Old school

Here is a pre-blog rant that I did from march 2003. I don't think I liked the pub.

Don't spend your Oxford Scholars here

It's after work on a Friday night. You've had a tough week and you are relaxing with a few friends enjoying an cleansing ale. Someone suggest, since the World Cup of Cricket is on, to head off to a pub to watch a game. Splendid idea! So off we go.

We head down to the Oxford Scholar, a large pub opposite RMIT, which is equipped with two huge screens located in different rooms. A huge billboard out the front declared
"LIVE - AUSTRALIA v SRI LANKA 7.00PM".
It's about 10 past so we rush in expecting to see the cricket. What we get on all screens and TV's scattered throughout the pub is that strange sport where you smell your fellow team mates arse and repeatedly try to hump the ground. That's right, rugby. Now I know that bar staff don't have to be geniuses, but even an American can tell the difference. We approached the bar staff to ask if one of the giant screens could be switched to the cricket. The perplexed look of the bar staff seemed to suggest that we had just asked them to unify quantum mechanics with general relativity. I swear I could hear rusty cogs turning in their brains because I'm sure their brains haven't been used since the 17th century. After the smoke emanating from their ears had died down, they responded with, "Ahhh.. no. That table over there is watching the rugby". Anything wrong with this picture? Think about it. Advertising out the front, two screens in different rooms and enough space in the pub so that sound would take hours to get from one side to the other. This was calmly explained to them. The answer, "Ahhh.. no." The bar staff then had this brilliant idea, they would turn it to the cricket after the rugby finished. A rugby match goes for 80 minutes, 45 minutes of the match had expired. Do the math. I told them that this would be over half an hour away. The response. "No it won't". Either this guy has discovered time travel or he decided to leave his brain at home because it needed the rest. At this point, jumping the bar and performing various wrestling maneuvers seemed appropriate.

We would have left but we had to wait for someone who was meeting us there. In the meantime the manager turned up and switched the TV to the cricket. I don't believe in miracles, but this almost convinced me. Maybe, just maybe order had been restored. How foolish of me to think that.

As we sat down at a table to finally watch the cricket, half an hour late, two of our party were asked to move their chairs because they constituted a fire hazard. Looking around this vast establishment, one could not fail to notice the lack of patronage. If a fire happened to break out, the eight of us plus the dozen or so other clients would have had no problems of escaping. Do you know how far they had to move. About 20 cm!!!! 20 %$#@ing centimetres. There was already plenty of space for even Fat Bastard to pass through. That extra 20 cm would not have made a cracker of a difference. There were also three other exits which very wider and already open, closer and more convinient to escape via. Do you think people rushing from a fire would bypass the open doors saying "No... we must exit via the closed door!" What next?

When the staff came round to pick up our glasses, we asked them not to since we were buying jugs and needed them. The bar staff must have had the memory of a goldfish because by the time they had got to the end of the table, they started picking up glasses. How do these people get jobs???

Here's another good one. As we are sitting at the table, 'My brain can't cope with breathing and pumping blood at the same time' comes by and moves the table about 40 cm. The reason for this?? "A pub crawl of about 80 are coming through". As already mentioned, there is two and a dog in the hotel, with plenty of room behind us to comfortably house all twelve tribes of Israel and descendants. Not to mention that the entrances they would most likely use are nowhere near us. Why they had to move a table (ours was the only one moved) which would have had no effect on capacity is a mystery that could should only feature in that really bad 70's show "In search Of..." hosted by Dr Spock. We waited expectingly for this huge group of pub crawlers. We waited. And we waited. 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes and still nothing. One hour later they turned up and not one of them came within cooee of our table. They all stayed in they vast space behind us. Looks like moving the table had the desired effect.

If you want service by bar staff who redefine the medical definition of bloody useless, then this is the pub for you. Else, going home and banging your head against a wall would cause you less pain.