Tuesday, July 24, 2007
And no blood was spilt
It is a pretty rare occasion when we go out for a night of merriment, but our friend Norman has bought a new book of curry recipes and I am only too willing to be a Guinea Pig for his new works of art. So on Saturday Georgia was sleeping over, on her friend's yacht and we went to Normans for a curry delight. After the meal was over we were sitting putting the world to rights when a couple of Norman's friends popped in and asked if we wanted to go to the local pub and watch a band that they knew the members of. It seemed like a good idea, so off we went. The pub was pretty busy, which is unusual, but probably meant that other pubs were unusually quiet, which is the way it seems to go in NZ. We nudged our way to the front part of the pub where the band were playing. They were fronted by a 16 year old lad who was very confident and were playing music that had the place bouncing around. This brings me round to the point of this post, when I say the place was bouncing, I am describing a lot of very drunk people, some with a pint in each hand, falling around, trying to pick up other peoples girlfriends, clattering into each other and spilling beer. When a very drunk guy jumped up to do a very strange version of a very strange dance routine, I looked for the nearest exit as I was convinced it was going to end in broken glass and tears, but do you know what happened! the dancers made room for him, let him do his stuff, then led him back to his seat with a smile. I know for a fact that in the pubs I used to go to in the UK, there would have been blood and lots of it. At the end of the night people were shaking each others hands and staggering off home. No one was getting a kicking outside or being sick in the flower beds. As a stranger in this pub I was welcomed and never felt uneasy for a moment. This is an amazing country.
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One of the things I miss about the UK is the vast quantity of local pubs, where you can just walk out for a few pints. There were a couple of issues with that though. 1- You had to get changed in the garden, and incinerate all your clothes because of the blanket of smoke you sat and drank your beer through (thankfully resolved now with the smoking ban). 2 – The attitude of the people in the pubs.
You can’t go from the bar to the toilets in a UK pub without bumping into someone, only to have to see an angry group or Burberry cap-wearing yobs ask if you have a problem. Over here, there seems to be more camaraderie between people across the board. In the same way that bikers watch out for other bikers, over here - drinkers seem to watch out for other drinkers.
I’m sure there are exceptions to this and the out-of-hours emergency centres will be full of people bruised and battered every night. But when it comes to the point where you read about it in the news, not witness it 3 times a night, you know you made the right move.
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