I've enjoyed it immensely, but this comment at Anna Raccoon's place last week stands out as exceptionally joyous and needs sharing more widely, I reckon.
A few years ago I was at a small social gathering of fellow smokers and drinkers. I discovered that I was not the only reader of Leg-Iron’s blog!
From a chance mention, the idea of having a ‘smokey-drinky’ spot of our own grew. Friends contacted like-minded friends and eventually the use of a large shed/small barn was given, it’s about 30′ by 18′ or so, with what used to be a disused out-door privy close by. Ample parking was available for a number of cars but careful arranging was required.
Our motley crew includes builders, plumbers, electricians and some remarkably skilled handymen. It was not very long before a rather pleasant room evolved, a couple of old but working fridges, some chairs and stools (some ‘reclaimed’ from the local tip!) and some slightly threadbare carpeting made for a great place to have a few drinks, only the stuff you’d brought along yourself, mind.
Two winters ago our room was unusable because of the cold. One of our more skilled ‘members’ mentioned rocket stove mass heaters. Google it, we all had to. We all chipped in a few pounds and in due course not one but two rocket stove mass heaters were installed, with the bonus of two nice big sofa-style seats for the ladies to warm their parts on! Our Smokey-Drinky is getting better all the time. Three layers of carpet off-cuts behind plywood panels make great insulation.
We all drink only our own booze; beers are name-labelled and are in the one of the fridges, my whisky bottle sits atop my own optic with other people’s bottles arrayed alongside. It looks like a pub, it smells like a pub (smokers and non-smokers alike are in the room, no complaints) and, most of all, it functions like a pub. People gather there because it’s a friendly place to be in, we even have music which we select by ourselves. When was the last time you sat in a warm, smoky pub with a dram of single malt whisky, listening to some Mozart chamber music whilst sitting on a heated sofa?
Everyone, likes it.What one might call ‘membership’ of our group started to grow. The landlord of one of our local pubs came along as a guest one week-day and was astounded at the number of people there. He said we had more people there in one evening than he could expect in an entire week-end! The growing ‘membership’ and our space constraints have resulted in one more ‘Smokey-Drinky’ starting up in someone’s (a widower) converted double garage and it, too, is improving and growing in popularity.
Yes, we have had the vinegar-drinking, lemon-sucking Council ‘Inspectors’ sniffing around.
We are on private premises, no alcohol is being sold, we are not a club or any other sort of association, we are just a group of friends. The ‘Inspectors’ are not permitted beyond the threshold. It’s a delight to witness their frustration. And, yes, we have had the local Plod along at the behest of the Council. Both Sergeant XXX and PC XXX now have their own booze in the fridges and/or on their own optics!
We have side-stepped the desire of TPTB to destroy places of social intercourse, we have devised our own place which is outside any of their pernicious rules, regulations and laws. They hate it but can do nothing about it.
Valentine’s Day evening was marvellous, couples, including Herself and me, had a beautiful time.
Start your own Smokey-Drinky, you’ll not regret it and you’ll pay the Government nothing at all and there’s no landlord to be penalised!Bravo! Sir, I salute you.
I do believe that could be classed as 'Big Society' getting things done without state interference, don't you? What's not to like?
25 comments:
Inspired and heartwarming.
It's heartening to know there's still people out there with the spark of defiance in them.
Long may they continue to give the V-sign to TPTB!
Ah. Earlier this summer I was doing some ISIS surveys for Frank Davis. I came across a delightful couple of blokes on holiday in Greece who were from Bamber Bridge in Lancashire. Now, I'm from Lancashire, and can tell you that 'They're not shy in Bamber Bridge'. (That translates as hard as nails.)
One of them had an allotment. With a shed. Which he'd turned into an all-smoking all-drinking all-dancing (he played music but I guess not classical) smoky-drinky. Just for his friends, and they all brought their own booze. He'd even installed a chemical toilet for the ladies, because the blokes just used to piss at the edge of the railway line, which wasn't right for the women, he said.
How many of these are there? And how many smoking lock-ins are there? There is hope; there are hundreds of thousands of small acts of defiance throughout the uk, but no-one advertises them because they don't want 'them' to find out. Basically, on a larger scale (and with far fewer draconian measures and less active policing) it's exactly what the Greek people have done: circumvent a bad law and carry on smoking.
So what you're saying is that having parties in sheds is more popular since smoking was banned in pubs? Why sheds? Why not sit in the living room? Is it because smoking in the living is horrible?
No, it's because a shed / garage can be made into a better facsimile of a pub, and since pubs threw out 60% of their customers in July 2007, this is how those erstwhile customers have dealt with it. That is why 11,000 pubs have closed since the ban. Serves them right for not standing up for their customers and for being so stupidly naive as to believe the lie that non-smokers would be packing them out after the ban. The bulk of those that still exist have turned into nurseries cum eateries. They aren't pubs anymore. Hence the rise of the "Smokey-Drinkey".
A strange question, Carpe. In the first place, who said anything about parties? A smokey-drinkey is in the nature of a pub - you turn up when you wish to. In the second place, and consequent upon the first, the essential point is that 'members' are free to come and go without feeling in any way ill at ease.
Sorry to butt in (no pun intended) - but I've just come across Smokefree Southwest.
Why do we allow tax payers money to be frittered away on these organisations.
http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/pound-211million-cost-illegal-tobacco-South-West/story-18246717-detail/story.html#axzz2LMluF7Bw
Government lobbying government.
http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/government-lobbying-government.html
Why the need for a smoking ban? Was smokefree air in their own living room too horrible for anti-smokers prior to it? ;)
The whole point of a pub is that it is a public and sociable community space. The clue is in the name: a public house, not a private house.
You don't have to make arrangements with people to meet there, you just call in when you want. The great joy of local pubs used to be seeing who else dropped in that evening, and knowing that you would probably find some company, or just to sit there amiably for a while people-watching.
Smokey-drinkey places are becoming similar to pubs: they are neutral friendly community meeting places - although you have to know someone to be invited in the first place. Having a private party or knocking on someone's door and sitting in their private living room is NOT the same!
Does Carpe Zytha translate as 'seize the beer', by the way? :)
He also goes by the name of "Cooking Lager", and is a CAMRA smoker hater who is in denial about the reason pubs have been going out of business since the smoking ban.
We follow the same dromos, nisakiman. :)
No, sorry. I'm not having that. He is a sceptic, but don't think he should be termed a smoker-hater IMO. Very unfair comment.
He likes to post challenging (or mischievous) comments - nothing wrong with that - and they are never thoughtless. I can see the thinking behind this one quite clearly.
Still think he's wrong, mind. ;)
DP, every comment on the subject that I've read by him is disparaging of smokers and smoking, and vehemently denies that the smoking ban had anything to do with the 11,000 pub closures since.
I am aware he comments with the sole intention of provoking (some call it trolling), but that doesn't alter the fact that the thrust of his comments on the subject are decidedly anti-smoker. Hence my appraisal.
Can't seem to get Disqus to work tonight.
Anyway, this is indeed Cameron's 'Big Society' in action - but not the way he imagined it working ;)
We've never had the council investigating our Smoky-Drinky evenings but then ours are mobile and sometimes (whisper it) actually take place in a council house! They have settled into a more or less permanent place lately but we have yet to install a pool table and a proper bar.
These will come. We'll probably get them cheap from a closed-down pub.
...or half the "V" sign....
What are you brewing? You could near sell tickets for your time and a guide of North East Scotland (with plenty of drinking going on). With your sense of humour and your strength of character, you could probably make it work amongst your 'fans'.
They should not exist. It is as simple as that.
He's mainly having a gentle wind-up I think.
It's not the same. You cannot advertise it openly; money cannot change hands; you probably cannot have music taking place and so on.
Personally. it would be something I'd want to keep very low key. If there's anything of this order happening in Preston, though - let me know.
Yep, he had a entire blog doing just that once. :)
I saw this splendid post on that site at the time. How I wish I had the general knowledge and werewithal to get something like that together myself.
The commenter is an absolute legend.
One needs someone who gently pushes against the tide and winds folk up a little bit - it stops us all from taking ourselves too seriously.
Pint of suspiciously golden-looking piss for me please.
But would you want to sit there all night, every night, dealing with 'friends'? I sure as hell would not.
You're from Lankyshur? Wish I could get in on the act. Be a lot better sitting here on my own every neet.
Post a Comment