Pool side: mid-evening at The Shed, Lincoln |
I COME IN through the back door into The Shed I never like coming in through the front when I’m working, I’m not sure why. It’s ten-to-eight in the evening, and still quiet: maybe the end of the semester is starting to kick in, people are fretting more about deadlines and work. I’m here to read the quiz, and it’s a hundred pounds first prize tonight; I thought things would be a bit busier.
I stroll round to the front of the bar and look to see who I’m working with. In the kitchen, Chris, a second-year media production student, is wrapping cutlery with the zeal that only new members of staff can manage. Chris is a likeable character: although he acts laddish and has had the nerve to get tattoos done, he’s still as vulnerable as the next man. He worries about his studies and lack of money, and how he is going to balance studying and working in his final year.
I run the quiz questions by him; he fails to get any of the sport questions right, but romps home on the films and music rounds. I wander out onto the bar, where Innish is staring into the printer mechanism of one of our archaic tills a piece of paper is jammed in and he’s half-heartedly trying to tease it out with a knife. “John, you got a screwdriver?” asks Innish in a low mumbling tone, head immersed in the till.
Innish isn’t overly bothered about the till, it’s just another annoyance for him. He is only our occasional supervisor: he’ll work a couple of shifts for some pocket money, even though he has a well-paid job. Everyone mistakes Innish for being miserable I think subdued would be a more accurate description. When he needs you to do a job he doesn’t ask, he whines: “Johnnn& could you possibly mop the kitchen floor, please?” But, unlike some supervisors, Innish treats all the staff with respect, and things run smoothly when he’s in charge.
It’s going to be a quiet night. I turn to Glyn, who for once is actually on the bar, and ask him to go out and sell quiz sheets. He jumps to the task: Glyn likes to get off the bar as much as possible. He’s always either pottering about in the kitchen or out picking up glasses. Glyn intends to join the police force when he graduates in criminology; maybe he just has a thing for handcuffs. Glyn is a ladies’ man: a hockey player and heavy drinker with a winning smile. So it’s rather strange to talk to him at the end of a shift and hear his troubles over this one girl who is studying in France, and how he’s torn up that he’s such a great distance from her.
I announce on the PA that the quiz will be starting soon, but there is no hurrying by any customers to get a quiz sheet. Glyn heads off to the kitchen to help Innish cook the chips for the teams at half time. That leaves David and Sarah holding the bar.
David, another new member of staff, is a quiet character. Like Chris and, you might think, half the students at Lincoln he’s studying media production, and just as pressured for time and money. Sarah started back before Christmas. She’s is a sweet girl, studying journalism and PR; she’s a first-year and full of confidence another tattooed bar person. She is yet to become as bitter as the rest of us, and only seems to worry that everything has gone really fast this year. She has no worries about work and happily goes along with her business. It would be nice to be like that again.
I read through the quiz; a lot of the customers are drawing blank looks on some of the questions everyone knows what Marty McFly calls himself in Back To The Future: Part Three, don’t they? It’s Clint Eastwood, by the way. I intend to confound them all with my music round. The good thing about writing the quiz is that you can tease people. Including questions that relate back to childhood are infuriating. You mention Postman Pat, Thundercats or The Magic Roundabout and a cry of ‘Ooohhhhhhh! I remember!’ will ring out across the bar. Oh, but do you? Do you know in which village Postman Pat delivered the mail?
At half time, leading the quiz are ‘I’m the Quiz Master and I’ve had sex with Lisa Riley’; this same team was called ‘My name is John and I’m wearing my mum’s underwear’ the previous week maybe all those questions on children’s television are not appreciated.
“Which song kept Charley by The Prodigy off the number one spot back in 1992?” Some bemused faces. I carry on. “How many times can you fit the Earth into a space the size of the Sun?” The ‘Woosville Celebrity Three’ have given a bodacious suggestion of fifty million times, ‘Last Night a Cockney Stole My Coat’ were closer with a shrewd guess of two hundred thousand. The actual number is one million two hundred and thirty five thousand. ‘Last Night a Cockney&’ are the winners.
The bell rung we kick out the last stragglers and set about the cleaning. I’m only employed to do the quiz, but I feel compelled to stay behind and help with the cleaning I know that the others would. The bar floor mopped, the tables cleaned and ready for tomorrow’s abuse we slump down on the sofas. We’re all in university first thing tomorrow. Roll on summer holidays.
John Pakey is a second-year journalism student at Lincoln University
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