#11

THE FA CUP FINAL - WEMBLEY STADIUM SATURDAY 30TH MAY 2009

As you may already know, I got to work at Wembley Stadium for the FA Cup Final yesterday. I've worked at Wembley a few times previous to this, but as you'd imagine - this event is a tad more special.

Upon arrival, I was allocated the area known as The Great Hall. It should be noted that the various rooms and restaurants at Wembley morph and merge into a number of different manifestations. This week, The Great Hall was 'The FA Club' - the hangout for all of the major sponsors of the FA and their guests, as well as some British celebrities. Some sponsors include: Carlsberg, McDonalds and National Express. All booze was on the enormous tab of the FA. ALL BOOZE.

I snagged the bar as my place of work - pretty easy, handing out free bottles of Carlsberg to all these folks, topping up the Carlsberg urns - basically a table with a tub in it - filled with ice and hooch. This urn was to be constantly full with no less than 12 brews at all times, there were 5 of these urns - all of them close to the bar, which basically had an unlimited amount of booze. No doubt that the patrons were grateful of the FA's generosity.

SO - the day's events...

Near one of the two giant TV screens where they were showing how the two teams got in the Final (Chelsea and Everton you troglodyte - get with it), Everton supporters cheered as the ever-important goal was replayed in front of them. I was walking past with another waiter, who must have been in his 40s, and had a chalk stain of a hand print on his back and his shoulder. Someone got him good. I think he found the cheer to be a little bit too loud as he says to me,
"Bloody hell, life eh?"
I raised my head in half-hearted acknowledgement. What the hell does that mean? 'Life eh?'. You poor thing, you're waiting in the most prestigious room on arguably the biggest day on the British football calendar. Yeah life really sucks. From then on, I decided not to tell him that he had white hand print on his shirt. I was going to, honest.

As the day wound up later, tiredness set in amongst everyone - staff and managers alike. See the way it works, you have a general restaurant manager and then people below him such as bar manager, back-of-house managers and managers designated to areas of the room. I have deduced though, that technically these people are all on the same level on the hierarchy ladder - as many managers swap around rolls. Anywho, they started biting off each others' heads quite blatantly. Concurrently, the people back-of-house whose job it was to put away dirty and clean glasses into their designated areas, decided that life was all too hard.

'Where are you getting those glasses from?' I was asked.
'The bar'
'Can you stop bringing them please?
'Why?'
'Don't you want to go home today? This is taking ages...'
'I'm just doing what I'm told' which is all one can really do when getting paid minimum wage. And who cares, you clown - you get paid for the hours extra you work. Go ahead, I dare you to approach a disgruntled manager and demand that you go home. Good luck, you pillock.

Later on, as I was signing out I overheard (eavesdropped, sure) a conversation explaining that a worker leaned over a bar, took an ice cube out of a bucket and put it in his mouth - all in front of a customer waiting for service. He got kicked out. Nice one!

Yep.

Oh yeah, the actual FA Cup was in the room for a while, the percussionist from the band kept nodding and smiling at me as if to say 'You know what's goin' on mun' (he was Jamaican) and I served a dude from Eastenders tea. I found out that last one much later as I'm not familiar with British soap operas as much these days.

Pip, pip.

#10

Double figures, baby.

Moving on...

Of late, I finally cracked the 'working-behind-a-bar' egg. (So now I can tell people that when they ask me!) My first proper experience being Friday night at Harlequins Rugby Club, down in Twickenham.

I was a tad apprehensive, only because I'd never really done it before. But our fellow staff and Bar Manager all seemed nice. We were split into 'teams' - which was basically areas along the bar. My team of 3 consisted of myself, a guy who spoke little English and a portly African girl with a loud voice and a brain whose reasoning centre was clearly non-existent.

Excellent. Fan-bloody-tastic.

Once the mob started arriving and then of course started drinking - problems started to arise. The African girl insisted that I stay on the tills while she took all the orders, gave me cash etc. This may sound efficient...it wasn't.

She was mad.

The tills we were working with had 3 operations, meaning one person could put an order in - then if someone else needed to use it, all they had to do was press a button, it would switch over to a new order - saving the previous one. Logical, easy and useful.

Madwoman did not understand this quantum leap in technology. I had given up her stupid method by this stage and was taking my own orders and pouring my own beers. She was in the middle of an order, but not at the till and I was ready to exchange a quick transaction. I switched over the operation and she freaked.

"No no no no no! What are you doing, that was my order!"
"Yeah I know, it saves it - it didn't go anywhere."

All the while she was arbitrarily stabbing the till and making it beep and boop - completely erasing hers and my order.

Moron.

Also, due to her portliness - it was difficult to manoeuvre with beers in your hand - especially when she was violently grabbing my arm telling me to get on the tills. Eventually she got to go home early, even though she was drinking wine and talking on her phone. GASP.

Why is all of this crazy crap happening to me! More to come I suppose.

Before I let you go back to your futile, meaningless lives I thought I'd tell you about a couple of strange British customs regarding beer.

Firstly, they like warm beer. Yeah I don't know either.

Secondly, a good portion of beer drinkers drink what's known as Shandies, also known as Lager Tops. What is this, you ask? Well it's mostly beer, topped off with a dash of lemonade! Now I thought this was solely for the ladies. I was wrong. The blokes like a hint of lame in their beers.

Admittedly, I haven't tasted it yet - it could be nice, but at the moment I'm abstaining on pure principal and spite.

Go make yourself a shandy, get back to me.

#9

The Cockney Accent. A wondrous hilarity I have had a fair bit of exposure to already, here in London.

While coming back from Royal Ascot on the train yesterday, we saw two men hop on. One carrying a garbage back full of knick-knacks, the other accompanied by a dog. They both smelled of a foul concoction of booze, weed and filth well beyond the realms one is normally accustomed to.

They did however, enter with a large amount of funny things to say - most of which I cannot repeat in their entirety, due to the fact it was completely impossible to decipher what they were saying. I did gather some sort of order and understanding.

The man with the dog immediately said,
"Look after this, innit godda piss!"
"Fuckin' 'urry up then, there i' is!"

It was immediately clear that these dudes were pretty much drifters, they didn't buy a ticket - a fact they decided to tell the whole cabin loudly.

The dog started sniffing a male passenger who obliged in patting him. The man, being overly unintelligible and loud, as well as highly racist, said,
"Look at the fuckin' dog, slobbering all over this pants"

Yes I said 'this pants'.

The man insisted it was ok, and they started 'chatting' I guess you could call it. The mate then came out of the toilet, refreshed I assume, started talking absolute rubbish. The initial bloke started airing his knowledge over brands of pants - Pierre Cardin, Giorgio Armani and Hugo Boss. Ironically, his jeans I saw later were Armani. Stolen perhaps...?

Toilet dude was shocked and apologetic that his dog was 'slobbering' over others. He then asked,
"Whadjoo fink 'is name is?"
His friend said, immediately,
"C**T. That's 'is name"

It was at this point, I burst out laughing. It is likely to be one of those 'had-to-be-there-moments'. Absolutely hilarious.

What followed this was an exchange of gibberish, followed by a kiss on the forehead from one to another, the toilet man tapping on the pole in Morse Code and his friend being aggitated by it. Unfortunately, these fine men had to leave at the next station. Just before this, however, one of them claimed that he was 'known' by CID. Unlucky.

I was sad to see them leave - the girl across from us asked,
"Did you understand anything they said?"

Not really, luv, but enough.

#8

I've been fortunate enough over the past few weeks in London to work as a waiter/runner at Wembley Stadium and Arsenal Stadium aka Emirates Stadium. (By the way, get used to me linking to Wikipedia for background information on things I see and do. Who doesn't love Wiki, really.)

Back to the blogging.

The uniform required for such work is your standard black shoes, socks and pants - sometimes even a white shirt! I came over here with only 1 pair of black socks, so decided I needed some more. Primark was the answer.

For those who are unaware, Primark is a bit like a mix between Target, Myer and filth. Not really - it's actually quite handy to get cheap clothes there. Cheap being the operative word.

I went in, bought a shirt, a pack of t-shirts, pants and socks for £16. Not bad.

The socks I mentioned earlier were located in the queue as a clever and devious ploy to make you spend more money, just when you're trying to get out of this godforsaken dumphole. As I was looking at this pack of black socks for £1.96, a woman behind me decided to chip in to my life.

"They're rubbish, innit"
"Sorry?"
"The socks, you get whatcha pay for innit. Rubbish man."
"Oh really? Ah well, they'll do."
"Yeah - rubbish man - they dye your feet"

At this point, I was forced to enter the awesome realms of my mind, wherein I think of numerous things when little if any time passes.

First off, what? Who are you, you crazy wildebeest? Sure, you may be helping me, but that's yet to be determined. Keep your thoughts and opinions to yourself. She wasn't even that good looking.
(Oh come on all you frowners, I'm joking. Comic relief - I'm no sexist.) And they 'dye my feet'!? Have you lost your mind?

Where is this story going, I hear you asking rudely?

She was right.

I got home after the Arsenal match, weeks later, took off my socks and found my black feet whimpering up at me. It was hideous.

I looked like a hobbit who'd been walking through a lake of ash. Damn my cynicism. I'm sorry crazy Primark-queue-lady.

From this point on, I will listen to people who don't mind their own business in queues of shops;
Not scorn them.