Barred!

Did I ever mention that I was planning on opening my own bar, here in my front room (yes folks, both The Sleaze and Sleaze Diary are hammered out in the front room of my house - until I get that wireless network sorted out)? When I say 'open', I don't actually mean a public bar. There's no way I want the usual bunch of drunken deadbeats wandering freely into my home. No, I was thinking more along the lines of an invitation only private members club. And believe me, there won't be many invitations. The fact of the matter is that my local pub (where I've been a customer for fourteen years), is currently run by an arse who seems determined to run it into the ground. A combination of loud music, badly kept beer, rude staff, homophobia and racism have succeeded in driving out most of the established regulars. In fact, even most of the louts and pissheads he filled the place with instead have now moved on. Now, I know the obvious solution is simply to drink in another pub, but I'm afraid I just can't find a halfway decent one within reasonable walking distance of my house. I know, I'm lazy.

So, what else is a man to do other than set up his own bar? I've made start, salvaging a length of old kitchen worktop I was going to throw out to serve as a bar. To help create that real pub ambience however, I now need to paint the walls a dingy red colour and stain them with cigarette smoke. I'm already working on a suitable carpet - I found a threadbare brown one in a skip and I've spent the past few days alternately grinding cigarette ash into it and urinating on it. All I need to do now is get someone to throw up on it and it will be ready to lay. I've also noticed that a lot of pubs have quaint stuff like horse brasses, old jugs and the like hanging from the ceiling. In an attempt to replicate this I've suspended several kitchen utensils, including a jug kettle and a sandwich toaster from the ceiling of my front room. I must admit that it looks quite effective, although I did scald myself rather badly whilst making a cup of tea the other day and I'm still trying to get the melted cheese from that sandwich I was toasting out my hair...