Still On Topic - Just
There's so many first loves I could talk about. First author I loved (I'm a reading freak - I read more than anyone I've ever met. I've even been known to read Mills And Boon or the back of a cornflake packet if there's nothing else around. I prefer cornflake packets. Plots less predictable...), first animal I loved, first country I loved, first drink I loved - Christ, so many "first loves" I could talk about.....

But I think it'll be first pub I loved.

Quick tale about my first special pub and why I loved it. I used to drink in a place called "The City Tavern" or The Tavern to us regulars and it was that pub that made me grow to love Geordies and the Newcastle Nightlife. I had my 21st Birthday in the Tavern and I remember it well - for a couple of reasons.

At the time, the fashion for the ladies (at least in my hippy/biker circle) was to wear white grand-dad type shirts (no bra), tight faded blue jeans and leather boots. And mighty fine they looked as well. On my 21st, the corner of the pub which we "owned" had about 40 hippy/bikers of varying ages. As I'd been on the piss all day, when my harem arrived (the bunch of girls who used hang out with my clique) I was already 7 sheets to the wind. Now I love tomato ketchup. Always have, probably always will. So one of the harem had bought me a catering size jar of Heinz Tomato ketchup all wrapped up in pretty birthday paper. She handed to me and, being drunk, I promptly dropped it.

Smash! About a gallon of tomato ketchup splattered over the floor. So what could we do in the circumstances? Yup. That's right....

FOOD FIGHT!!!!

So I picked a handful of tomato ketchup and threw it at a bunch of the girls. As they were wearing white shirts, it looked as if they'd been machine-gunned! Pretty soon it turned into a free-for-all and the whole pub got involved. Bloody great fun.

But the reason I loved that pub so much? 20 years later I went back to the Tavern. It had all changed and had bloody penguins on the door. (Bouncers to the uninitiated). I made my way down to the corner of the pub that always used to be ours and was nostalgically thinking about the times we had there. And then I noticed a bleb on the wall and pressed it and then smelled my finger. After 20 years it still smelled of tomatoes ketchup! My 21st was written into the very fabric of the building!

Now that's what I call a true love.....


Cheers

me

P.S - if you want a shagging story, there is a strange one from that very night but I think I'll save that for another time.....
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Tue 25 Oct 2005, 17:17, Reply)