Wednesday 23 May 2012

Rough Pub

[contains strong language and mild peril]

I don't know why The Cherry Tree has such a bad reputation. When my band played there on Boxing Day a couple of years ago there were only six separate fights. I was there a couple of weeks ago and got talking to a charming couple. The woman told me about how she'd met her husband there exactly a year ago, and how their 11 week old daughter[note 1] was the most beautiful thing in the world. She wondered if it was my band that played on that magical night last year.

Next I got talking to her husband who started to gently push me around and shouted into my face "Were you trying it on with my misses? Because I'll knock your fucking head off." I told him what we'd been talking about, and that I didn't know if my band was there exactly a year ago. His reply has stuck with all of us as it was so poetically concise and expressive. "It wasn't you. I recognize you, you're a cunt."

The situation wouldn't have had to be much more threatening before I'd have panicked and done something stupid or embarrassing, but I was surrounded by my band, the soundman, and a couple of pretty formidable women. I assumed that had a punch been thrown I would have been protected and he'd have been restrained. Talking to a couple of them afterwards they said that they were frightened, and they weren't sure that they'd have been able to help. One of them even said he thought he'd have run away.

[note 1: If you can't be bothered doing the sums, she must have left about a demure 6 weeks between meeting him and falling pregnant by him]

Richard "Your overconfidence is your weakness. Your faith in your friends is yours." B

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