Beer, Batman and Boxing

The bar hop cousins have a funny family tree, we are spread out the length and breadth of the land.  We cover all parts of the UK as well as Eastern Europe, probably further afield too.  For today’s blog I want to concentrate on a crawl we did in Northern Ireland.  Now the history of Northern Ireland is complex, far too complex for an idiot like me to try to summarize, I will leave that to far better educated folk than myself.  I want trivia not a history lesson! – So, as an example, The anchor for the SS Great Britain is on display along the sea wall.  And one of Bristol’s crown jewels is…. The rest of the SS great Britain!  See how is that for trivia?

So before I start I want to give you an idea of the crawl we had in a place called Newcastle.  “But why on earth are you going on about Northern Ireland? If you now go on about Newcastle!?” I hear you ask.  Well this Newcastle is in County Down, situated about an hour south of Belfast.  This place is like an equivalent of say, Blackpool in England. In the 70s and 80s it was THE holiday hotspot to go to.  Sadly, as with all UK towns the rise of package holidays means that it has suffered as a result.  I don’t want you to think I am being cruel about the place, because it does hold a special place in my heart.  Let’s just say if it was a house, the estate agent would call it a fixer-upper rather than modern. But, we aren’t here to wallow in the demise of small towns.  We are here for tales of beer, boxing and batman!

Boxing

Two of my cousins are very passionate boxing fans and had taken it up as a means of keeping fit.  Then later after enjoying it decided to throw their hat into the ring.   It was fast approaching the first fight so he contacted me to say that he has an event coming up on the 30^th and Halloween was the day after, and did I fancy making a weekend of it? 

So the plan had been set, Boxing, beer and a catch up with the family.  A good weekend plan made.

I booked my tickets and sorted a place to stay. 

Soon the fight night was upon us.  My cousin had been preparing for weeks he was like a walking talking rocky montage – there are no steps outside the city hall in Newcastle but if there were, he would have run them.  He was fighting at a “local” sports club just outside Newcastle (local in Northern Ireland can be anywhere up to 80 miles) before the fight I decided to hang around in the bar, Andrea Corr was being interviewed on the TV.  I had a moment to myself. Don’t really recall anything else apart from that.  Ahh The Corrs, if you too had forgotten them until I had just reminded you.  It’s my pleasure!  But anyway, where was I?  Oh yes, soon it was time for my cousins fights to begin.  First up the younger one, he ducked dived and won in three rounds. Next up, the older one.  There was a bit of pride in me as he walked through the crowd with just a badly recorded version of the ITV fight night music playing.  He walked into the ring and you could tell there were no nerves.  The bell went, he went.  Destroyed him.  Now to celebrate!

There is one thing I do like about Northern Island, Harp.  It’s the antithesis of everything I am about.  It’s mass produced, cheap and goes through you like your organs don’t exist but in Ireland that stuff tastes great.   That’s also probably due to the limited choice of drinks that are available outside of Belfast.

Batman

Now onto Halloween, Quinn’s that night, were having a fancy dress competition.  Between the four of us we had decided to go as Batman and Robin.  Two  iconic characters, both taken by the other cousins.   So that let us with villians to go with.  Harry, straight off the bat baggised the joker, which left me scratching my head for what to do.  I was thinking and thinking when I thought I would come up with the idea of being The Riddler.

When you have a bright idea that you really shouldn’t listen to but decide to do so anyway.  Straight down to the fancy dress shop, BANG batman and robin outfit picked up.  POW, Joker outfit picked up! KABLAMO! Riddler outfit picked up.  Except it wasn’t, there were none.  It was just the three.  Bugger.  I had to think of something and think of it quick otherwise I’m left out.  We decided to hit Newry to see if they had a better selection, sadly not.  I was running out of time and ideas.  Then a voice popped into my head “make your own”.  With all my years on this earth you would think I had learned enough to not listen to my inner monologue.  Sadly I didn’t.

We hit up TK Maxx and got myself a green pair of jeans (Ralph Lauren, no less) and a jumper as well.  Next I had to get some question marks to put on it.  Now, as I’ve said before I’m raised Bristolian.  As anyone who has visited that city you can’t deny we are good with a spray can.  So I thought, I’ll make a stencil.  Spray it on and then I’ll be fine.  Job’s a good ‘un.  So I bought a can of spray paint, made a question mark stencil and got on my graffiti way.  “This will look awesome” I chuckled to myself as I shook the can, the little ball pinging around inside.  “I don’t need to rent an outfit.  Mine will look better” my self-confidence rising as I put masking tape to the clothing.  “No way this could fail” I mutter as a tear of happiness rolled down my cheek. 

Now, you know when you were younger and on TV either Tony Hart, Neil Buchannan, Blue Peter or even if you are younger Mister Maker would do an art project?  Remember how effortless it would look?  You just put some jangly folk based guitar music on and the picture takes care of itself, right? Damn you TV, you lied!  I will forgive you, but you lied!  What came out was, to be fair, if you squinted something that could look passable.  It was green, it had question marks on.  I had I mask.  But I’m being kind.  Sort of when a child draws a picture, you know what you are meant to see,  but you guess it’s there rather than knowing it’s there.  And in the same sympathetic voice you use towards a child you say “is it…”  that’s how my family spoke to me.  I sucked up my pride and thought stuff it I’ll get drunk and I won’t care.  And it’s true, I did.

But there’s more that happened before that.

So, we are dressed as Batman and robin, The joker and The (cough) Riddler.  A family member had kindly offered to give us a lift into Newcastle high street.  I had, at that time a phone that would allow you to play music over the radio.  Marvellous invention.  I had downloaded the theme tune to the 60’s show and we were all set.  As we passed the top, the music came on.  We slow rolled down the high street with the batman music playing.  Jumped out the car. Punched our hands in our fists and made our way into the Sea Palace Restaurant.  “We are the cool kids!” confidently we walked up to the receptionist, and said “table for Bruce Wayne please”.  Expecting everyone to laugh at our wit.  Sadly, no one in that restaurant was playing ball.  Our table was right at the back and we had to walk past everyone.  All of whom were wide-mouthed just staring.  You know on Eastenders or Corrie,  where someone walks in and then the  whole place goes silent.  Yeah, like that.  As we made our way to our table we heard comments such as “look at these egit’s!”  and “what the feck are these doing here”.  I have to be honest, I found it funnier that they were like that.  As the meal went on we had a few drinks, ordered our food and prepared to overdose on MSG. Lovely stuff.

Beers

After finishing our meal it was time to make our way to Quinn’s.  This place when it is busy is an amazing place to go.  3 floors, good vibe and no long bar waits.  I really enjoy it.  This was Halloween and the place was rocking.  We all made our way, first drinks on and all started to loosen up.  We got separated and harry and I thought the best thing to do is sample the local beers.  Not a lot of choice but there is something about a pint of harps that is so much more satisfying than it should be.  After necking a couple more I made the mistake of making eye contact with Simon Cowell and his friend.  They strode over to me in a way that would have made a silverback gorilla proud.  “who the fuck are you meant to be?!” he said.  “oh bollocks” I thought,  here we go.  After explaining the guy suddenly warmed to me.  Not in a friendly way but in a passive aggressive way.  I really wasn’t completely comfortable.  He demanded a riddle from me.  Half in fear I said “what’s black and white and red all over?”  I couldn’t help it.  He replied self-satisfied “a newspaper” satisfied with himself for guessing the oldest joke in the world.  I replied “a zebra with a nose bleed.”  There was silence.  Then a weird noise, I’m not sure if it was a laugh but I took it as being one.  After an awkward moment I wished him well.  Making sure if I saw him again I would avoid eye contact.

We made our way back to the bar, deciding to do a lap of the place to gain as much space as we could between us and Simon Cowell.  Having made a quick stop at the bar we were relaxed, drunk and thankful that we had found a quiet place free from intimidating locals. We were wrong.  He was back.  He strode up to me and shouted “riddle me this, riddle me that.  Who’s afraid of the big bad bat”.  Oh god.  He’s quoting one of the worst films in history at me.    I laughed.  I shouldn’t have.  That was fuel for encouragement.  He then went onto say other riddles.  With a mixture of satisfaction because I couldn’t answer them and disdain because I couldn’t answer them.  I was stuck in a fancy-dress version of the X-Factor were I am auditioning in-front of a rowdy Simon Cowell.  I have a new found empathy for anyone who goes on his show.

We managed to make get ourselves back as a group and decided to get some grub.  A few years ago there was a place called “top o’ the town”.  It sold burgers, chips, take away food that sort of thing. [Editor: Don't forget the oversized onion rings!! I still can't get rid of the taste!!] Didn’t matter what you ordered, it all tasted the same, reused oil. Nom, nom.  Whilst in the queue a little disturbance broke out amongst the locals and it all kicked off.  There was salt flying, vinegar flying and people were getting covered in tomato sauce.  It was Halloween, it looked like a cast reunion of the walking dead!

Amongst the condiment carnage a voice shouted “Run”.  We did.  We made our way down the main street before heading on to one of the quiet side streets.

As we ran we wondered why stragglers were laughing at us.  We had just escaped from a tomato ketchup carnage with our lives, this was no moment for laughter.  It was a time to count yourself lucky to be alive.  Then we realised.  As often is the case when you are dressed up, you can sometimes forget what you look like.  To anyone who had been sat there that night they would have been treated to the sight of Batman and Robin running down a street with The Riddler and The Joker chasing after them.  [Editor: I seem to remember a bottle come flying over our heads!]

When we woke up in the morning we had all had a laugh and decided to come again the following year.  It really was a great night.  So for a long year we waited, told everyone about it and I even got my long suffering girlfriend to come.  We decided not to go as a theme this year so we came as our own outfits [Editor: Although we did think about going as KISS the rock band with the tongues].  Harry came as teen-wolf, I went as Beetlejuice and my girlfriend as a witch.  Excitedly we made our way down to Quinn’s still dining out on what had happened the year before.

We walked through the door, expecting it to be packed.  It wasn’t, it was dead.  There were three people by the bar they muttered “Holy Moses”, “look at these egits!”  and “what the feck are these doing here”.  We sheepishly ordered our drinks and settled down and had a great night drinking and chatting the hours away.  Sometimes being in the company of good people and good beer is all we need!

[Editor: We did go to a pub the night after called Savages in Castlewellen. We turned up in our normal clothes but everyone else was in fancy dress. I guess we didn't get the memo…..or expect people to partying on a Sunday night!]