Pubs, beer and much merriment
Dear Pub Book, you know you were supposed to be at my desk tonight, so why aren’t you where I left you? I can’t write about you if you refuse to make an appearance. When you come back, talk to me nicely and I’ll think about giving you a spot. While you hide, though (and I can’t think where you might be hiding, the piles of books in this room are down to a meager eight, after all) I promised pubs. Warren Fahey must have some pub lore in “When Mabel Laid the Table”? Oh! Beer and drinking! Who needs pubs. I’m going to give snippets vaguely linked with my stray thoughts. This will be fun. Book, I think you’re going to regret your absence.
Gillian
Let’s start with a traditional rhyme, which sums up a popular view that has really changed during my lifetime. Fahey has it on p. 88
“Beer before wine
Always fine
Wine before beer
Always fear.”
Pubs were about beer. And men. And etiquette. And serious jokes, like this take-off of a folksong:
“I have no pain, dear Mother, now,
But oh, I am so dry.
Connect me to a brewery
And leave me there to die.” (p. 86)
And I used to know someone who said this rhyme with amazing fervency in the sixties – it’s a long time since I’ve heard it:
And when I die
Don’t bury me at all
Just pickle my bones
In alcohol
Put a bottle of booze
At my head and feet
And then I know
My bones will keep. (p. 83)
Oh dear, this post has gradually become more and more uncheerful. If I look further I bet I find a nice little ditty about the universe coming to an end through lack of beer. This is not a good thing. I’ll stop giving you little rhymes and leave you with a little song, instead.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:55 pm
I have my copy of Mabel now….
Oxford from within is still holding me in thrall. It’s answered a question that has long troubled me: why did DL Sayers make Balliol College Whimsey’s alma mata? Because it’s the oldest college in Oxford (although this is disputed by two other colleges) - pure snob value in other words.
I shall report if I find anything of food history value.