The Belvedere Arms

This week has been pretty hectic. I worked on christmas day (unsurprisingly) but close was at 6.30 which was nice. After work we went to the Belvedere Arms in Sunningdale. The bel is a sister pub to the red lion, owned by the same parent company. As such, the 2 places r alsmot exactly the same to each other. we left the bel at about 10pm, and us red lions went back to the staff house. We were given 2 bottles of wine and some chokkies by our manager. I drank some wine and got slaughtered. I woke up at 3pm the next day and told myself i would never drink again. I have the biggest scratch on my back, which i was told i got from falling onto the corner of a tv.

The only other thing worthy of note is when i was actually working at the bel. My frist shift i worked was on christmas eve, on a night that was medium for the bel. When we first got there the place just smelled of money. Apon entering the place i knew this was the place that the rich and beautiful go to actually have a night out.

I just did the usually barkeeper thing form most of the night. im glad the place stocks the same drinks and the till is the same as the red lion, otherwise i woulda been really thrown in the deep end.

The night was actually quite fun. The chicks were hot and not too snobby. they tipped very well indeed and for most of the night i had some girls winking at me, i even had a few guys wink at me which was quite flatering, but dont tell steph that.

ive done a couple more shifts there, only becuase they r short staffed.

steph and i r due to leave the red lion first wek of january. after that we r gonna lie low untill dan gets here. then after that we have no plans. how exciting.

thats all for now.

cheers
Jash

Moving house

its been a pretty dull week at the red lion. well...nothing mind blowing, but still some interesting stuff happened.

A couple of days ago it was cold enough that the weather 'glittered' and 'sparkled' towards the end of my shift it started snowing, but the snow was so small and light it was like some one was just dropping glitter from the sky. the effect was quite lovely- for the 2 seconds i could stay outside with out a jacket, then i had to go inside and finish closing down.

on my days off i dont do much really, this week i worked close to 60 hrs, and almost every day i have split shifts. I mostly do 12-5 then 7-close. close is usually at about midnight on a good night or on a sunday. Last week on my one day off, steph and i tried to get into london to go to our first contact meeting. the tubes were fucked that day so we were 15 mins late, and we wernt allowed in. so now steph and i have to wait until some time next year to get our accounts up and running. that put me in a shitty mood for the redt of the day. steph and i then eventually went to leicster square to see a movie. We say stardust which i quite enjoyed. before and after the movie we went on some rides in the square. It was on that day i went on my forst circular swing ride. it was good, but the wind chill was at a spanner rating of about 9.5.

I havent done much other touristy things aside from that. Steph and i finish working early next year. from then we will wait for daniel to come to the country and then after that, just wing it. We will prolly get some random jobs along the way (hopefully cash in hand)

There sre some pretty interesting people that come to the pub. We have a regular who always sits outside and drinks suffolk organic cyder and is just a nice guy. We have Al who always comes in with some friends, starts a tab, and drinks staropramen. His friends never buy their own drink, Al does. Some times his tabs run into the hundreds of pounds. Ive heard is is an engineer of some kind, so that would explain it.

we then have pete the perv. I think he rides a bicycle to and from the pub. He comes in about twice a week and always just stands at the bar and drink tomothy taylors 'landlord' hes a nice guy, but whenever the girls come around to clean tables or whatever, he always looks a bit too hard at them - and often not at their faces.

then there is a guy who comes in, and uif the fires arnt going, he will try and get them going. good on him. he almost always had his wife with him as well. well at least i think its his wife. any way, she almost always has a look of perpetual bordom on her face - even when shes talking. The guy obviously works had in the conversation to win her over in some way and she sure does make him work. the body language screams it out: he is always leaning in, talking passionatly with livid facial expressions and hand language. she is always leaning back, looking pretty chilled out, and not always looking at him. one night he succeeded, and they were both very drunk and ended up making out right next to the front door...with people coming and going. ahh, the mating dance...what fun it is to watch.

We moved staff house this week. its a nice little apartment above a supermarket. it was built cheaply but it does the trick.

thats about it from me. ill write again prolly when ive finished working.

cheers
jash

Working in the Uk

Well so much for getting that visa. Turns out u can change ur status once ur in the UK...oh well. im working at the red lion, although apparently its still legal. Im not sure on the details, but apparently u can work a cirtian amount over a cirtain period of time and its still ok.

working at the pub can be tough, but most of the time its a pretty cruisy job. Im working behind the bar poring beers most of the time. When im not doing that im keeping the 3 real fires going. The beers we have are staropramen, 'old speckled hen' amstel bier, birra moretti, timothy taylors 'landlord' (a hand pumped real ale) guiness, and grolsch blonde. no fosters thank god.

thats another thing that has surprised me: fosters is on tap at so many places its crazy. for a beer that has a horrible reputation in australia, its much loved pver here. although it still tastes just as bad.

I can now do most of the stuff behind the bar, pour a beer, get any spirit+mixer, and offer some advice on beers and the wines we stock. i can even pour 2 beers at once. tho one has to be a slow poring beer like guiness or speckled hen.

another thing thats good to do is watch people. some times its the only thing to do. We often get the men taking out the women to impress them. They will almost always open up a tab and go from there. its easier to get the chick drunk that way. once that is happening, the man will let rip with the witty and interesting conversation. and the night goes from there.

one night we had a couple making out in the doorway. thats not really cochre in our pub and what made it worse was that they were both in their early 40's by the look of them...

at this time of year we have lots of work christmas parties usually at lunch time. One party gor roudy (and childish) 2 guys ended up with plastic penises strapped to their heads. i wonder if they got the message... the last of that party didnt leave untill about 8 that night. one cute looking assistant went home with one of the penis head men...i wonder how her walk of shame was the next morning...

thats about it from me. post comments telling me what u want me to write about.

cheers
jash

Working in the Uk

the Red Lion

today steph and i went to the red line in alough. it took abuot 40 mins to get out there by train, then a 40 min walk from slough station.

Slough is a very quaint litte suburb. When we went there is was miserable, but not rainy. Add that to all the desidious trees and brick walls every where, and you have a barren place to be. The pub its self is very warm and cosy. The building is about 400 years old (its amazing to think that building is older than my country) and still has some original fitting. there is a barrel there that comes with the building, and was used to brew something (?)

when we were there we met Kim, the deputy manager. She was really nice, and the drink we had there were on the house. We spoke mainly about the pub and what we would be doing there. Steph will be waitressing and i will be going straight to the bar. We both got out frist choces of work to do, which we were both happy about.

another thing thats worthy of note was the sunday just past. Myself, angus and nicole went to a place called 'the church'. it is names so because its open every sunday and is next to a church. Church starts at about 11.30, but when we got there 15 mins beforehand, there was a Q about 100 meters long, 3 -4 people deep, and it wrapped around 2 corners. It was the most epic que i have ever seen.

When we got in, the church is a massive theatre place, with no seats on the ground floor. to buy rour drink, you frist buy a voucher off a guy sitting on one end of the bar. you then go to the bar and select what drink you want. you then get your 3 750ml cans of you drink in a plastic bag. 1 drink ticket costs £7.50.

By about 2 in the afternoon i was quite drunk, which was good because at that time there was was 2 strip shows. About an hr after the 2nd strip show we went to maccas and i tried to sober up. A few hours after that i was on my way to heathrow aiport to pick steph up.

I spent the nihgt at the aiport because stephs flight got in before the tube opened. long story short, i dodnt have stephs flight info, so i just aksed the info desk for flights coming in at 6.30 from singapore. I was out by 1 hr for the time and so went to the wrond terminal, and it took me 3 hrs to get steph. In the end all was good.

thats about it. tomorrow i will be sorting out visa stuff. im quietly confident that i might be able to get a visa. then after that i will be moving into the red lion accomodation.

cheers.
jash

In London

Hey Everyone,

i have just landed safely in london. i managed to get to the hostel and all that without a lonely planet guide or anything. im quite proud of that. The trip here was ok, just the usual plane flights. The stopover in Dubai was Something else.

When we go through the usual checks, i walked out into the gate lounge, and its the better part of a kilomiter long. its filled with designer stored selling duty free watches and jewely. It had a pub, several bars, 2 coffee houses and book and dvd stores.

im absolutly buggered, so im gonna sleep it all off.

tomoz i will be sorting out visa stuff, then on the third i will ne picking up steph from the airport.

cheers.