Leathery Skins……..

When we were in Spain last year, we entered a bar full of people celebrating that great British traditional night – St. Patrick’s night. For reasons that became obvious we christened this place “The Queen Vic”. Within this bar were around 40 people, wearing shamrock hats, smoking and drinking heavily, mostly with tanned, leathery skin, some with grey hair, most in their 40’s to 50’s, with a smattering of “youngsters” in their late 20’s and 30’s. The “youngsters” were all immaculately dressed, the geezers in smart trousers and Gucci shirts, the women in smart trouser suits, all displaying healthy amounts of gold. As soon as we set foot inside the place it suddenly resembled “The Slaughtered Lamb” – the pub immortalised in “An American Werewolf in London”. If they had been playing darts then the darts would have stopped in mid flight. The music should have stopped, but maybe to the inhabitants it did. We had been noticed as “not being from round these parts”. Everything carried on, we ordered our pints, but it was noticeable that several people were eyeballing us all the time. The rest were too pissed or high or stupid. Mostly too thick and stupid would be my guess.

We were desperately feeling uncomfortable, the barman/landlord had not been overly keen to serve us and made us wait behind several “regulars”. Did they think were coppers? Jesus, I’m 5’6, The Major is 5’7” – we ain’t tall enough to be coppers! The King is, but he was wearing an anorak with a hood (it was raining!), which is a pretty crap undercover outfit for a copper. As we drank our pints, we looked around and listened. Not an Irish accent to be heard! All you could hear was the sound of cockney/mockney mixed in with the odd Mancunian/Scouse or public school accent. As I looked around it dawned on me that every woman looked like a gangsters moll (bar one, who just looked downright…blokey), and every bloke looked like a city crook, a bank robber, a gang master, or a getaway driver. The amount that looked like Ronnie Knight was disturbing. Not one of them looked like they had made the money honestly.They all had that….aura. It was easy to imagine them all driving around in Jags or BMW’s with British plates. Two days later, when hunting for some Diesel, we drove through he ex-pat area (Albert Square but posher and hotter) and sure enough, the Jags, Mercs and BMW’s were there, all with British plates. You could almost imagine the inside of their villas, bedecked in habitat furniture, tiger skin rugs, bad taste statues, obligatory Rottweilers and shrines to Kenneth Noye above their mock marble fireplaces.

I never actually heard this, but you can imagine it being said…..

“Good ole Kenny, what a stitch up the Old Bill did on him – a right fit up. So he killed that kid, well he was probably a gobby little bastard anyway – and as for the copper he stabbed 11 times in self defence – well he was in Kenny’s garden weren’t he! How could Kenny have known. Christ no man deserves a stretch for that…..”

A very disturbing place, and one we were happy to vacate after completion of pints. This year we though we would take our 4th member (TonicMan) to see it, but it had changed into a respectable little bistro, presumably after Inspector Knacker had found the owner and got him deported. Anyway we descended on a “techno-bar”, decorated in mirrors, stainless steel and glass, with a few large plastic plants dotted around, as it sounded and looked a little livelier. Lo and behold, this was now the new Queen Vic! Everyone knew each other, the dress was more casual, the skin still tanned and leathery, but the “landlord” was a real bruiser, a little like the villain in “Snatch”. His wife, a big brassy blonde. Her sister, the also blonde singer, trotting out banal tunes to a backing tape. The singer’s sexy siren daughter (maybe 18 if lucky) hanging around the bar, with a silent shotgun waiting from the landlord for anyone with the temerity to talk to her without his permission. The landlady and singers “good ole mum”, sitting their merrily drinking and smoking. Whenever anyone walked in, they were greeted warmly by the landlord/landlady, they kissed the singer at an appropriate pause. This was not extended to us, but we were not made to feel awkward this year, just…….irrelevant.

Irrelevant is good, awkward is bad.

I doubt any of them could speak one word of Spanish other than the normal “por favor” or “gracias” stock phrases. Integration to the community is not on the agenda, as it would appear that the community is now British. I bet most of them still fly back to use the NHS when required, and maybe even draw the dole money into a UK account, to bolster their already substantial bank accounts. After all it’s their entitlement innit!

It would be my idea of hell, living in a foreign country, but not actually knowing it, never meeting the local people or mixing with them, not partaking in their culture, history, politics, and traditions.

Still reading The Sun to catch up on the true stories about good ole blighty!

Later, Grocerjack