View from the Bar

Well the season of good will is upon us and excess is the order of the day.

Here at ‘The Hart’ we again put our greed and avarice to good use, we held a charity race night and raised £265 for cancer research. All i can say about that is well done guys well done !

Christmas eve and Christmas day passed as always busy in the bar with lots of regulars and many not so regulars reveling in the season of cheer and good will, it is a shame that people cant be as nice ( and free spending lol ) all year round. With the new year rapidly approaching thoughts turn inevitably to ‘the new years eve bash’ and as a publican to the out poring of an alcohol fueled emotion tsunami that is the chimes of midnight, with its attendant tears and Bonn hommee.

For myself  ‘the new year bash’ is more a trial of nerve and guile, as it is my role to keep the emotional torrent under control whilst supplying the emotional rocket fuel. I often feel that this night above all nights high lights the dualism of the publican, for we are in essence parasites living of peoples social interactions and weaknesses. We are both poacher and game keeper as we allow or even encourage social degradation and excess, we prey upon the weak addicted characters in our society whilst espousing social responsibility and all that is proper and honourable . We landlords are as is stated ‘fit and proper persons’ in the eyes of the law licensed drug dealers if you will, but drug dealers none the less.

A bit of history

Local History : The village of West Stockwith

The village has evolved over centuries to the ‘Stockwith’ of today, it reached its zenith  when transport relied upon water and waterways, the village then boasted far more than the current two hundred odd inhabitants with many pubs inns ale houses shops and water based industries such as boat building, chandlers, roperys. Other local industries that used the waterways for transportation such as a flax mill a chemical works ( fertilizer manufacturing ) and of course agriculture farming etc.

The village stretches for about one mile along the banks of the river trent, to one end of the village the river Trent is joined by the chesterfield canal, at Stockwith Basin half way through the village the river trent is joined by the river Idle ( this junction is coincidentally the site on which ’the Hart’ is built .  the villages past glories can be seen when you wander down main street as many of the properties offer clues to the past in there names and styles of construction, ferry landing, the malting’s, ropery house etc, to name but a few.

The village boasts a wide variety of building styles and properties of varying size from grand Georgian houses to small Victorian workers cottages, many have been adapted throughout the years , to leave the eclectic individual homes that we see today.

View from the Bar

Well dear reader its Friday its bloody freezing Alex n I are on the bar today and unless I’m wrong the pub is still in West Stockwith.   I was hoping that the pub would be transplanted to somewhere hot and sunny overnight but alas no .

Last night I had a true ‘blonde moment’ and of course half the bar found out so I’m fair game again today. Alex and I ordered a Chinese meal last night when it arrived I shoved it into the oven.  My barmaid said ‘ you can’t put that in there’ referring to a polystyrene tub of sweet and sour sauce.   I of course poo pooed this and affirmed ‘ I’m a chef I know what I’m doing’ blah blah blah . So yes you have guessed it this morning I have had to clean inside my oven, as you can imagine I will take some stick over that today.

Other news from ‘the Hart’

Well we are all Christmas-ed up all decorations up MTV playing round the clock  Xmas pop tunes, I can’t keep count of how many times I’ve heard ‘ so here it is merry bloody Christmas’ etc.

The kid’s all performed brilliantly in their school pantos, now I know why they get away with so much stuff  ‘they can all act’ .

View from the bar

Todays madness … well today its a bloody moana-gram….. 

Had a phone call today on behalf of the county fire officer, it seems that the government ( you know the berks who have buggered the economy ). Have decided in there infinite stupidity that pubs in general, and mine in particular are aT high risk  of fire !

It seems although people cant smoke anymore we are still ‘high risk’ as we store flammable chemicals ‘ yes they are on about good old lovable alcohole’ and  to make things ‘safer’ for us all the fire brigade can’t come and offer safety advice anymore as they have done for years ! 

No we have progress ( that thing they do that kills rain Forrest’s and achieves nothing but keep them in new bits of paper ) we now have to have a ‘FIRE RISK ASSESMENT’.

yes you have guessed it they cost…… lol 

So now i need to spend money on a piece of paper ‘ think that stuff burns ?’ to show why n how we might have a fire n what I’m going to do to reduce the risk of  it etc, this will cost £199 pounds and several hours work. So i have one question dear reader ‘ do you feel safer’ knowing i have a nice new bit of paper .

This bloody country is drowning under this paper and bull shit government .    ARGH ARGH ARGH

View from the bar

Well Christmas is coming, its rumoured that the goose is getting fat but out here in Stockwith winter has arrived and its bloody cold! But as usual all in the village is about to get daft. 

Todays sideways look goes to the village lass who spent a constructive hour cleaning her cars, the slight problem is that she did this on the road outside her house with a hose pipe and buckets of water! This ordinarily would be considered admirable, unfortunately with temperatures reaching barely above zero all day and currently dropping quickly below……thus tonight’s talk is of the new ice rink up the street and an almost morbid sweep stake around who and when has the first slide and who or what they hit.