This one isn’t actually a prompt. Well, it is - but its one I gave myself. I’ve been following British politics at the moment and it’s all gone a bit haywire. So I thought I’d explain it, using the title as a prompt.
So, there’s a pub. It’s called the Red Lion, because every pub is called the Red Lion. We have a bunch of people drinking the Red Lion, and tensions are a bit high. That’s because barman, called David, has told everyone that they’ll have a vote on whether to shift the opening hours forward or keep them the same. Immediately two men, named Boris and Nigel, stand up and start telling everyone they should change them. When anyone asks them why, Boris says ‘because we can still sell everyone cake’ and Nigel says ‘because then the Polish people can’t drink here, and because I hate all the other pubs.’
On the other side, the barman is making vague threats about what will happen if the hours are changed, and the shift manager Jeremy (who doesn’t like the barman but runs the pub very well) is warning that changing the hours will have an impact, although maybe the hours aren’t perfect as they are either. Over in one corner, Jean-Claude (the guy who writes the hours for all the pubs in the area) is looking worried because this will make life harder for all the other pubs.
After a lot of shouting, there’s a vote on whether the hours will change. Nigel is promising that if they change he’ll buy everyone a round, Boris says that if they change he’ll apply to be barman when David’s finished, and in the north corner of the bar Nicola, who runs the upstairs bar, is telling David that she doesn’t want to be part of this, can she please just keep her hours.
So the vote happens. David is standing behind the bar, all smug and smirking, and everyone else is counting the votes. Despite what most people in the bar had been shouting, the vote is in favour of changing the hours.
Immediately all hell breaks loose. David resigns after saying he would never do that, Jeremy shakes his head sadly, Jean-Claude sighs and rings his wife to tell her that he won’t be home tonight, and Boris goes to ask reception for an application form for position of barman. Nigel instantly tells people that he never promised to buy everyone a round, and Nicola has gotten out her contract to see if there’s anything she can do to protect her bar.
Boris comes back in, and instead of filling out the application form himself, his mate Michael (who has been pinching drinks off the schoolteacher’s table all evening) fills it out instead. Some of the other bar staff tell Jeremy that because he didn’t prevent the vote from going their way, he should stand down and let them be shift manager, and Nicola’s upstairs bar decide that because they all voted to keep the hours the same, they won’t be changing them.
So David has gone, leaving the bar unattended and the hours unchanged. Michael has applied to be next barman, along with a few other people (including one guy who thinks that the nice people who come in on Gaybar Wednesday are mentally ill, and another woman who wants to ban all alcohol because it makes her feel funny). Jeremy keeps telling his staff that he was promoted to that position and he intends to stay there. Nigel, after telling everyone that his work here is done, retires to the White Crown down the road where his wife is from. Nicola comes back downstairs with her contract, and says that it states that they can’t change the hours because it’s against the contract, but nobody’s listening to her so she might just take her bar and go to another pub. Boris is in a corner, muttering about application forms, bicycles and silly words like ‘Breggsit’, and a small group of patrons are beating up another, larger, peaceful group of patrons because the first group got here first. And are white.
Nobody really wants to be barman, because then they’ll have to either change the hours (which will make everyone, even some of the people who voted to change them, really mad) or they’ll not change the hours (which will make everyone, especially the group beating up the other group, really mad) or they’ll just sort of carry on promising to do so (which will make Jean-Claude, who is missing Celebrity Bake-Off, really mad). Everyone’s trying to swap their pub tokens for actual money, because the pub tokens are becoming worth less and less by the second, David is somewhere in the back sipping on a glass of ’36 Sauvignon Blanc, the upstairs lot are now really annoyed that they voted to stay here a couple years ago, Michael is loudly proclaiming that he’s sick of experts telling him things that he doesn’t want to hear, and Jeremy is quietly getting on with his job while his staff threaten to tell on him for, well, I mean, he hasn’t actually done anything, but they’ll bloody well make something up!
Hope that cleared everything up for you.
So, there’s a pub. It’s called the Red Lion, because every pub is called the Red Lion. We have a bunch of people drinking the Red Lion, and tensions are a bit high. That’s because barman, called David, has told everyone that they’ll have a vote on whether to shift the opening hours forward or keep them the same. Immediately two men, named Boris and Nigel, stand up and start telling everyone they should change them. When anyone asks them why, Boris says ‘because we can still sell everyone cake’ and Nigel says ‘because then the Polish people can’t drink here, and because I hate all the other pubs.’
On the other side, the barman is making vague threats about what will happen if the hours are changed, and the shift manager Jeremy (who doesn’t like the barman but runs the pub very well) is warning that changing the hours will have an impact, although maybe the hours aren’t perfect as they are either. Over in one corner, Jean-Claude (the guy who writes the hours for all the pubs in the area) is looking worried because this will make life harder for all the other pubs.
After a lot of shouting, there’s a vote on whether the hours will change. Nigel is promising that if they change he’ll buy everyone a round, Boris says that if they change he’ll apply to be barman when David’s finished, and in the north corner of the bar Nicola, who runs the upstairs bar, is telling David that she doesn’t want to be part of this, can she please just keep her hours.
So the vote happens. David is standing behind the bar, all smug and smirking, and everyone else is counting the votes. Despite what most people in the bar had been shouting, the vote is in favour of changing the hours.
Immediately all hell breaks loose. David resigns after saying he would never do that, Jeremy shakes his head sadly, Jean-Claude sighs and rings his wife to tell her that he won’t be home tonight, and Boris goes to ask reception for an application form for position of barman. Nigel instantly tells people that he never promised to buy everyone a round, and Nicola has gotten out her contract to see if there’s anything she can do to protect her bar.
Boris comes back in, and instead of filling out the application form himself, his mate Michael (who has been pinching drinks off the schoolteacher’s table all evening) fills it out instead. Some of the other bar staff tell Jeremy that because he didn’t prevent the vote from going their way, he should stand down and let them be shift manager, and Nicola’s upstairs bar decide that because they all voted to keep the hours the same, they won’t be changing them.
So David has gone, leaving the bar unattended and the hours unchanged. Michael has applied to be next barman, along with a few other people (including one guy who thinks that the nice people who come in on Gaybar Wednesday are mentally ill, and another woman who wants to ban all alcohol because it makes her feel funny). Jeremy keeps telling his staff that he was promoted to that position and he intends to stay there. Nigel, after telling everyone that his work here is done, retires to the White Crown down the road where his wife is from. Nicola comes back downstairs with her contract, and says that it states that they can’t change the hours because it’s against the contract, but nobody’s listening to her so she might just take her bar and go to another pub. Boris is in a corner, muttering about application forms, bicycles and silly words like ‘Breggsit’, and a small group of patrons are beating up another, larger, peaceful group of patrons because the first group got here first. And are white.
Nobody really wants to be barman, because then they’ll have to either change the hours (which will make everyone, even some of the people who voted to change them, really mad) or they’ll not change the hours (which will make everyone, especially the group beating up the other group, really mad) or they’ll just sort of carry on promising to do so (which will make Jean-Claude, who is missing Celebrity Bake-Off, really mad). Everyone’s trying to swap their pub tokens for actual money, because the pub tokens are becoming worth less and less by the second, David is somewhere in the back sipping on a glass of ’36 Sauvignon Blanc, the upstairs lot are now really annoyed that they voted to stay here a couple years ago, Michael is loudly proclaiming that he’s sick of experts telling him things that he doesn’t want to hear, and Jeremy is quietly getting on with his job while his staff threaten to tell on him for, well, I mean, he hasn’t actually done anything, but they’ll bloody well make something up!
Hope that cleared everything up for you.