Keep it to yourself, Grandad!

Stepping out in Brixton yesterday (yet another weekend spent in my London Pied a Terre :-P [sorry], avoiding facing up to my new/real life which apparently exists, albeit largely without me, in Bristol) I discovered the first negative side effect of the new English smoking ban in pubs – all those leery ol’ cunts that you normally don’t have to deal with unless you actually go into the pub, are now outside on the street spouting forth their opinions to anyone who is unfortunate enough to pass by close enough, commenting on personal attributes, and generally making wankers out themselves.

Which reminds me, have you ever been on holiday somewhere, you’re wandering around some unknown area, maybe a little lost (not seriously lost, maybe just a little off track), you see a quaint little pub so you decide to stop in for a pint or to check out the local cider?

Rocking in, with all the confidence of a city dweller, you are suddenly put in your place when confronted by a wall of Smocals (no, it’s got nowt to do with smoking, this time), they’re the folk that have chosen that particular establishment as their territory, clearly maintained by the fact that they spend 17 hours of every day there, are practically fused to their bar stool and the bar would actually collapse if it weren’t for them fervently propping it up.

Anyway, their attitude to outsiders is what I’m describing with the term ‘smocals’, or ‘smug locals’ – princely as they are in their comfort zone, looking down their red and misshapen noses with double vision at any hapless traveller who dares to blunder into ‘their’ pub – you may as well stroll into their own living room without knocking for all the silent disdain directed your way…and don’t even think about trying to order a vodka, lime and tonic.
However, drop them in the middle of a bar off Shoreditch High Street, and see them drown like rats in a barrel.

Ooh – sound bitter don’t I? Don’t worry, I’ve been on the other side of this too – sometimes there are just days when I just don’t feel like helping that tourist with a backpack the size of the African continent struggling to read their map in the gale force wind, secure in the knowledge that I know where I’M going, at least.