There are a few things I like when it comes to my work. Overall, it's exhausting and mind-numbing but in some ways it's beneficial to be ground down and anaesthetised. But what I like the most is recognising people who visit regularly and remembering their drink orders.
There's a guy with white hair who looks like a cartoon character and drinks London Pride and works just upstairs from the Foyles where I once worked, and says that he hates it due to a culture of nepotism and 'cronyism' and talked with me about the power of social influence on one slow evening.
There's a wine connoseur who drinks ESB ale in a tankard and tells me about his visits to wine tastings and port tastings and whiskey tastings and God knows what else, and who fiddles with his phone and eventually falls asleep, without fail, over his dish of pork scratchings, but not before inviting me to accompany him to one of his many beverage tastings and I am too busy.
There's a guy who pops in early afternoon and always has the exact change for a pint of Guinness, who then disappears and reimerges with another order, who grabbed me to the backdrop of Save The Last Dance For Me and we danced together while my boss clapped, inebriated as she usually is.
There's an incredibly effeminate customer whose name is David and comes in every day, who drinks chardonnay with three ice cubes and stays for many hours, way past closing time, applying his make up while looking at himself in the mirrored wall.
There's an attractive man with a beard who wears pressed shirts and drinks lager, standing outside with friends or strangers to smoke, and who I would like very much to kiss, and when I let slip to my manager that I thought he was good-looking he made fun of me and told me my boyfriend would be jealous.
There's a woman who has a bespoke drink devised of vodka and a very small amount of orange juice with ice and a straw, who was there the other day at midday and again in the evening until midnight, but who won my affection despite her lingering after the last bell because she gave compliments about me to my boss.
There are two men in creased suits during after-work hours, one of whom looks a lot like an ex-boyfriend of mine and drinks Seafarer's Ale, who always rack up an expensive tab and want receipts so I wonder who is paying.
There is another man in a suit who always attends with a group of other men in suits and who showed me his phone, saying, 'Look who I had lunch with!', to which I replied, 'Nigel Farage!' and went into a brief soliloquy about his politics before kicking myself because I realised that they were actually friends.
There is another man in a suit who used to do what most people would gauge as flirting but has since given up and orders Guinness and asks for huge amount of cashback but mostly stays outside with Heineken Top, who is named after his drink order and because he's so tall he's always at the top, and always asks for a lager with a top, and during my first week I stupidly put soda water in the lager instead of lemonade.
There is a man who always sits in the same spot at the bar and slowly drinks his lager and occasionally asks me for help with the Evening Standard crossword.
There is another man whose voice gives me nightmares and who stands at the entrance to the bar so I keep having to squeeze past him and each time he says, 'Hi Daisy!' in a very strange squeaking voice, which I used to think was a joke but now realise is his real voice.
There is an Italian guy called Marco who had a birthday party the other day and gave me a slice of cake and many hugs and made my heart warm.
There is a couple- a long-haired blonde and man in a blazer- who come in and stay for hours until they are both more than tipsy and they are kissing and cuddling, and she drinks wine and he drinks lager, who had a conversation about becoming boyfriend and girlfriend on official terms, which I picked up from eavesdropping, but which worried me because I could have sworn I saw her with someone else a few weeks ago and when my manager and I were gossiping about them and I mentioned this, he said, 'I like her style.'
There is an attractive close-shaven man who drinks Amstel and sits alone, scribbling in a notebook, and when I asked him what he was focused on told me that he's drawing jellyfish because he is making illustrations for his friend's writing, so I have decided that I would like to be his friend.
