Greetings from the Lifestyle Support Guru! Today’s ‘lesson’ is one that I hope will be of great use to many of you, since it involves a whole range of topics, but all centred around MEN and PUBS in one way or another (I would have said ‘one shape or another’, but I don’t want men worrying about their body image). (And it was only one pub, really.)
Firstly, I know MEN say that women can talk about anything and everything whilst saying nothing, but I overheard a LONG conversation in the pub the other night which involved four men of varying ages discussing, for no good reason that I could gather, ‘White’ pubs in the area – that is, pubs with ‘White’ in their names and not pubs where the BNP and EDL would feel at home. They talked about the White Swan, White Hart, White Post (although there seemed to be some confusion about whether or not the latter had been knocked down) and the only ones they seemed to leave out were the White Elephant and the White Man’s Burden…
Shortly afterwards, the male half of a couple in their 70s started talking about how he was going to swap his Chaka Demus for something else – I mean, what do you swap for Chaka Demus? And when you’re in your 70s? Tributes to Bob Marley, perhaps? Or Althea and Donna’s Greatest Hits?
Soon after this riveting chat, I noticed a middle-aged couple sitting opposite me – she is on orange juice (and therefore, presumably, driving) while he has a pint of beer AND is munching on a VERY large pickled onion! So not only has she drawn the short straw on the alcohol, but she’s not even going to get an enjoyable snog at the end of the night!
And, finally, there is the 38-year-old male who has ordered two jars of ‘Psycho Pickles’ off the internet and has brought them to the pub. (One has to ask ‘Why?’). ‘Psycho Pickles’ are gherkins and onions steeped in vinegar with VERY HOT chillies in it. (For those who know chillies, these were Scotch Bonnets, with a heat rating of between 100,000 and 350,000 Scoville units.)
Apparently, he had already eaten two of these chillies the previous evening and had suffered greatly in the night, saying that it felt like he’d had ‘a hedgehog in his stomach’ Why, then, would you eat yet another the next day? However, I have to say it was quite amusing to see someone go bright red in the face, unable to speak, tears running down his face, sweat coming out of every pore and eventually getting down on all fours in the middle of the pub because he can hardly breathe. WHY???
MEN, if you can explain any of the above, the LSG would love to hear from you! Enjoy the rest of the Bank Holiday weekend – I’m off to see if I can persuade any other MEN to eat a Scotch Bonnet… purely for the pleasure of seeing their reactions!