairness Wetherspoons are generally pleasant places to visit.
ReplyDeleteThe guy who owns the business is also an ardent Brexiter, and its patrons are generally (but far from exclusively) the kind of lower-class, lower-status people who voted for Brexit. So part of the joke here is that Wetherspoons is also the kind of place that cosmopolitan left-liberal rock stars would look askance at.
The main joke though is how bad famous musicians tend to look as they get old. They look like the kind of people who have spent decades doing menial and/or arduous jobs for sod-all pay. Like dried-out husks, who've had all the vitality sucked out of them.
ReplyDeleteconversely, I've noticed from visiting my mum in West Hertfordshire over the past decade, that male old age pensioners increasingly look like they could have been in Pink Floyd, or perhaps roadied for Floyd. They wear blue jeans and they often - the ones who aren't bald anyway - slightly straggly hair going over the collar.
ReplyDeleteI have picked up that Wetherspoons has its defenders, along the lines of "if you're in a town you don't know, it's at least a reliable choice" - bit like Pret A Manger has its defenders (including myself)
ReplyDeleteof your selection, the Manics and the Happy Mondays are the most "oh dear"
ReplyDeleteI quite like Wetherspoons because it tends to attract "characters", i.e. people who have worked all their lives, and haven't had their idiosyncracies educated out of them. I tend to avoid my own "class" (i.e. university educated professionals) like the plague these days. Also, I'm a bit stingy myself, tbh.
ReplyDeleteA late addition to this thread: Pub Blogging + Stranglers' anecdote
ReplyDeletehttps://lifeafterfootball839.wordpress.com/2021/10/04/walking-on-the-beeches/
Nothing more inevitable than the Wetherspoons/Stranglers crossover.
ReplyDelete