The Barman's Diaries #2

Illustrations by Grace McKenna

Saturday 6pm

For anyone wondering if I’m making full use of this return to studenthood, I’ve seen all 10 films up for best picture at the Oscars next week. I’m starting here because a group of women came in after their book club on Friday evening, discussing the things they’d do to Jacob Elordi (and sure, who could blame them?). I asked one of the women what they’d been reading and what did she say? You wouldn’t know it… Suffice to say her drinks were sub-par after that (don’t tell my boss). Anyway, as I clocked in this afternoon, a mate of a mate was attempting to polish off a 3.5 litre glass boot of Tennents.Instead he spewed on the wall, strong start to the shift I say. Curling on the TV and a hyper crew of middle-aged women who are off to see Wuthering Heights, god bless them (we all know what conversations lie ahead).

9pm

It’s 9pm now and The Epstein Files seem to be the mandatory topic of conversation - some of these people are deep in the files, I’m talking basted babies deep. But enough of that. My coursemates are in tonight and Enzo, our New York native - in a somewhat inebriated state - has begun making rounds of the bar asking for flirting advice, which is not going down well with the high stool Leith natives. 

9:30pm

Shit, I’ve just been reminded by a customer that they ordered chips 20 minutes ago, maybe I’m not so good at this. 

Midnight

Midnight, gradually easing off now, and just managed to pry myself away from a scintillating conversation with a Mancunian, who’s in Edinburgh for the month testing doors - not all heroes wear capes. We’ve been swamped by French tourists tonight, what with the game in Murrayfield tomorrow. Alas my quelques-mots were as well received as those chips that I actually managed to burn in the end. Had a fellow Grian Chatten enthusiast called Gaspar (great name). He lives in a cottage in the middle of French nowhere with a load of musical instruments, having given up on Paris a few years ago. I confess I might have a bit of a man-crush. He and his mate Tom were reuniting after meeting on the Camino a few years back. Very wholesome stuff indeed, all the more so for the emotional lubricant that is Belgian beer.

And to round off a wonderful evening, Phil has brought me in a few beef birria tacos that he purloined at the end of his shift, what a guy. The one thing I failed to mention is that I almost fainted while making a spicy marg after taking a 50mg snus a few hours ago - one of the real low points in my bartending career. In other really exciting news, we got a new glasswasher — oh the varied joys of hospitality.

Monday

It is admittedly now Monday, and decidedly quieter. Not much to report on other than a character of a middle-aged man who, after telling me that he lives with his mother, proceeded to explain how she’s always struggling to decide whether she’ll wear her hearing aids or her wig (why exactly they can’t be worn at the same time he didn’t get to). Though he did come to the conclusion that as she opts for her wig more often than not, she’s as vain as she is deaf. His words not mine. There was also a joke about a Scotsman, an Englishman and a Chinaman, but I’ll keep that one to myself for now. Over and out.