Getting to Know You (at the Pub)
In a previous post I contrasted the English Pub with the American Bar. I said that I actually preferred the idealized “English Pub” because there is a non-zero probability that it will be quiet enough to have a conversation. Sitting down with a pint is, after all, about the talking.
Beer is a social drink. It’s just a bit sad when you have to drink your beer alone. Of course, it’s better to drink beer on your own than not at all. I had a lot of time to think about social drinking while I was hopping from one English pub to the next. Since I was doing the bulk of my pub research in the afternoon, before what we ‘Mericans would call “Happy Hour” I found many of the pubs nearly empty. And if there was one or two other people there, it was easier to part the Red Sea than to get conversation out of them. Once I tried the old “Say, the weather’s great today,” line on a guy sitting at the next table and all I got was a grunt. Or maybe he just didn’t like the rain.
So most of the time, I was at the pub in the afternoon with a book. Fortunately, the book I was reading was “on topic,” a beery narrative by Pete Brown called Three Sheets to the Wind. In the book Brown chronicles his impresses of world beer drinking culture. It didn’t help me much that Brown devoted several sections to the social aspects of drinking, only making me that much more aware of the fact that I was sitting in a pub with a book rather than chit-chatting with my friends about literary theory or magnetic tunnel junctions.
Fortunately, every evening I was in Oxford I was able to experience the true social nature of the pub. It just happened that The Turf was near where I was staying and it was a natural thing to hang out there until time was called (at eleven). The Turf was such a hopping place that you couldn’t avoid talking to people. The lack of abundant seating made it necessary for people to share tables with complete strangers. 
Except that with pints of beer on the table those complete strangers didn’t stay strange for very long. Invariably everyone at the table would get to talking and introduce themselves. I met all sorts of people at The Turf. One evening I learned all about the British Army from two soldiers who were shipping out to Afghanistan the next morning. Another evening I talked to a student from France who was coming to study at Oxford. And another evening I talked to one of the college technical staff who was stopping off at the pub on his way home. Turned out he was a real ale enthusiast and he gave me a few tips on where to find the best pubs in Oxford. I met another guy who was a groupie of the band British Sea Power. He was following the band around England to catch all their performances. He was doing the traveling on the cheap by pitching a tent rather than staying in hotels.
Here in the US when I go to pubs on my own, I actually prefer to sit at the bar. That increases the chances of striking up a conversation with someone. You can learn some really interesting things from the people that sit at bars. One evening a guy told me his life story while we sipped our pints. We were like old friends just because we had pint glasses in front of us. His life story wasn’t remarkable and it was a little sad in places, but it was a real story, an honest story and it helped pass the time. If you are a novelist, you might want to consider doing some research at the neighborhood bar. Ken Wells in his book Travels with Barley said that showing up at the local bar and asking for people’s opinions about current news events was a good way to gauge true public opinion. Forget the “person in the street” it’s the person at the bar who is going to speak their mind and tell you what they really think about something.
