Sunday Soiree

A couple of weeks ago (or thereabouts), DJD and I found ourselves soaking up the ambience that can only be offered at a Neasden Polish disco, which was seen to be the choice option in Neasden for Saturday night soirees. This choice was based essentially on two things; it looks the safest option, and it was the closest to my place, in case I/we needed to get out of there – and home – in a hurry. These are the things that you need to think of when ‘partying’ in these parts. However, for football viewing, we found that ‘The Outside Inn’ (TOI) was the place to be, and the two reasons for this choice were: not dark and dingy, and the cheapest beer in town (£1.35 pints of John Smith bitter). You need reasons to go to pubs!

Yesterday afternoon we decided to watch the game (Tottenham vs Newcastle), so we meandered down to TOI in the hope of seeing Newcastle self combust again, but since Dyer and Bowyer were suspended for fighting each other in the previous match, it limited the chances. DJD was keen to place a bet, and not too surprisingly there were good odds being offered for Newcastle, so he laid on a fiver on this horse, hoping Shearer could ride them to victory. Personally, I was looking to put a couple of quid on Peter Ramage to rabbit punch Nicky Butt during the game, but my hopes of seeing the “Butt attacked from behind by Ramage” headline wasn’t to happen, as P-Ram wasn’t selected in the Newcastle lineup! It could have been a great day for journalism, but obviously, it wasn’t, and today isn’t either…..obviously.

So we cruise into TOI and the month’s beer special is Guinness for £1.59 a pint, so it’s all good so far, the Skysports is playing on the plasmas, so we settle in for the long haul, only the game never comes. You see, TOI doesn’t have the right Sky Channel, so I’m there sipping an ale, DJD nursing his pint of lemonade (and no, I’m not taking the piss) and we’re watching all the sporting updates from around the globe. But still no football! We did see that the Aussie chicks won the cricket world cup, but the game was what we’d come for…..and the game – it would seem – was not being played at TOI.

At this stage, it is ‘options’ time, being 15 minutes into the first half, so we could either take a walk back up to our local Polish haunt (4 minutes) or the 30 second traverse to ‘Diceys’, which is probably the most aptly named establishment in the Northern Hemisphere. Since we’re blokes, we choose the 30 second option, and purely because we’re lazy, not because it’s some warped representation of our prowess in the bedroom, not that I’d want to speak for DJD!

Diceys…..where does one start?! We open the door, and there’s three screens playing hurling, which don’t get me wrong is a good sport, but given the choice of that or Football, it’s a no-brainer. I wanted to yell in a Brummie accents “is this a fooken paddy pub? What’s this shite!”, but survival instincts took control, and after further investigations, we found that the football was being shown on a large screen out the back bar, so our fears were allayed, albeit temporarily.

DJD scoped out the environs, selecting a location to watch the game, whilst I performed my civic duty, and bought myself a pint of Guinness, and DJD an orange juice. At this stage I decided that Reading was not a place to go, as it had turned DJD into a screaming nancy, well that and the fact that my only other reference to Reading was this chick I met when living in Alice Springs, called Claire. She had a ‘great personality’, was generally can-tastic, but pulled the old ‘if you don’t sleep with me, I’ll commit suicide’ line. Perhaps I was drunk at the time, and the suicide comment was based on what she’d prefer given the option of sleeping with me, I don’t really know?! Anyway, as desperate as I generally am, I passed on that option, and that led to one of the funnier ‘Alice’ moments, but a court order gags me from discussing THAT episode….But anyway, I’m no anti-Reading-ite, so don’t take offense all you reading from Reading! And Claire, if you’re reading, I was joking when I said that your friend was the preferred method of transport, really!

Soooooooooo, back to our surrounds. DJD is sitting down, and I’m ordering drinks, and standing in front of me is the real life ‘Groundskeeper Willie’ sans beard. But from one look at this guy, he’s obviously insane! He’s got that wild look in his eyes, and he’s literally twitching, and staring straight at my face! Scared? Damn straight, I was touching cloth there, hoping the smegging barmaid would hurry up with my drinks before this freaks metal plates sent him into a psycho-pathic rage. But in the meantime, I do everything I can to avoid eye contact, which is hard if you want to check out if you’re about to be glassed….as I’m evading his gaze, I spot a Staffordshire crawling under DJD. Now I’m concerned for two reasons; I’ve seen two dogs in this country which were both Staffordshires, and secondly; there’s a fucking dog in the pub!!

I don’t claim to be particularly knowledgeable when it comes to health and safety, but a mangy fucking mutt wandering inside a pub doesn’t seem overly hygienic, but I guess it’s all relative, and on further investigation, it’s probably safe to say that the dog was as clean – if not cleaner – than the clientele.

Previously, we’d been to the ‘Redback’ and we saw some bona fide freaks, but this place was equally freaky, but a ‘less safe’ type of freaky, not the type I prefer, given an option. Playing pool in the corner were a group of Indians (the curry kind, not the Comanche variety), there were a group of yobbo Brits saying ‘fook’ a lot, looking impossibly aggressive and cuddling their Staffordshire like it was a kid, whilst their baby was crawling around on the floor, only making noise when it became stuck and entangled on the viscous grime which turned the venue into a quagmire. Behind us, there was a group of English guys, who looked like they’d feature on an episode of ‘Rohypnol – The Date Rape Drug of Choice’, and a pair of strangely shaped characters in front of us who DJD pointed out, with a casual, ‘man, look at those two ugly old chicks kissing’. It was a motley crew indeed, and I’m not sure we were wiser for the experience, but at least it had the game, and what a shit game it was.

The highlight from the game was DJD’s face when it was discovered that one of the ‘ugly old chicks kissing’ was actually a guy. Gold, pure gold! But I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, I doubt he’d have taken a crack at either of them anyway, but that’s mainly because he was drinking lemonade and OJ. You see, Reading definitely has it’s ups!

Newcastle played like utter dogs, and although Tottenham didn’t look particularly good, it was bound to be an inglorious game, with only a brain-explosion from Harper being the set-up for Jermaine Dafoe’s winning (and only) goal. I was so glad to have spend 75 minutes in Neasden’s own private ‘Deliverance’, and the prospect of ‘Real Madrid vs Barcelona’ was just the tonic and impetus we needed to remain, which in retrospect boggles the mind, particularly since the cleanest place was the toilets, which we put down to the fact that no-one used them, and probably explains the strange looks we got when going to/from the can. Either the locals thought we were mad for walking 5 metres to the toilet, or they just didn’t know what lie beyond the doors with ‘Gentlemen’ scribed upon them. On reflection, this does make sense!

Confident having survived over an our in ‘Diceys’, we figure that watching a game featuring arguably two of the greatest teams on the planet on a big screen isn’t a bad idea, when the bar-thing announced that they were shutting down the screen, because ‘the band is about to set-up’. Leading to this exchange:-

CBJ:- ‘Band, what band?’
BarThing:- ‘Those guys, our Sunday band!’
CBJ:- ‘Ok…..’

Bar Thing meanders off….

CBJ:- ‘Can you believe this? Look at these guys, that guy's one of the original Village People! Are they going to crank out ‘YMCA’ for us?’
DJD:- ‘Young man, there's a place you can go. I said, young man, when you're short on your dough. You can stay there, and I'm sure you will find many ways to have a good time.’
CBJ:- ‘Frightening! DJD, putting the DJ back into DJD!’

Upon set-up, the ‘lead singer’ dons a tie and does his best Blues Brother impression…. We see this ending badly, very badly….

The game was an out and out cracker! And even though we were forced to watch it on smaller screens, it was one of the better La Liga matches I’ve ever seen.

4-2 to Real. Goals all round! Zidane, Ronaldo, Raul, Owen, Eto’o and Ronaldinho!!!! A veritable whose who of world football.

All this excitement, with Country & Western – Neasden style, pumping in the background!!! (No Village People, unfortunately!).

And what's more, Willie Nelson, no less!!! It doesn't get any better than this....

Ronaldinho takes on Helguera….Promise me, son, not to do the things I've done,
Great challenge by Helguera!!...Walk away from trouble if you can
Beckham brings it down the right….Now it don't mean you're weak if you turn the other cheek.
Beckham sends the cross in.…I hope you're old enough to understand:
Good save by Valdes….Son, you don't have to fight to be a man!


Verdict:-

Unless you’re up for some ‘Sunday Country’, or there’s nowhere else (on the planet) showing the game, avoid this place. Avoid it like the plague!!!!