See you, youze, you know fuck all—you know less than that chair over there. You see? You see that chair over there, that’s what you know. Okay, Little John, give it a break will you, leave the poor guy alone. I? I-ye, I’m not the foockin one saying everyone should move, am I? Did you hear me say that everyone should move? It’s your man here, who come in here and was standing there looking like Orson Welles in… no, what’s that film, not foockin Orson Welles, your man up the river in the barge with the crocodile, where your woman, Vivienne Leigh, no not fuckin Vivienne Leigh—Joe, who was it starred in that film with the man up the river in the barge? Ingrid Bergman. That’s the one, Ingmar Bergman, no not that film, that’s not the one I’m thinking of, god… Okay, I’m fuckin pissed but I know what I’m saying, you know what I say? Don’t get me wrong, my friend, it’s not a criticism of you, come on, have a drink, I’ll buy you a drink, tell the barmaid, what is it? come on, I’ll get ye one. No, that’s a girl’s drink, you don’t want that piss, have a whisky, come on, I’ll stand you one. Oh fuck, I spent all my money, jesus, you know I’m so pissed, I admit, we had a party last night, you see that bloke at the end of the bar—MURPHY!—I was telling your man here, we had a party last night. You should have been there, four crates of fuckin beer, three bottles of whisky, a bit of the old wacky baccy, his sister… do you know his sister? Rachel, she works at the hospital too. I knew her, she was the first person I met when I came here, I got a job where they were putting up the old Slaggit building and she was the barmaid in the Butt. I’d just come back from Morocco with four pounds of hash and I cut it up in her flat—oooh we had some parties there. You know Rachel? lovely girl, she works for that big fuckin bloke now, what’s his name, your man with the cars—Slovo, that’s the one, big fuckin shit he is, and all. NO—no, straight up, that cunt could see you lying in the gutter and he’d fuckin spit on you, straight up, the guy’s a wanker. You ask Murphy over there—MURPHY!—I was just telling him about Slovo, the man’s a wanker, he wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire in the gutter, wouldn’t want to waste his water. It’s true, I wouldn’t give him the skin off my shit, that man, he’d stab you in the back as soon as look at you. And I’m not foockin jealous of him, all his money, he can keep it, look at me, I’ll die with nothing but I’ve had good times. You have to enjoy life don’t you—you can’t take it with you, I say, you might as well spend it while you’ve got it. I’ve earned good money, when they were putting up that new terminal at Gatwick, you know, the big one with all the fuckin glass, they brought it in from Italy, you know, all that glass came from Italy, and we were working nights, double time, then during the day we’d be down here on the beach, you’d get pissed out your brains, smoke some hash, sleep on the beach all day and then at night Tony-G would drive us all back, first thing, in the hut, everyone brought some food, Tony-G would cook it up, big spread, had a fuckin oven in there, he could cook anything, Tony-G, he could’ve been a cordon blue chef if he’d wanted, then you’d do a few hours work, as soon as the site manager had fucked off to see his woman, all the boys would get their heads down, get a few hours kip, a couple more hours… what was I saying? O Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are callin… I like a hubbly-bubbly—you know, fill a hubbly-bubbly with red wine, fill the bowl with the some black hash, none of that Moroccan shit, good Lebanese or Afghani black, send you to heaven. Can I steal a cigarette off you? Aye, you’re a gentleman and a scholar… You working around here? You’re educated aren’t you, got that look about you, read a lot of books. Murphy over there is a big reader of books, got a fucking library in his house, he has—MURPHY!—I was telling your man here about your library. How many books have you got? Thousands. Thousands. He’s a very deep man, Murphy. You should go and talk to him. He could’ve gone to Oxford or Cambridge, his dad was an… what do you call it, with the spine, the bloke who fixes your bones… ortho-, no I’m pissed, I can’t remember. Little John, we’re going round to the Arden, are you coming? Am I fuck. I’m staying here. They water their beer, down there, it’s like piss, I told that miserable cunt Sonny, the landlord, and he told me I could drink somewhere else—cheeky bastid. Here, luv, get me another pint of the best stuff would you, thanks, darling. How’s your brother? Still in hospital? Her brother, Micky, mucky Micky the Mucker, forgot his key and was trying to climb into his flat and he fell right down into the basement yard. Broke both his ankles, his shoulder, one arm, cracked his head open. They said if he hadn’t been pissed out his brains he would’ve killed himself, poor bastid. You’re not from around here then? Come on, shake my hand, forget about what I said before, that’s just the booze talking. See, I’ll talk to anyone, I don’t care how posh they say they are, how many books they’ve read, how rich or poor, I don’t give a fuck. Everyone’s the same to me—we all come from the same place and we all go to the same place. I know you’re not from Glasgow, you cunt, I meant your mother’s fuckin fanny, didn’t I—excuse my language—sorry, Rose, ah, ah, I’ll be good. I was just saying to your man here, we’re all the same, aren’t we. You see, you can walk in here off the street, and I’ll talk to you. I’ll talk to anyone. I’ve always been like that, since I was this high. I take people the way I find ‘em and if they don’t like it, fuck the bastids. That’s the Celtic blood in me. I can go anywhere, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and that place in France, Brittany, and within five minutes I’ll be talking to someone, having a drink. That’s the difference between the Celts and the English. The English are too used to ruling the world and having it their own way, they’re too hoity-toity, shafting everyone. I don’t mean you, I mean the race in general. Where are you from then? Well, it’s just the same, you might as well be English—you speak English, don’t you. You speak Scots? Kinnle a caunle at baith ends an it’ll suin be duin—you know what that means? Fuck you do. What do you mean it’s not Celtic? MURHPY! Your man here says that Scots is not Celtic… It’s wah? It’s foockin Anglo-Saxon, no way, the Scottish came from Ireland, that’s why the music is the same, and the red hair and the white skin. I know my hair is black but my sister has got red hair and her skin is as white as that fridge there and you see her little bairns, both red-heads, but she married an Englishman, Tommy Mannick, you know him? Strong bastid, could pick you up with one hand, like that… No, no, no, I saw him do it with my own eyes, one night in here, someone bet him, Hey, Tommy, I bet you can’t pick Mikey up with one hand, and he did it right there, put his hand under the stool and lifted him up like you’d do a tray of drinks. Straight up, no joking. Are you taking the piss? Interbreeding? DNA? I’ll give you DNA, my father was Scottish, and my grandfather was Scottish, all the way back. Before the Saxons came, the whole of Britain was Celtic. They came in and pushed the Celts out to the edges. Even your Cornwall people, what do you call them, they’re Celts, same blood. See, if you took blood from an Irishman, a Scotsman, and a Welshman, it’s all the same, but it’s different from an Englishman. I blame you people, if it wasn’t for the English, there’d still be one people, the same music, the same language, and you see their ironwork, the way they used to paint everything, was beautiful. Poetry, stories, music, the Celts were your people for stories. All the best English writers are Celts—Robbie Burns, Walter Scot, Bernard Shaw, even your man Oscar Wilde was Irish—that’s why they locked him up. They’d never have done that if he’d been English. Yeats. Who else? James Joyce, the most famous Irish writer. You go anywhere in Europe, you’ll find a pub called the ‘James Joyce’. Who else? That bloke who wrote Trainspotting, what’s his name? You’ve got it—Welsh, you see. You what? No way. MURPHY! Aren’t the Celts one people? Your man here says they were about thirty-four tribes spread out all over Europe and interbred. Doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. No-oo, come on, let’s change the subject. You see this, drink it up, this is what makes all men the same. So what do you do? You’re a writer? Oh, fuck me, why didn’t you say before? Put it there. Are you famous? Fuck me! MURPHY! Your man here is a writer. He wrote that book you told me about, the one where the man swaps places with the dog and runs away to Spain. What was it called? No, don’t tell me—I never read it but… That’s it. I was joking before, about the English, but you’re not English anyway, so you make this pub your local, you’ll find me in here. If I’m not here, ask Rose, the barmaid, for Little John—everyone knows where I am. |