A night out in Brighton

Going out in a town not belonging to you with five of your friends normally means five things - investigating the local architecture, discussing the important issues of the day, investigating the cuisine, watching sporting events, and sampling the foreign drinks on offer. Well sort of. The architecture was important. We needed to find a pub that served food and showed live sport on the big screen. Preferably this would be near a bookmaker so we can discuss the football betting opportunities on offer that day over a pint of Guinness.

At one o’clock in the afternoon we found our temple. The Hogs Head pub had everything we were looking for, and more. There was a large sofa, our own plasma t.v showing live sport, a pool table, a good menu, quiz machines, fruit machines and most importantly, waitress service and a tab facility. A concept completely foreign to this country. Essentially we could sit and watch the sport and they would actually bring over the food and drinks when we wanted it. Perfect.

Offering a tab in a pub in England is like saying to a kid “Don’t worry, just go in the sweetshop and get what you want, we will worry about the money later”. And just like kids with sugar all over their faces we did just that. Despite England losing against Australia twice in the rugby and none of us winning anything on our vast array of football bets, we were having a great time. After six pints of Guinness, a slightly burnt Chicken burger, half a portion of cheesy fries, a rugby and a football match, it was time to go. Well actually the pub told us to settle the bill. Obviously the tab system here has a limit of eighty pounds.

“How many are there of you?” the doorman enquired. “Six” we replied. “Where are you from?” the doorman countered. This remains one of the most bewildering questions commonly used by doorman. What difference does it make? Is he trying to make polite conversation? Did we not look like ‘Brighton’ people? The problem is you can’t really say “why?” if you want a realistic chance of getting into a pub. “Lads, listen here, if you get involved in any trouble will you tell us about it, don’t try and sort it out yourselves”. Firstly he wanted to know where we lived and now he was basically saying the pub was rough. Great.

We tried to use this knowledge to work in our favour for the next pub. Splitting into three groups of two, we approached the delightfully cheap drinks Weatherspoons pub. The problem is when the doorman says “Where are you from” and each of the three groups say “Bournemouth”, it’s slightly obvious, even to the most mentally challenged ones, that they are indeed all together. As a result we all had to give the doorman some identification as insurance in case we caused any trouble. After a couple of rounds of cheap double vodka Redbulls it was time to move to the clubs.

From that moment on it got a little blurry. After a ten pound entry we were in the ‘Beach’, offering the finest selection of 70’s music. All I can remember is changing shirts with my mate Dave half way through the night, dancing to a lot of cheesy music and talking to these women for a large part of the night. But there was one question I remembered, well I had to, it had an amazingly sobering effect.


Thoughts from the weekend

1) Why don’t more pubs in England offer table service and a tab system? We spend more, we don’t have to go to the bar and they get tips. Everybody’s happy. In some places like Germany you can go to restaurants and help your self to food and drinks, you work out your bill and you leave how much money you want. I think that system of trust would last two minutes here unfortunately.

2) Why do doorman on pubs and clubs want to know where we live?

3) Why is it at the time you think you are in control of everything after a few drinks, yet the next day you think “I can’t believe I did that?”

4) Why does food taste so good after ten pints?

5) Why do you dance to songs you hate when you are drunk?

6) Why do you always have a better night in a different town?