What does this cunt know about my life?.

Hey, toots. Fuck me if this isn't the world's only virtual speakeasy, the bar whose wife don't understand him. You know, speakeasy is a word to savour on the tongue like whisky. Among the best words that sigh from the barman's mouth are 'whisky' with a clench of the guts, 'motherfucker' as yer wife's address book becomes a pornographic novel and 'morning,' with a shy grin and an alias. These kids with their pints of lager make me fucking sick. If you're going to show off, then take yourselves away. This is not a barracks for people who're going to have a go at you, this is a motel for people who've been ruined by your flat stomachs and easy chat. Wow, you sure do get the girls effortlessly, motherfucker. You want applause or just a line to dry their hearts? The Whole Year Inn, if you will. If you won't, don't let this bartender stop you being a cunt. Don't worry, don't get yer tits in a fit, the assassination occured without witnesses. Did you know all nuns are forty-two and all their eyes are blue? Fuck the bar-rail, toots, if there's one thing in your picky, lying world that makes sense, tell your barman about it. According to your wee electronic postcards the less experienced among our punters that the barman might be rambling. All me & Pete's got to say on that score is that this goes out on a Sunday night, baby. That's our day of rest, and we start relaxing early here at Mike's. You're lucky we're not signing this at our television in a version of deaf and dumb that only Inuits can interpret, you fucking cunts. Hey you, motherfucker with the notepaper... Pete we got some cunt thinks the world needs another scribbler. The world needs many things, dude, but it's never been short of fucking writers. Okay, let's do the business. This week we have been mostly drinking booze and smoking cigarettes. I guess Isle of Jura single malt and Lucky Strike cigarettes have stood up for themselves again. Among the villains we ought to mention people who say 'rock up,' when they mean 'arrive at.' Probably does no harm, certainly there are cuntier things to ruin the atmosphere with, but we just thought we'd mention it. We have a few heroes this week, not least Mike's Place interior designer and bonny imbiber Mr Brett Tremble, for the world's fastest recorded piss-up. I don't know how we did it, sir. But it was the right thing to do. Also the legendary Quicksilver Kid for advising us to pull out of the last bout. When Professor 'A finger of whisky, a bottle of rum, stop moving...' Quicksilver thinks you've had enough, you really have had enough. Trust me, other regulars...Ollie Reed would have been lying by the bar rail trying to slide down it and answer the fire bell after a couple of hours with the Edinburgh legend.

Dennis (good name, man) thinks it would be nice not to be drunk every day and is our first visitor to arrive on the Tony's search bus. You look, man. Search them fucking shops and streets and police stations and funeral parlours and sunrises and parks and bars and benches. Tell me when you come across a guy who don't look like his nuts are in a tiger's craw. Then write to me and come over all feminine about yer weekly limit. And consider yourself barred. They don't let smokers do the Olympics, and we don't let health cunts drink at Mike's.
London Honey, you tear ridges in this barman's coughing old heart. I know, I know. Foreign money. Don't listen to this miserable old bugger with his wizened optimism and drowning memory. How many guys gotta fall for you 'fore you admit you're loveable?
Oxford contributor, good question man. Guess it makes no sense. Lose a night's sleep, find a five ayem thirst. Lose the meat timetable, get fat. Catch a table in the most romantic way of life ever devised and watch the good times pair off and walk away. Our advice? Don't dawdle, dog. Don't be English. Make the honey and run. You think anyone even recalls you a year after you've popped your guts on pension gin? Len, as you rightly didn't mention, talked about a favourite game. Know what ours is? Lady comes inna room. Everyone stares at her face. She leaves, comes back in at closing time. You search her face as the room falls over, trying to see what went missing while she was away.
Correspondent from the north, remember you done an affair, cool restaurant meal in reverse, start with something sweet and end with a snifter of strong drink. Recall, if you will, that the limping, battered cocksucker that was your life was tempted with something good and you blew it because you thought you were going to offer her something special. Could have just lent an arm in the night, could have watched her like she was a lady when she was wearing her gin rouge, instead of trying to fuck some college kid. Remember that you trashed a couple of hearts because your revenge on some nebulous Everysugar was easier than letting a new hand on your scars. Remember you got what you deserved and ended up falling for the type of girl you'd started swearing did not exist. She made you laugh. She took no shit. She could leap the gap from broken to beautiful in one grin. She had an account sorted at another drinking establishment, and you wouldn't risk her casual visits to your bar by asking her to stay the night. You thought she reminded you of someone else, but she was reminding you of you. That excited, arrogant wee cunt, swaggering about in a lean eighteen-year-old body, suddenly he was back. Remember the brewery made you relocate to another town and you almost passed on a re-upholstered bar because you'd miss the occassional drink with her. Remember you took the money. You told me & Pete that you very softly fell out of love. There ain't no harm done, guy, we've all done it.

Never forget, regulars: you reckon you might have entered someone's life and scattered cocktail invitations like cocktail invitations. As far as they know, a drunk wandered through their party for a while. The summertime affair you planned to mention as you washed about on the back seat of a cab or folded into unfamiliar arms and a mist of supermarket perfume and nicotine sighs never happened.

No matter. Me & Pete couldn't think any less of you.

Know what? We actually got a treat for you cunts again. Edinburgh's Pot Laureate has been sinking the scotch once again, and so we are able to present you with something decent amongst the embittered filth that spews out of your barman. Here we go...

To the one

To the one who trips me
And to the one who drops me when I fall

To the one who loved me unconditionally
Whom I left without condition

To the one who cut me and watched me fade
To the one who bled me and held the blade

To me, older and none the wiser
Stemming the flow and falling, fading

To she who was gained
And so many who were lost

A drunken murder, a raised glass and
More ashes in the grate

"Just love me or leave me
It is this that the darkness is for"

Fuck it, that's it now. I'm closing up, Ben. Only fools fall in love. Guess that's why all you smart guys are miserable. Serves you right. Fortune may not favour the brave, but it avoids a cunt just like the rest of us. If you've got a question that no-one else can answer, you're unlikely to get the goods in here. What we might be able to do is persuade you to forget your problems for a while. And think of some new ones for you. Keep in touch, you old bastards. Thought I'd caught a glimpse of you but it got away. Utterly promise the archives will be mended and some more pictures will be on the walls next week, when we will be gearing the bar up for Valentine's day. Needless to say, anyone with so much as a fucking postcard in their hands will be barred.