Who's Got A Match?

With the sunshine now out in full force - as opposed to teasing us from a distance as it has been doing - it is clear to all that finally, Summer is upon us. The smoking ban has never been more popular as the pub's fusty, dank interior is forsaken in favour of a pint and a cigarette in the great outdoors. To this end, we've taken it upon ourselves to capitalize on the good weather by doing that most British of things and wasting absolutely no time in announcing that we would be having our annual Garden Party RIGHT NOW. Well, that weekend. But the spontaneity of the whole affair caught even the staff by surprise, let alone the punters.

The Garden Party is possibly a bit of a misnomer, as our beer garden isn't really a garden (it's just a bit of the car park with slightly less gravel on it than other areas) and it's not really a "party", but it is something the pub has been doing for thirty years now, and has become one of the village's "events". Basically, it's a lightweight mooch in the sun with a bit of food and a bit of beer, no hassle. But apart from that, over time it has thankfully developed into something far more beneficial to us - it is traditionally the day that (much like the masters used to wait on the servants on Christmas day in Victorian London before forcing them back down to the furnaces in time for Boxing Day) the line between punter and staff is blurred and we can all just unwind and be social, living in harmony as Paul and Stevie intended (except we - the staff - could quite easily make up both the ebony and ivory on a keyboard all by ourselves, with our heat-sponging black uniforms and pallid, chalk-faced skin tones built up from months and months of manning the dimly-lit interiors of the pub). Last year's was a rousing success - the weather was gorgeous, the food was fantastic, and we all managed to have a good time. But that was with our old manager, Stephen, before he turned into a mentalist and pelted a gang of midgets with fried onions. We were all curious to see how Henry would orchestrate the Garden Party. A team meeting was called on the subject, naturally - there was once a time when a team meeting was telling of a gigantic, world-crushing problem, and would only be called if Korea pressed the button and we had to prepare the fallout shelter. Now, they're more regular than the Women's Institute's coffee mornings, with almost as much coffee.

"Right, I understand that this month is the annual garden party. Naturally, this is yet another test of our regime," Henry announced triumphantly, "and I intend on making this the best garden party of all time. Right, now then, I was thinking a barbeque." At this point I felt like somebody needed to step in front of the raging barbeque locomotive, and that person had to be me.
"Is a barbeque a good idea, Henry?"
"Yes." You may see why this abrupt answer failed to quell my worries, but somehow Henry didn't, so I went in deeper.
"It's just that there's concerns about health and safety, that sort of thing." I know, I know, nobody wants to be "that guy" who lets a few technicalities stand in the way of a good time, but as a relatively new personal license holder, I didn't particularly want to be that other guy much either - the one who works at that pub that got condemned and shut down for good after everyone got chronic diarrhea for a solid week after the barbeque. You know, that guy.
"Pah! Elaine will spike everything with the temperature gauge to see if it's kosher or not."
"Elaine isn't here." It's a wonder I was able to lift that spanner considering the inconceivable blow it dealt to Henry's collective 'works'. Henry literally ran over to the staff diary and sure enough, the blue A4 diary burst open to reveal that Elaine had booked holidays - a week in New York. Lovely for her, not so good for somebody who needs somebody to stand behind a gigantic metal grill and burn some slabs of flesh to the tune of £1 a throw.
"Yeah, I booked this holiday off weeks ago." Henry grimaced and slammed his head into his hands - if there's one thing Henry can't stand, it's people taking what is owed to them by law.
"Well, can't you..."

Luckily, the pre-emptive scowls radiating around the table stopped him from completing that sentence. Elaine started working here on Christmas Eve and has not had a holiday yet - she has been here every day without fail or respite, in which time she has fried thousands upon thousands of chips, prepared countless garnishes of exquisite salad which almost always wind up in the bin, and grilled more meat than a crematorium. The poor woman deserves a break, and even Henry had to concede that.

"I'll man the barbeque, Henry," chimed Frances. There then followed a few seconds of tense silence as people tried to think of a way to vocalize the sheer, undiluted trepidation rushing through their minds. While none of us (besides Elaine) are what you'd call chefs - Eddie once managed to fuck up cheese on toast and the less said about my exploits in the kitchen, the better for all concerned - Frances is by far the worst of us, for the simple reason that she thinks she is a great cook, and quite frankly couldn't be more wrong. Frances has only done one stint in the kitchen that lasted approximately twenty minutes, but it was more than enough to ensure that in the event of Elaine being ill ever again, we'd probably sooner burn the whole fucking building down and all go to work up the Fox rather than attempt to explain to another customer why their meal looks like it was tortured as opposed to cooked. She had to cook one meal, and one meal alone - an all-day breakfast. A bog-standard fry-up, the kind that thousands of greasy spoons, "proper" pubs and hotels churn out time and time again without fail, every single day. Could not be more simple, or so you would naturally assume, as I had done upon Frances requesting to cover the kitchen - what's the worst that can happen, I thought, as she sauntered down the corridor to begin her brief, sordid affair with our kitchen. Two burnt mushrooms, a deep-fat fryer fire (nearly extinguished with water before I came skidding to the rescue in the common-sense-mobile), four rotten eggs and a metal can of beans in the microwave later and we were left with a dead microwave, the first refund on our books for months and a very poor review in Village Beat. An excerpt:

"Dining at [name of pub removed] is truly a game of chance - at times their meals are more than acceptable and a welcome stray from the well-trodden path of normal chain-pub food, but other times (such as last Wednesday) the service is atrocious (if there is even service at all). Improvements must be made."

Next month will see them review the Fox & Hound again, then they'll go back to reviewing films for a bit, and we'll get another review in three months' time. There really isn't enough going on around here for an entire culture page, but that's what happens when you commit to a format. It's probably a lot more fair a system than 'conventional' restaurant reviewers who really only interview a place once, not three or four times a year for ever and ever.

So anyway, when Frances, of all people, offered to step up to bat and oversee the production of a metric assload of potentially dangerous raw meat, we were left with a dilemma. Frances was the only person who wanted to do it - while none of us had the desire to sit behind a smoldering hot barbeque on what was assured to be an absolute scorcher of a day, having to cook for what could be a fair few people. Before a happy medium ground could be decided, Henry leapt in at the deep end and granted all barbeque duties to Frances. Despite our half-page advertisement (for which we pay handsomely - although it really says something about the integrity of the Village Beat that our £4.50 a month isn't enough to weigh down the scales of fair and balanced food journalism in our favour), Henry doesn't read Village Beat and therefore has not seen the review of Frances' expertise in the kitchen, which burnt us like an overdone hot dog (something of which we wound up seeing plenty).

No sooner had Henry bombed down to Aldi to pick up a gigantic gas-powered barbeque he had seen in a leaflet for something silly like 20p, you suddenly couldn't move for posters advertising the bloody thing. A gigantic picture of a sausage with "BBQ!" written down the side of it, followed by all the relevant deets: Saturday, 5pm start, weather permitting (the standard legal get-out), burgers and hot dogs £1 each. We have also been sent a trial barrel of some fuck-awful contintental beer, so no doubt we'll be giving that away (what are we meant to do, sell it? Reports back vary from "like having your mouth rinsed out with French sewer water" to the slightly more subtle "pure shite") by the plastic cupload. People will drink anything if it's free and it comes in a plastic cup, and we're hoping this will apply to our latest barrel of company-sponsored dross, because we certainly won't be using it to line our pockets, that's for sure.

When Henry did return, what he had strapped to the roof of his car could not only feed an army, but subsequently cook them and feed them to an even bigger army and several large gorillas. It was massive - four fake-oak-panel sides and a set of dazzling metal grills. Inside, the housing for the gas tanks, and a rather elaborate health and safety statement in a variety of languages. Although the pictures, I feel, were suffice - "do not sit on the Barbemax 9000 or you run the risk of burning your skin clean off" is one thing, but even if you've not a word of the Queen's under your belt there are the ill-fated stickmen to be roasted and maimed for your visual pleasure. Next came the gazebo - so that even if worst came to worst, we could still sit outside in the freezing cold with a fair degree of shelter, tucking into the assorted food put on by Frances with only a quick sprint through the elements to get to the toilet in time to revisit the assorted food put on by Frances. However, the problem with this was, this was bought a few months ago for a wedding function, so it's bright white, covered in bells, horseshoes and "just married" insignias and whatnot, and is proof that if this company suffers anything at all, it's undoubtedly myopia.

"This not going to put people off, Henry? People might think it's a wedding party or something," I bemoaned as I began the atrocious process of erecting a gazebo, which required several identical white sticks to be affixed to eachother with numerous identical stick holders, without instructions. Eddie came along to assist, but was not assisting much by sitting down, smoking, and telling me when I had done something wrong (yet offering no solution on how to correct the matter).
"Why would people think it's a wedding party? People who go to weddings are smartly dressed and stuff. You lot look like crap." Once again, a mixed message.
"That one doesn't go there." Yeah, thanks Eddie.
"You know that's not helpful? And besides, isn't this tent kind of small? We've had a lot of interest for this."
"That one doesn't -"
"Eddie, stop." He stopped.
"Well," began Henry, shaking the poles I had successfully put up as if the answer would fall out of them, "this is only really in case of rain. And tomorrow's meant to be the hottest day we've had in weeks."
"In that case do we have to wear our uniforms?" Eddie had a good point - we weren't really going to be working, this was more a social occasion for everybody - all we'd be doing would be handling the cash and distributing the beer every now and again (e.g. getting more plastic cups and pre-filling them with whatever's not selling).
"No, I suppose not." This was great news, seeing as black shoes, trousers and shirts don't usually stand up well in intense heat.

With the tent ready to go, the sack of meat prepared (and it was literally a sackful - although from the looks of it, it wasn't so much processed as the result of pushing somebody towards someone who juggled chainsaws and then clumping the remains into a sack before forensics turned up), and the barbeque having already demonstrated its (quite frankly devastating) powers, the night before we were ready. It felt good, and I was even looking forward to it - a chance to actually unwind without the bar being in my line of sight, mixing with the punters like equals instead of servants. A good day, good company, and food that might not be lethal. I was ready for it, and it felt like it was a long time coming.

The next day, as the rain hit the ground with such ferocity that it's a marvel the flimsy poles of the overly-effete tent were able to withstand the barrage and the punters stayed firmly indoors - only venturing outdoors for food and cigarettes - the four of us (Henry, myself, Eddie and Frances) were, as always, distanced; we were "the staff", and that was it. Even if Eddie was wearing a Hawaiian shirt that didn't so much mix colours as smash them together at 100MPH to particularly garish effect, even if Henry wasn't wearing his novelty chef hat, even if Frances hadn't somehow managed to burn half a burger, we're always going to be "them", and the only difference was that we were now "them", sitting in a wedding tent, with the smell of burnt meat and cut bread mixing with the scents of fresh air and industrial gazebo material to make the whole thing smell like a burger van outside B&Q. And that's the kind of situation where you say to yourself, "hmm, this is kind of weird". However, that's more our thing than theirs - we chose to remain in the gazebo, despite the statistical probability of Frances accidentally setting the whole thing on fire, resulting in a pub run by Simon Weston lookalikes. Of course, because we all work together and our usual topics of conversation are usually pretty work-centric, now that we didn't have to speak about work, we realized how little any of us actually have in common. The only thing any of us have in common is the fact that we were thrown together by chance, united by fate.

"So... this is kind of weird, I suppose."
"Yeah."

My attempt to break the ice did not go down well.

"Right, OK, I'll tell you what, go in there and tell the boys the barbeque's being postponed, you lot can fuck off home then if you want." Henry, who I thought would be the most bloody-minded about the whole thing, surprisingly turned out to be the first to concede defeat at the hands of circumstance and bad conversation.
"Sure," I said, wrapping up a burger (that I had secretly prepared myself while Frances went to the loo) to take home. "When are we having it next?"
"Nine."
"What, the ninth of this month, the -"
"No, nine o'clock tonight. If you guys could come back then, I'd appreciate it, I'll watch the bar until then."

Confused as to exactly what would be going down at nine, we all followed orders and promptly fucked off home.

A little under four hours later I reported back to the site of the incident to see the place absolutely jumping through the patterned glass windows. I hurried in through the lounge doors to see something that no amount of undercooked meat or gumswill beer could have topped - the barbeque, indoors, with Eddie stood behind it, grinning like a buffoon, wearing Henry's gigantic novelty chef hat and cackling in a decidedly manic manner. The bar was jumping - everybody was in there. Henry looked pleased as punch behind the bar, and the atmosphere was sublime. The door slammed behind me, and the room turned - Eddie gave a loud "waaaahey!", and staggered towards me. I began to suspect that Eddie had perhaps had a bit too much to drink.

"Weeey! You came! I fucking love you, you know that?" Eddie burped surreptitiously, informing me with both sound and scent that he was spiffed.
"Thank you Eddie." Well, what can you say, really?
"Wanna be the barbeque for a bit?" That's something Eddie does a lot when he's drunk; if you're driving, he'll ask if you want to be the car, if he's got work the next morning then he 'has to be the pub tomorrow'; after a few shots of Sambuca, Eddie has trouble distinguishing between being in control of something and actually physically being something. I took a quick look around - everyone was eating and seemed to be enjoying it; a queue was forming around the barbie; and Frances was sat by the bar sulking ferociously, evidently after having her barbeque privileges withdrawn; maybe something to do with the table in the far left, the residents of which looked sick as a pig; makes sense, if they were the first to get here. Hmm, do I fancy being the barbeque for a bit? It was possibly a little late to be umming and ahhing about it, however, as Eddie had already shoved the chef's hat on my head and gone to the bar to get more booze.

Fast forward to three hours later - we should have been closed for half an hour. Eddie is asleep on the bar floor, exhausted from holding a one-man rave (that was even more impressive when you consider there was absolutely no musical accompaniment), in the recovery position. Henry's not usually one for lock-ins, but seeing as the atmosphere was so good he decided, for the first time ever, to bend the rules a little and keep the party moving. I was behind the barbeque, getting the last of the supplies to a healthy brown before wedging them between two slices of mighty white and handing them to whoever would take them. Just as midnight came and went, the front door - which, to be fair, should probably have been locked at this point - swung open.

"Henry?"

All eyes reported back towards the lounge door to see a gray suit obliterating the dim porch light. The gray suit happened to contain one Glen Christie, the manager of the entire region for the company. Glen is notoriously hard knocks - starting out in the cut throat world of bouncing, Glen simply punched his way into the white collar side of the business, and now holds all the playing cards. Anything you need or want must be overseen by Glen - the man is, by his very nature, vicious; nobody tells him what to do, and God help them if they think otherwise.

"Bit of a rowdy party for this time of night, isn't it?" But Henry said nothing. Henry's never one to mix his words, but even he's scared of Glen Christie. Rumour has it that a scowl from Glen Christie is enough to stop your heart dead in its tracks (he then reaches into your chest and eats it for sustenance - with this in mind, I quietly turned off the barbeque; if he's got that in mind he certainly isn't having the pleasure of a hot meal). "I was just in the area speaking to Ken about his new arrangement - you know Ken, right? - and I thought I'd drop the assistant manager files over; your lad still needs cellar management, and I was thinking we could set a date for him, but obviously this is a bad time." Ken's 'new arrangement' is that if he's ever caught with his hand in the till again, Glen personally promised to 'punish' him. How do we know this? He forwarded the copies of the minutes of the meeting to every single person in the company, from moguls to mop boys. I didn't even know I had a work email address until I received a rather strongly-worded dialogue between Glen and Ken (apparently the email address you supply on your contact information is given a generic company alias - e.g. glenchristie@thisisbarwork.com - and any mail that's sent there will be forwarded to your real email address, an ingenious system that probably wasn't designed for threats).
"Why don't you just ask him yourself?" Henry said, gesturing to me. Of all the times Henry could have kept his mouth shut, I would have very much appreciated this being one of them. Christie looked me up and down - on the way up, his line of sight went past my eyes and up towards the novelty hat, then back again.

"Come with me please."

As the remaining punters scurried out, making their excuses, I was invited into the lounge as Henry propped Eddie up.

I've been in some precarious situations in my lifetime - the kind of thing that it's not even worth attempting to explain, where you have obviously been caught in a bad situation and the other person got the wrong end of the stick. However, of all the bad situations I've been caught in, I'd probably go as far as to say that being caught in a gigantic novelty chef's hat, with a gigantic gas-powered barbeque, without a food hygiene certificate, indoors, after hours, by the person who decides whether or not I will someday rise through the ranks of the company, is probably among the worst. Worse than the time I accidentally wandered into the women's toilets in Cardiff Barfly, worse than the time I got caught playing Pogs for keeps in school (an activity that, at the time, was the seven-year-old equivalent of Russian Roulette - this was when those shiny Pogs came out as well, so the stakes, to our tender seven-year-old minds, were inconceivably high), worse than any of it. However, as Christie reached into his suitcase, he revealed not a set of paperwork to make me redundant, nor a knife to stab me with - it was, however, a brochure for cellar management.

As he began to outline Cellar Management to me, I naturally became suspicious - this guy is a bulldog, and is paid by the company to be their eyes and ears on the ground level and take no prisoners. But here he was, laughing and joking away with me, calling me by my first name and encouraging me to do likewise, patting me on the back, all while I was standing there in a gigantic novelty chef hat with a face that had become reddened and ashened by all the indoor cooking I had been getting up to, looking like an even bigger prick than Chris Moyles in Gordon Ramsay's latest culinary clusterfuck (in which he will undoubtedly shout at people for reasons so trivial that a light gust of wind could probably blow them away, glorify bullying in the kitchen for a bit, and then piss off to his house in the Algarve while some poor fucker in some greasy spoon somewhere is getting a knife stuck through his hand by some jumped-up kitchen manager because he didn't put a sprinkle of parsley on the £1.25 fried breakfast - the union of he and Moyles could only wind me up more if they were being followed around by Davina McCall). I was waiting, with baited breath, for the inevitable moment where he pulled the hat off my head, stabbed me in the neck with his pen and then, to add insult to injury, put my cold, lifeless hand up my own backside. No mucking about, just pop, there, a nice wee find for the police and a cheap laugh for the front page of the Western Mail. Don't ask me why, he just seemed the type who would kill somebody and then shove their own hand up their arse. But not only did I leave with clean neck and hands, I left with a clean record. "So we'll come and get you in a few weeks, and then you'll be well on your way."

"You're not annoyed then?"
"About what?"
"The indoor barbeque."
"Ah no, you boys are alright - just sort me out a burger for the drive back and it's all dandy. You lads want a lift home or summat?"

As I wrapped up the last of the burgers for Glen and sent he and Eddie through the doors (poor Glen), I let out a sigh of relief that went right through to my very core; Henry did likewise. Before I had the chance to truly relax, however, I saw Christie's car stop, and Eddie pile out of it before the car zoomed away into the night. I wondered what had happened in that short space of time that could get Eddie evicted from Glen's car. I was constructing hypothetical scenarios right until Eddie got in through the front door, his front and crotch absolutely plastered in vomit.

"Henry, can you be the car?"

But before Henry could answer, his mobile phone went off, serenading us all with a spine-chilling version of Hey Macarena, the ringtone specifically designated to Glen Christie. As Henry vanished, apologizing profusely, I set about arranging a taxi for Eddie.