alan_benefit

Sunday 4th December 2005 ' 9:37 pm ...and so, Sunday night at the local, to swamp my miseries. Or so I thought¦ Mad Mack's (The Mad Mackeral to give it it's full name) is the only decent pub in town. It's opposite the clock tower on the seafront, at the apex of a triangle formed by Prospect Hill, Wrack Alley and Eastern Esplanade. The bar is correspondingly v-shaped, looking like the prow of a ship cleaving through an ocean of maroon carpet: Public Bar to port, Saloon to starboard. There's no dividing wall between the two, though. It's just a matter of furnishing and decor. The Saloon is cosier, with its sagged-out armchairs and nicotine-sepia'd pictures. The Public, on the other hand, has red leather stools and a juke box (a genuine Rock-ola 'Bubbler', complete with arching neon tubes and original 50s song list). There's also a TV set in the corner, a fruit machine, a pool table and a dartboard. These last two, given the snug size of the bar, overlap each other's floor space to some extent. If both are being used at once, the players of one have to give way to the players of the other in turn if dart-punctured buttocks or cue-shafted arseholes are to be avoided.