Ye Old London (St Pauls)

Laszlo de Almasy (The English Patient)

Try and avoid it all you like, but there’s little else to do but think, when you’re staring at the same ceiling all day.

I’m thinking,  Yes I’m deep in thought.  The meaningful stuff you know; What’s my raison d’etre? How big is my carbon footprint?,… Whatever happened to Innocent Egbunike? Why am I called Laszlo? And other things,….

Amazing the rubbish that runs through one's mind really.

I don’t regret the affair, don’t regret it at all.  We were young and in love, in a time of war, passions run high, you understand how precious this existance is and consequently live each day as your last.

I’ve made mistakes in my life I know, just look at me now! But regrets? Never, no, not really, well maybe just the one…

It could be the morphine, but I can’t get that 20 minutes out of my head. That twenty minutes I spent at the bar in Ye Old London pub.

It was a Saturday, I remember that,  it’s never busy round there on a Saturday,..Especially not with scatter bombs raining overhead! I had an hour left before shipping out, so had taken a speed-march down, for a last taste of the golden stuff (it's never the same outside Blighty – too cold).

Drumming away on the bar I was, the only customer in sight, meanwhile the landlord inspected his optics not two feet away.

As the minutes passed, his fascination with his bottles never faltered, even two polite coughs failed to shake him from his reverie,..Sorry no, not reverie no,..He knew I was there.

Finally he turns, with full eye contact,.."At last," I remember thinking,..As I began to talk. With a rye smile he raised his finger, a gesture implying that I needed to “Wait a moment”, if I remember rightly.  He then proceeded, I kid ye not,  to make a telephone call!,..That’s right make, not take!

My English reserve was cast aside, this chap had my dander well and truly up!

*Oooooooh its all flooding back*

I was livid

“That’s it!”  I said, as I stomped my (then) foot on the floor, “If you don’t want my business, then I know plenty of other places that do!!”..And with that, I marched out, with not so much as a “Cheerio.”

,…Put it like this, that chap will never realise how lucky he was, that I left my service revolver in the kite (regulations)!

Oooooh God, that geezer. I was halfway across the English Channel when I remembered that there was a downstairs bar as well…!

*Deep breaths, deep breathes, remember what the doctor said about excitement.*

….It is often the way isn’t it, that one only realises what one should have said, when the event has long passed. I wondered then (over my pint next door), very much, as I wonder now, how differently things may have panned out for me had I called him a c**t on the way out,…

Oh well,

Aaaaanyway,..hey up,..here she comes *rubbing his hands together*. Time for my saucy French-Canadian bed bath,..Gonna have to sign-off now,..”Easy on the garlic paste this time Sweet-Tits…..”

Laszlo de Almasy’s rating for Ye Old London – 0 / 10

Rolosocosy

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