Londoners Magazine

I had a rather dramatic night at work last night, which ended in calling 999. We have a lot of regulars on a Friday night, mostly estate agents. And you soon learn who you hate to serve (mostly estate agents). Yesterday there was a group of people who were more annoying than the group of suit-clad, deal-closing estate agents and they caused agro all night.

One man, who wore a baseball cap on back to front, kept shouting at one of us to serve him. He’d call out “Hey, blondie!” or “Curly!” to one of my bar staff. He’d click his fingers; he’d ask “Am I next?” as soon as he approached the bar, knowing full well that he was the last person to be served.

And he was an idiot: “Do you have any sweet red wines?”

“You can’t get sweet red wines,” I reply dryly. (Actually, you can get one or two, but he doesn’t need to know this.)

“But it says here, ‘fruity wines’ on your wine list,” he states.

“Wine is made of grapes. A fruit.” I did not have the patience to go into the plum taste of a cabernet sauvignon.

“Can I taste a rosé then?” I give him a drop of rosé. “Hmm, I’ll have a brandy please. Double, no ice.”

This was how my shift started. And I refused to serve him for the rest of the night; the others would have to do it.

Before I know it, one of the members of the group is passed out, unresponsive and unconscious in the men’s toilets. A couple of the bar staff drag him up the stairs and outside onto a bench, where he is slightly more conscious, enough to vomit outside. Looking around for his friends, most of them are gone. He has no wallet, only a bus pass. He doesn’t know his name or where he lives.

One girl from the group comes out, claiming to know first aid. As she assesses him, she rolls a cigarette and sips her pinot grigio. “I can’t believe they have all left, they just have no respect,” she moans, blowing smoke in my face.

For the next hour, we are sobering up this guy. Other customers come out to offer their help: “Try laying him in the recovery position,” one suggests as the guy is vomiting his guts. “I’m a black belt,” another offers.

It turns out that he has been drinking all day and had got through an entire bottle of cognac. The annoying guy had been buying all the drinks while he was sat at the table and nobody had any idea how much he had drunk.

Before long the ambulance took him away and I can only hope that his hangover sucks today. As a bar tender, it is a terrifying fact that legally, if that man had been run over in the street outside or worse, died in the men’s toilets, it is the fault of the staff who served him the alcohol and we would get a criminal record.

Alcohol is dangerous stuff.