Beer Compurgation

    "Did you sleep okay?" I ask, as is routine for a morning conversation. But now she winces, remembering the pain of the night. The knee that had surgery years before is being aggravated again by the hours spent providing table service. The physical tiredness has fought the mental worry all night again. "I think it may be time to get out of this industry," she replies.   I go to work, drifting as usual. I speak and check-in with some friends in the beer industry who are all feeling the strain. I go for a pint after work, knowing that soon I won't be able to. On one occasion the manager sits on a table adjacent to mine with a beer too. We talk about many things, trying to stay as jovial as possible. He pauses. "It isn't fun running a pub anymore."   As the pubs in my work locale slip into Tier 3, the regulars gather for a final drink on a Thursday night. Not for a final chance to get drunk or drink beer that is being sold off cheap, thou...

Six Years.  In the year of social distancing, venue closures and quarantine measures, I’ve tried to avoid the lamentation of missed annual events, supporting others who have found the special dates the hardest to cope with. When people are sad that there will be no birthday or anniversary celebratory get-together, I remind them that the key part is that we make the following year’s. And the one after that. And as many as we can. We can sacrifice one to make the rest. With this, dates in 2020 have mostly passed unnoticed or forgotten. Except one, Six years. I never forget July 3 rd . It isn’t a date for celebration or for family gatherings. It is a day of reflection; for me to pause and gather my thoughts on another 12 month cycle and any hint of progression. Six years – but it could be any number. It feels as though it could have been a longer time ago, yet equally it could have been just last year. Six years since I stopped fighting, like the hens we...

Recently, and partly due to  the demise of Bury FC , I’ve decided to spend the odd spare Saturday I have throughout the football season going to watch a local (for now) football team and take in some of the pubs and bars around the towns and stadiums in which they reside. Tribalism is fickle. I grew up in Greater Manchester with a father from West Yorkshire and a mother from Merseyside, fighting a lifelong nationality identity crisis where I loved the country north of the border more than my own, for reasons nobody was sure of. On reflection, that identity was healthy; it helped shape me better. Everyone around me has always been so sure that Manchester is the greatest city of all time and it has always been nice to reply, from a very early age, “Personally I think Liverpool is much better.” Football is, of course, more clannish than most sports, cornicing youngsters and adults alike into antagonists baying for the blood of people who dare to live in a neighbo...