Saturday Night

‘Shall we step outside?’

If I tell you I heard those words in a south London pub at around 11pm on a Saturday, what would you think?

Here’s more info.

It’s the (official) last weekend of the summer. We have reached the stage of the day when parts of the British psyche kicks off its heels and decides if the rest of the night should feature slippers or jackboots.

It is best if you look at the question as a type of cognitive behavioural test in which your answer supplies possibly unwanted insight into your way of viewing the world.

(Readers who are particularly enamoured of the idea should probably stop reading here and simply skip to the comments section to post their thoughts. I’m about to offer different options which may preclude the more imaginative ‘through the looking-glass’ scenarios that you may like to explore. Please do. I promise a very thorough analysis).

It could be:

a) A woman so stifled by the oppressive male atmosphere that she is inclined to sample the night air of Clapham for it may be a better arena for her uproarious anecdotes about her months as a cleaner of crime sites.

b) A friend so irritated by the clean air that he yearns to step outside and inhale a well-deserved bifter.

c) A man so annoyed by his lack of opportunities that he demands the chance to exchange bruises and provide me with a firsthand experience of his pain.

You’re probably thinking it is b but, if I could be a bit more specific about the part of Clapham, you may be inclined a stab at c.

In a way, it was all three.

When we stepped outside I had a rare opportunity to fill his ears as he filled his lungs, and so I started on semi-drunken splurge about something that seemed important (at the time).

A good looking woman in her late twenties stepped out and said ‘Wow, I hear an accent, where are you from?’

‘Liverpool, originally’, I said.

‘By way of Eton’, chirped my friend.

‘Oh wow, I’m from Preston and I love Northern accents’, she responded, although this was a little odd since her ‘ts’ were conspicuous by their absence.

‘Did you really go to Eton?’

‘Yes, but they were no match for my untamed wit.’

I should have said that.

Instead, I admitted my friend was joking and she repeated her fondness of the Northern voice.

‘Well, I’m from Liverpool.....’

‘AND I’M WIGAN’, boomed a newcomer to the Clapham based ‘Friends of the North’ club.

Normally, this kind of scenario would be a simple example of male competition for the attention of an attractive woman. However this time, it was a territorial boast.

He was probably in late twenties but he was running to fat and staggering to watch. He placed his meaty arm around the woman’s shoulders and sang ‘Free Neil’.

I was about to ask what Neil was inside for when I realised I had the words wrong. He had assumed (correctly) that I support Everton and it was a reference to the day’s home drubbing by Portsmouth. Annoyingly, Wigan had hammered Stoke 5-0. Everyone look embarrassed, apart from Wigan, who clearly knew he had hit comedy pay dirt.

As my friend and I watched the woman squirm, I could only hope that her weakness for the northern accent had not caused her to be trapped on the relationship equivalent of the M6 slow lane, unable to perform a U-turn.

We needed a large, flashing overhead sign that stated,

‘Warning: For Next 50 Years
Expect Depression’

but it was hard to escape from the conclusion that she might end up visiting Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls Factory.