Sunday, June 19, 2005

Coming of Age....Again

After arriving back in Liverpool from a few days as a graduate, I immediately (well.....relatively immediately) rang regular commenter Sibz seeing if he fancied a few pints in the local. He was more than happy to oblige.

Before I start this story, I'd like to point out something. My local is nothing like the stereotypical British local seen in many TV shows (American's: think "Moe's Tavern"). It's not dark and dingy. In fact, it's rather posh, so much so that it has it's own website, for christ sakes. As such, despite the rabble of locals who are alcoholics (a category including myself and my brother), we hardly recognise anybody else there. As there is usually an outside crowd.

Anyway, me and my mate walked in, went upto the bar, and heard a question we haven't heard in such a long time: -

"Got any ID?"

Needless to say I was shocked. I mean, I'm 21, the ID threshold (any older and it's a complement). I don't think I look under 18. Christ, the barman looked younger than yours. After flashing the relevant ID, the barman let me in on a secret:-

"I wouldn't of asked normally mate, but the chief constable of the North Wales Police is there."

For those of you who don't know. The chief constable of the North Wales Police - Richard Brunstrom, is a very controversial figure. The guy is one of the supporters of all the speed cameras on the road at the moment, and - even as a non driver - I don't like him. For him, Colwyn Bay is a hell of a lot unsafer, and - instead of doing something about it - he goes on record to say that heroin addicts are less harm than speeding cars. Which is all well and good, until his daughter got caught speeding. I mean, Top Gear (a quality program) see sense and lambast him, and - to be fair - I proxy disliked him through that program.

But last night gave me a reason. Okay a far fetched, pathetic reason, but a reason nonetheless.