We had to enter both front and back doors
in groups of six, minutes apart.
There were just too many of us handsome bastards
not to trigger red lights and time was running out.
There’d been a slight altercation
in the first boozer,
a scuffle at the second, tasty enough
to warrant a ‘3rd Man In’
The busies had doubled their presence,
mostly with paddy wagons and dog units
on the fish & chip and candyfloss main drag outside.
The phones were ringing behind every bar
with cautions and warnings.
It ‘Went Off’ in the backroom,
a two-seater table exploded
through the stained-glass window
and bounced clunkily out in the beer garden,
the cast-iron bottom cracking a paving slab.
And that was that… instant Pubwatch Bans
we’d managed three bars out of the twenty,
lost four to arrests, one to A&E
and two to prostitutes (Temporarily!)
Spent the rest of the evening
around an adorable campfire on the beachfront
made of plastic litter bins
and public park benches.
Amusing ourselves like schoolkids
by throwing empty off-licence cans
and pissing from the tourist-friendly, picturesque peer.
In Between Hangovers 