Barbican Notes

It was during the dog days of a fading early twenty first century summer. The Barbican had now become quiet; the bank holidays were over; the tourists had left for home. You could say that normal service had resumed. 

Most of the locals who remained were what you could call professional bar props; they were more than skilled and experienced at propping up a bar or two over the space of an afternoon and beyond. 

This would, most likely, now be the state of things to come over the coming months of autumn and winter, through towards the spring of the next year. Everything would settle down into the same pattern as it always did. Winter tradition could never be changed. 

I don’t think a place like the Barbican understands the word change. Yes, sometimes different bars and restaurants open and close as they go in and out of business; only once the tourists go it is always the same faces and the same people for the rest of the year. 

So there I was standing in the Maritime Inn, propping up the bar in a very professional manner. Trying my best to ease myself in to the new season, while drinking a nice pint of MRB from Summerskill’s; chin wagging as usual; just wiling away a random mid-week afternoon. 

Behind the bar the tall, bald, bearded, aging, Landlord is setting the world to rights with one of his world famous rants, while dressed in a faded green tee-shirt with the outline of Che Guevara washed out faintly on the front. 

He seems to wear this shirt just to annoy people, or as a satiric statement; even to disarm them; or throw them off guard. Due to the fact that his own ideas on society, life and politics; would be at odds with the image of man he wears on his chest. 

People who do not know him are often left a little befuddled or confused when having to deal with him. They don’t know which way to take him. It could be the case that he does not know how to take himself. 

Thus he stands there behind the bar ranting about any subject which comes into his head. Although his favourite topics tend towards, yellow lines, parking the brewery, the local council, and his fascination with the new keg widgets being used on the ale casks. 

The locals tend to just sit or stand and listen and sip their beer; and let him go on his own merry way. Sometimes he has a most interesting point of view. At other times the pub can be cleared as he carries on imparting his wisdom as if he were some far seeing oracle. 

This afternoon though the pub is quite empty, about six or seven people are in. There are a few who are passing in and out on their way to other places and other bars; and there is no sign of the usually slightly gothic bar staff. It is in front of these locals that the landlord holds court. 

At root you could never describe this pub as being a radical joint. It’s a fairly conservative beer pub, with a good reputation for serving real ale from local breweries. In the end what more can the dedicated drinker with taste require? 

Seriously, what more does the average Barbican drinker need? Good beer. A chance to set the world to rights. A very human attempt at putting the afternoon to bed as it were. There’s nothing more real than this in Plymouth life. An average day, for some pretty average people, with the Landlord setting the tone behind the bar. 

Only, this afternoon slipped from being a realist afternoon in the pub, to one which can only be described as being slightly surreal. Or, at least, slightly surreal from the point of view of the Maritime Inn. 

As the Landlord was getting a little more bombastic than usual, and rising to his theme on the subject of why the council had painted yellow lines down the side lane, but had left a gap, because someone had parked their moped there – the door of the pub swung open. 

Through the door walked a youngish gentleman of six foot something in height, with a full well-groomed and well-kept beard; who had also, it would seem, had just had his hair done. The hair had been moussed outwards. 

He walked up to the bar, and it was only then that it was noticed that he was wearing a very short purple dress. As this was being taken in by the cliental who were sat at the bar; he asked the Landlord, who had not seen him come through the door, for an orange juice. A very reasonable request if there ever was one. 

The Landlord turned his head, looked at him, and stopped as if he were stunned. The Landlord’s eyes did not even blink. In fact, it would be correct to describe the place as having fallen into an abnormal silence. 

It was hard to work out if the Landlord had just reached to the limits of his own tolerance, or just did not know how to react to the situation he was confronted with. 

After a few seconds the Landlord replied to this customer’s request for an orange juice with a very stern, ‘no!’ The customer in the dress just stared back, slightly shocked at this fact. He then just turned and walked out of the pub on his long well waxed legs through the Southside Street door. 

The Landlord sipped his coffee and looked a little confused over the fact of this very random encounter. Maybe, this was the first time he had encountered a different way of being; who knows, he may have become a slightly different person or stayed fixed in his own way? 

One of the locals then came up to the bar to order another drink. I think he may have been equally shocked as well. Even then, it took a good while for the conversation to get going once more, and for local service to resume. 

The only thing I have to say about the entire situation is the fact that the Barbican has the habit of providing the writer with some great character’s, scenes, and experiences to place down on paper. It offers vignettes which may go unseen, yet holds on to some truth about human behaviour and life. 

And being that summer has only just ended with the rest of winter to come; I can only wonder what this season will bring. Life as it is lived will always be worth recording. With that thought in my head I smiled to myself, and asked the landlord for another pint of Summerskill’s MRB. 

* 

She gave a whoop when I left the pub. It may or may not have been joy: who am I to judge? Yet she was almost an apparition of Audrey Hepburn; with her hair up, dressed in a long black dress, wearing dark square shades. All that was missing was the long cigarette holder and the ability to use the word ‘darling’ quite a lot. You could say that she was not into me, but she was still exquisite. Maybe, in the end, that is enough. 

* 

This was a sensation which could only be encountered towards the end of summer. 

A thought, nothing more, nothing less. Just something which passed through my head while I was stood on Plymouth Hoe one afternoon, staring out towards the Sound, while leaning against Smeaton’s Tower. A place and a position which is always very conjugal to thinking deep mellow thoughts. 

Now this City of Plymouth has the habit of provoking three general reactions and responses from the local population. 

The first tends to be a case of severe attacks of hilarity at the mention of the City’s name, or at mention of the performance of the local football: Plymouth Argyle. It goes without saying; this city can have some strange effects on those who live here for quite some time. 

The second is the brazen view that this City is some kind of paradise; or that by living here you enter a form of utopian dream. All of which are fine if you want to take an unrealistic approach to life, walking the street with a set of blinkers on. 

While the final reaction is either one of sheer dismay or one of blasé indifference. Although it tends to be difficult to tell these reactions apart. I’m unsure at this point that this position could be the same as the utopian dreamers. Although it may well be the case that this reaction is also blinkered. 

As I was standing there leaning against the red, white, stripped lighthouse, thinking about this very thought; I could only come to the conclusion that I suffer from all three forms of reaction to this town, at the foot of Devon, invokes.

*

You could say that it’s one of those pleasant experiences of the Barbican; just standing there to the rear of Captain Jaspers, munching on a veggie burger and onions, with a mug of coffee in the other hand; looking out over the marina and harbour towards the fish market. Just hoping that one of the local gulls were not going to take a swipe at the food in your hand. I had just come here from a very detailed and complex discussion with the Blonde. A discussion which had always returned to the same place. So I had come here to have a bit of a graze and to think the future through; wondering if there will ever be one with this Blonde? In the end I came to a decision. At some point in the future, this conversation, and my thoughts at this time, could only give me enough material to write a book. It would be called: ‘Women: A Guide for the Perplexed Male.’ 

*

Walking through the City Centre this afternoon I could only notice the fact of the cacophony of language being spoken on the streets of this city. Within twenty minutes I must have heard Chinese; Polish; Russian; Arabic; Urdu; and something I could only identify as being middle European. What a wondrous dose of language this is! On the other side of the coin, all this Babel of Language did invoke a very bad dream. A dream in which I was cornered at a mediocre dinner party by some local politician who seemed to be talking in a mixture of Sanskrit and Esperanto. The only conclusion I could come to was the fact he was speaking gibberish and looking rather bored. Then I thought – what the hell – nothing new there! 

* 

What’s the best way to describe him: bald, lothario; most certainly loud, talkative, over enthusiastic; two-tone in the musical sense of the word. He has the habit of jumping around like a jack-in-the-box; while sometimes gesticulating wildly. His clothes are modern and surf style. Yet one would think that by this stage in life he may have realised that he was no longer a member of the Pump House Gang – young, bronzed and tanned; just beginning. Regardless of this fact, he has the habit of explaining his sex life in minutiae detail. Maybe, the ex-soldier brings this out; and he loses himself in his own stream of consciousness about cars and the police – traffic wardens are a case in point. At times it is hard to interject. And yet, regardless of where the conversation grows, there always seems to be a will to life, a will to live; a will to kick against the norms of society. It is as if he never wanted to fit and never did really care. Subversion by motown and northern soul. In the end, that evening, I think I may have drunk a little too much.

* 

She sits there behind the bar in her own world punching away at her mobile phone; quite possibly oblivious to the world around her. Silence seems to be her only tack. Only those who pass through the bar can only wonder if she has a life elsewhere. She stays there shut in, enclosed as if the world were a threat. It could be said that sometimes her anger may well dissolve into sadness. The sadness fading into happiness and delight which only shines through on occasions when not encased by a stony exterior. In fact, underneath the marble layer she is quite sweet; in the other direction quite impossible, sometimes perplexing. Is she a puzzle? Is she a labyrinth? Or is the riddle of the sphinx we all see easier to solve? It could be she needs an overriding sense of love? Who knows, one day she may well find it. 

* 

You know, in the end, one can only feel sorry for Barbican bar staff, and the amount of rubbish they have to put up with from costumers – and regular customers at that. Only tonight in the Marina Club on the Barbican I had the awful pleasure of watching some fat old windbag give the barmaid a two hour lecture; on the timely subject of how he could not get fast service on a Saturday night, when the place was packed out with paying punters. Apparently he puts a lot of money behind the bar; and during this show, he was, for all intents and purposes, getting rather uptight and aggressive about this. And it goes without saying that bar staff should never have to put up with this kind of behaviour. Although, the member of staff handled this rotten bag pipe with skilful aplomb – he should have still been asked to leave. It was enough to send anyone’s beer stale. What a loser! 

* 

It should be noted that in my time of drinking lightly on Plymouth Barbican that there are several social types who normally partake of libation in this social milieu. These, fine examples of human beings, would never be included within the same classification as the silent passive aggressive types which have yet to be studied. As for the passive aggressive types this classification will be committed to paper in the next year. Speaking in broad terms, the more progressive genus, can be classified into the following social categories. They are all fine examples of: beer mojo hunters, wise men, wise women, wise acres, bar philosophers, savants, saints, geniuses, and wise fools. All have the habit of travelling, like pilgrims, down to Truro, to pay homage at the shrine and tabernacle of Skinners Brewery. All have a fine appreciation of the finer things in life, combined with a fundamental knowledge of local real ale. A knowledge which should be committed to academic monograph. For in the end the theology of the High Priests of Ale should be preserved for the wisdom and the moral guidance of future generations to learn from. 

* 

She was the kind of woman who kept her husband in a box beneath her bed. Every morning she would get up, make a cup of coffee, and then remove her husband from the box. With damp lips moistened by the coffee, she would then proceed to blow her husband, until he was so full of her own hot air, that he was fully inflated. She would then take him to work with her; a little bit of painting and decorating here; a little bit of painting and decorating there. After a hard days graft, she would then take him for a nice non-alcoholic drink at one of their favourite bars. Where he would sit beside her looking a little deflated, due to the fact that the valve, which kept his hot air in, was a little faulty. Eventually they would leave and go home, and maybe watch a little television. Due to the fact that it was very late in the day he would now be looking almost droopy and saggy. It was the amount of air he was losing through the valve. In the end his wife would take pity on him, and open the valve fully; letting all the remaining air out. So that he could be flattened fully out on the bedroom floor, to be gently folded up. Only then would he be pushed back in to his box, where his favourite cuddly toy sheep would be placed beside him – this would help him sleep better. The folds of the box would be closed over, and he would be pushed back underneath the bed, before his wife got ready for a good eight hour snooze. Of course, come the morning, when the sun would rise, all of this would happen again. 

* 

He sits there unsainted, fat with a grey beard, while wearing a far too small tee-shirt; a baseball cap covering his balding head. In front of him sits his tablet turned up far too loud, streaming crap late afternoon game shows. He purses his lips and slurps his beer, most likely wondering why he had become deaf to the reality which surrounds him as he stares in to the nothingness of television. Maybe he has an issue where he thinks reality is nothing more than a game show to him. An act, a medium, a point where others are nothing more than objects to be voted off for his own entertainment. Sometimes he watches the horse racing with the volume turned up so loud that it disturbs everyone in the bar; and then disappearing out of the door to place his bet at the book makers on Southside Street. Yes, life may well be a television game show. 

*

There’s this bar girl who works at the Maritime Inn down on Southside Street. She has long blue hair. The colour of her hair came from a botched attempt to dye it a different colour. Other than an overload of tattoos, which seem to cover every inch of her body, she is also quite short – and I mean short. She normally wears her hair up – but when she has her long hair down she looks like Cousin Itt from the Addams Family. In fact, she looks like a deep blue Cousin Itt. This can be very disturbing and troubling for the regular clientele who tend to drink here. 

*

She’s what you might describe as a professional hamster squeezer. If Little Miss Understated Sarcasm sees a hamster; she has no choice but it take it in her gentle hands and give it a good squeeze to see what would come out of its behind.   Many hamsters have met their doom in these vice like grips. In this sense then, she is nothing other than the handmaiden of doom of the hamster race. In hamster mythology and legendary annuals it will always be recorded thus. But back in reality it would seem that she has this tick or a compulsion that makes her want to make the hamster her best friend. She may well suffer from an overbearing love for these small furry animals. Yet these adorable little creatures only live in fear from this hamster squeezer of Southside Street. The most shocking fact about this case of sporadic hamster squeezedom is the fact she attends the university; which, may well, have to start a new PHD course in the art of hamster squeezing. She will, quite obviously be, not only a prime candidate, but she will also be the first case study. 

*

I noticed something a little out of the ordinary the other day while walking along Southside Street. On the opposite side of the road a gentleman was walking very slowly wearing a chemical warfare suit and carrying a cattle prod. A little further down the road I looked back at him, and noted he was going into the Queen’s Arms. A growling sound emerged from the doorway. Ginger must be on her shift. His garb in this context makes a lot of sense. 

* 

She stares in to the chrome of the coffee machine as if it were a mirror completing her French Plat. Her tight leather trousers highlight her figure. You could say she was giving what could be described as gluteus maximus, or a rather fine example of gluteus maximal! 

* 

Sat on the Hoe in the summer sun, waiting for the Blonde to turn up, with the fresh smell of mown grass entering my nostrils, while perusing a volume of poems by the American poet, E. E. Cummings. It may have been the heat of the sun, but I smile as the thought hits me that the name E.E Cummings sounds very much like a Yorkshire man reaching sexual climax. Eeeee… Eeeee… Cumming…! 

*

She said to me: ‘why do you always wear sunglasses?’ ‘It’s because I am an optimist,’ I replied. I mean, after all, do I need any other kind of excuse to wear shades. I don’t really care if the sun is shining or not. I’m more interested in the possibility of sunshine, rather than the fact of the sun shining. This tends to be enough for me – other than a good book. It’s not a moral position, but rather it’s more of a philosophical point of view. It stems from a reading of Albert Camus’s ‘The Myth of Sisyphus,’ well over twenty years ago now. Where he writes: ‘thus I draw from the absurd three consequences which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion. By the mere activity of consciousness I transform in to a rule of life what was an invitation to death – and I refuse suicide. I know, to be sure, the dull resonance that vibrates throughout these days. Yet I have but one word to say: that it is necessary… Obeying the flame is both the easiest and the hardest thing to do. However, it is good for a man to judge himself occasionally. He is alone in being able to do so… If it must encounter a night, let it be rather than that of despair which remains lucid – polar night, vigil of the mind – whence will arise perhaps that white and virginal brightness which outlines every object in the light of the intelligence. At that degree, equivalence encounters passionate understanding… But it is bad to stop, hard to be satisfied with a single way of seeing, to go without contradiction, perhaps the most subtle of all spiritual forces. The preceding merely defines a way of thinking. But the point is to live.’ And being that this is the case then one only ever be overtly optimistic. This is why I wear sunglasses regardless of the weather. For in the end optimism is nothing other than the point of living. 

* 

Standing at a bar in the Barbican, wondering if I spend far too much time standing in bars, talking to some guy, who I think may well drink down the Dolphin. He was rambling on about something or another: only then he mentioned he had been burgled recently. The police had been called. Yet, he also added, that his flat had not been wrecked by the intruders. ‘No,’ he said, ‘they broke in and replaced the entire contents of the flat with replicas.’ Personally I thought he was lucky the Police did not have him sectioned there and then. And maybe this little tale also confirms that I’ve been standing at Barbican bars for far, far too long. 

* 

Sat on a high stool in the Maritime Inn, drinking some beer during the afternoon on a Friday, wondering about what kind of decadence I can get up to over the weekend. Quite obviously the Blonde will not be involved. Just to keep my attention on something other than just the beer I’m flipping through a volume of prose by Woody Allen. When the thought hits me. Is Søren Kierkegaard, Woody Allen without the jokes? Or is Woody Allen, Søren Kierkegaard with jokes? It would seem this afternoon I have run into my own contradictory fallacy. Oh well, it’s Friday afternoon after all. 

Barbicannotes©Nickingram2015