Tuesday 11 March 2014

Bells, Bores and Bumps on Sunday


For anyone who does not go back to an old post after they have left a (gratefully received) comment, this is a footnote to the post before last about bumps in the night.

After parking the car (conveniently right outside the pub) having got back from Bristol on Sunday, I thought I would poke my head around the door to see if I wanted a little pint.

Sunday afternoons at The Bell have been marred of late by an experiment which allows a load of folkie ego-maniacs to get up on stage and bore the locals rigid by fiddling away - mercifully un-amplified - on various instruments which would have been recognised by any of the characters in a Thomas Hardy novel, as well as more modern guitars and voices which need no amplification. As far as I am concerned, they should be sent back to their bedrooms or - preferably - an isolated farmhouse, so that anyone who really wants to listen to them should have to make a troublesome journey into the middle of nowhere to show their commitment.

Prior to this and about one month ago, when the lunchtime band finished around 3.00 pm, someone would play vinyl records on a twin deck, whilst all the drunks who only come in on Sundays carried out the arduous task of boring the weekday regulars who had popped in for a quick pint after the band had packed up and gone.

So what I am saying is that - for someone like me - The Bell has hardly ever been a good place to visit on Sunday afternoons, but it seems to be popular with a load of Outlanders, so fair enough. The Outlanders spend money there, but the makeshift bands - who often number about 15 - are all either tee-totals, or they nurse a single pint of beer from 3 until 6.30.

Anyway, I was standing by the bar waiting to be served at the same time as trying to decide if I did actually want to be, when I noticed a movement in the corner of my left eye.

A bar-stool moved silently away from me to a distance of about 10 inches, without anyone touching it.

I looked at the nearest person to it as it was moving, and he had his back to it with his feet nowhere near it. Nobody else noticed.

The position of the bar-stool was directly the other side of the part of the bar where the glasses flew off the shelf the previous Sunday. The area where these little events are taking place (right where the furthest bar-stool is in the photo) seems to be quite localised.

Interesting, eh?

21 comments:

  1. Hello Tom:

    The plot thickens!!

    That aside, we love this description of Sunday at The Bell with the 'Outlanders'!!

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    1. Indeed. 'Outlanders' is such a useful and concisely descriptive term that I have decided to reclaim it from those naughty nazis. It also brings the old-fashioned description, 'outlandish' back into modern context.

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  2. Replies
    1. I can't get into your latest right now, so I will have another try later. By 'wicked' I hope you don't mean mildly evil...

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  3. It is weird, isn't it Tom, that something often happens right after one has talked about things like this.
    I think that it was some 18th century old gent letting you know how pleased he is that you have all saved The Bell !!!! I do believe that there is something ….. I don't know what it is but, it's something !! XXXX

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    1. Yes, it can get out of hand - which is what I am hoping for. I want certain bar-maid's heads to swivel through 350 degrees.

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  4. Pubs should be places of calm and conversation. Live (loud) music, however good, should be BANNED.

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    1. Don't worry, you probably can't hear it from France anyway.

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  5. Far too little information to draw conclusions about these spirits. You may have to put in more Sunday afternoons observing.

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    1. Very true. I need to spend much more time in the pub.

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  6. There is only one possible explanation - the place is sinking!

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    1. The toilets are stinking, but the place is very much afloat.

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  7. .......shaking barstools .....ll
    A wet floor?

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    1. Not fracking yet, and - as far as I know - there is no basement, let alone catacombs. Plain old weirdness as far as I can tell.

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  9. As far as I am concerned Tom, for 'interesting' read 'creepy' -

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    1. I feel the same way about your exercise classes, Weave.

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  10. You had actually been in the bar for three hours when you saw the stool move but you have forgotten this point and you were intoxicated and hallucinating and too tired to answer the comments on your blog that night.

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    1. Oh, so you have turned into a clairvoyant now, have you? Just when I thought my spiritual life was full...

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  11. If one assumes that the place is haunted (which I doubt very much, except by thirsty guests), maybe the ghost was trying to get his barstool out of the direct line tha apparently horrible amatuer music would come. Ghosts are so very sentient beings!

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