Flying Eagle (Queensbury)

Eric Cantona (Looking For Eric)

You ask me ‘who I am?’ and I ave to tell you, that I do not know.

You persist, asking, ‘who is the real Eric?’ and I can tell you in total honesty, that I do not know myself.

Life, it is a journey of discovery and I am only just half way on that ride.

I ave left the house, if you will, avec my sandwiches et mon thermos de vin rouge, but I am as yet nowhere near my destination. I am not so much ‘stuck in traffic’ as I am traversing a mountain pass. Or maybe I am tip-zee-toeing through a babbling brook - experiencing new and unchartered waters.

Yes! I will take a drink if you are doing the offering,… for sure. Parfait.

Actuellement,…..when I think of it now, I always wanted to drink beer even when I was still playing football. Sometimes even during le match, I would take a covert petit glance at le miserable faces of the freres Neville,....and immediately I would find myself with a craving for a bottle of hard liquer, in an equally hard bottle,....

Yes,

,......even as a footballer, I was always being creative. Always searching for abstract ways of expressing reality, abstract forms that will enlighten my own mystery. I don’t study; I live. I live and I drink. But I do not need the beer to live,… but I like it.

I ave played for the most annoying team in the world. I ave managed football teams on the beach and I ave made movies for the soul. But I am still travelling, still on my journey,…I still ave stories to tell, and knowledge to impart.

Where better to impart such wisdom, then in a dark pub over a Curry and a large Pression.

In life,..I am my own coach. I am the Player, the Coach, and the Manager of my own life. Manager, Manager,..i am the Manager. I make the rules for myself and then I live by them.

In the pub, as in life. I am the same. In control.

My best moment? No, not ere in zee juicer!…… To PLAY football is to truly live, but to WATCH football in a pub with an excellent Ruby is good too.

But the best?

Well,.. I have ad many good moments, and will ave many more to come I am sure. But the one I prefer thinking of, whilst we are sitting ere in zis booser,.. it is when I kicked my hooligan.

Oh yes, make no mistake. That hooligan,..he was mine! Like this beer.

Like Ying without Yang, like Cheese without Chalk, like Steak sans Frites. We were linked by destiny. Nothing without each other. Me,….Me and this,..this, Wayne.

I always try to find zee different ways of expressing myself. Without that I will die. Sometimes I ave Magners with ice, sometimes without. I’ve an unpredictable edge.

If you have only one passion in life - football - and you pursue it to the exclusion of everything else, it becomes tres dangerous. When you stop doing this activity it is as though you are dying. The death of that activity is a death in itself.

I won't die. I will live.

I exist here. Here in this pub, with my beer and this Lamb Bhuna. And my wisdom.

Here, in the Flying Eagle, you can let your imagination soar. You have the freedom to breath, to spread yourself. You have the freedom to crack out a fart and remain ow you say ‘incognito.’

To be anonymous in the boozer is the dream. On the pitch, anonymity, it is the nightmare.

In zee pub, you can never be sure of anything. An ordinary joke can take a wicked deflection at the last moment. Sometimes in life one experiences an emotion which is so strong that it is difficult to think, or to reason. In zee pub emotions, they are stong, but they blur.; they can turn on a sixpence.

Sometimes you get submerged by emotion. It overtakes you, and it is very important to express it - which doesn't necessarily mean hitting someone,….but sometimes it does.

In football you have an adversary; in zee pub, that adversary is yourself.

In this excellent Curry Pub, your adversaries are numerous, the challenges immense,….zee toilets, how you say ‘Toujours Rammed!’

When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.

When the punters in this pub follow the Landlord, it is because they think that he has a new batch of Andrex.

Tis your round mon Ami. More wisdom upon your return,………

Cantona’s rating for the Flying Eagle – 10/10

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  “,….. Why didn’t they live to be 100?Huh? Well, they woz running round all day, hunting mammoths, eating berries,..rumping their little hearts out. No boozing or smoking. They must have been fit as fiddles. Yer Neanderthalls……….I’ll tell you why, it’s … Continue reading →