Confrontational men in pubs

[DrunkCountry]

Is he a proper Ninja?  I ask because Steven Kelly did a talk in English once about his plans to become one.  He walked up to the blackboard and wrote 'PROFESIONAL NINJAH' with the misspelling there and talked for 5 minutes about how he'd be great at it.  That was 30 years ago.  Either under lock and key or driving taxis would be my guess.

He's a Ninjah of God. Hence NinJAH, yeh? Suck ma teet.

[onthebeach]

Very cathartic thread to read. Had so many experiences like that it's interesting to read others and hear how you deal with it. I use to have a look which made me stand out (not deliberately, I was just a recluse and developed the hair and beard of a recluse, which was no bother until I left the house and people commented). A fun one was a 40 odd year old Yorkshireman in Leeds with a heavy tan and who clearly worked hard on his physique insisting I looked older than him "and I'm 44!" or whatever age he said. He insisted to the point he got quite irate, why am I ruining myself with this hair and beard? You've ruined your 20s, you idiot!

"Because when I'm 40 I'll shave it all off and immediately look ten years younger without even trying." He left, defeated. In the end I shaved it off earlier and looked about three years younger.

Otherwise the worst I had was a large bunch of lads on a train back from Liverpool late on Saturday night after the Liverpool-Wigan game we were all at. The ringleader said I looked like John Lennon. Fine, heard that before. But he was really adament. He felt getting me in a headlock would emphasise the point. In the end I moved seats, sat further away. He followed, sat on my lap. He then proceeded to get me in a headlock again. This carried on for a while as this musclebound mentalist sat quite frankly far too close to my balls for comfort gripping my head and singing "LET IT BE, SING ALONG JOHN!"

It was funny/utterly terrifying. I had to change at Wigan, so I got off and he tried to carry me off like a maiden he was dragging to his cave. I escaped and then was asked if I was OK by the other passengers, none of whom did anything in the carriage presumably out of self-preservation as it was a large group. One of that group got on the same train as me to Preston and I badgered him a bit. He said the ringleader was his cousin, an MMA fighter and "we wouldn't have let him gone too far."

A burly angel was watching over me all along! I get less of this now, I guess I stand out less. I used to get very wound up a minor slights as a result, like my pride was at stake but I've developed a small sense of assertiveness that helps me avoid trouble while also not getting worked up about it.

[BlodwynPig]

[23 Daves]

He's not the only one but he is so bad and so fat that you tend to remember him more. The general for my area is steroid filled misogynists making incomprehensible sounds at people and getting into fights after too many alcopops. I brought an ex-girlfriend from Dorset to where I live and after two minutes in a pub, she was so horrified and upset by what see saw that I had to take her home and it wasn't even that rowdy a night by South Wales standards. For example, a bar worker got murdered in Swansea Walkabout a few weeks back and it barely registered as a significant story. There's people from war torn states that would struggle to cope with a night out in Wind Street.

Christ, you're talking about Wind Street? I know it well. I have friends in Swansea and have been many times. Once in a taxi queue[nb]Not sure if the taxi queue is on or near Wind Street, I'm not a local, and I can't remember...[/nb] I heard the couple behind me exchange the following pleasantries:

Burly rugby boy: "Here, did I shag you last week?"
Woman (Pondering): "Oh... I'm not sure... maybe..."
Him (shrugging): "Oh, whatever".

I took my wife and her friend along Wind Street once. Her friend saw some simultaneous vomiting into the gutter and described it as Hogarthian. Mind you, I don't think Guildhall Walk in Portsmouth is much better these days. Any street with an abnormally high concentration of chain pubs tends to be an area to avoid in Britain these days.

[prwc]

I won a pub quiz recently with some friends, and we did not once look on our phones being the honourable gents we are. We only got 11/30 of the questions right, it was an unusually difficult one, but this was more than anyone else got. Our team name was Scum Direction (named after this quality piece of journalism), which, when we won, prompted a bitter man who looked to be in his mid-60s to shout "You, you scum! Scum! You just used your smartphones! Scum! Scum!". I failed to hold the laughter in, it was the ultimate prize.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Two chaps got into a bit of a fight in a pub in my town recently, and it ended when one of them drove a van over the other. By that point they had left the pub of course. Anyway it was in the newspaper!

[BlodwynPig]

Two chaps got into a bit of a fight in a pub in my town recently, and it ended when one of them drove a van over the other. By that point they had left the pub of course. Anyway it was in the newspaper!

Okey?

[Blue Jam]

it wasn't even that rowdy a night by South Wales standards

...by Cardiff standards?

[Jerzy Bondov]

Okey?

No he wasn't, it broke his arm!

Here it is. The man who got run over was from Kent so he probably deserved it

[BlodwynPig]

No he wasn't, it broke his arm!

Here it is. The man who got run over was from Kent so he probably deserved it

Right part of the world though.

[Unoriginal]

In Swansea you get more direct confrontation than you would expect. I remember sitting in a bar pretty sober minding my own business when two guys I had never met came up to me and said, honestly "Do you want a fight?" My reaction, as a sarcastic dickhead, was "Nah, i'm alright mate" and that response was greeted with a nod followed by, "We'll be outside".

For about ten minutes they stood outside eyeballing me as I giggled to myself until they eventually worked out that I wasn't planning on leaving and so gave me one last stare and wandered off. Good night.

[Blue Jam]

Otherwise the worst I had was a large bunch of lads on a train back from Liverpool late on Saturday night

One night just before I left London I was on the train from London Bridge making my way home to Deptford when I looked out of the window to see how near home I was and heard a woman behind me screech "Ooooh, look at me, I'm looking out of the window for no reason!" I ignored this and hoped she was referring to something else when I sensed I was getting very near my stop, looked out of the window a second time and heard: "Oooooh, look at me, I'm looking out of the window AGAIN for no reason!" I was relieved to see I was near Deptford as I grabbed my things and prepared to get the hell out of the carriage.

When I returned to London after a job interview near Frankfurt I was minding my own business pulling my little wheelie case home on a Saturday night when one extremely drunk woman minced up to me shrieking "Ooooh, look at me, I'm a trolley-dolly!" Fortunately her two much more sober mates pulled her out of my face and restrained her.

The winter before I left we had snow and as I left my flat I took a look round and must have inadvertently smiled at how beautiful my neighbourhood suddenly looked- I knew because a complete stranger snarled at me "What the fack are you smilin' at?"

I was so fucking glad to finally get the fuck out of that miserable fucking city.

[imitationleather]

This is why at all times I have a sturdy pair of headphones on my bonce which block out any words that might get directed at me. Ha!

If only it were socially acceptable for a white atheist man to wear a burka I'd be all over that shit.

[non capisco]

One night just before I left London I was on the train from London Bridge making my way home to Deptford when I looked out of the window to see how near home I was and heard a woman behind me screech "Ooooh, look at me, I'm looking out of the window for no reason!"

What a sublimely inane 'insult'. Reminds me of when a group of bored young ne'er do wells from around my way were whispering amongst themselves about me 'He's always got a bag'. And then one of them went for broke. 'Oi, mate! Why have you always got a bag?' Crushed as I was by this devastating barb I managed to cock an insouciant eyebrow and volley a response. 'It's got my stuff in'. 1-1, urchins. Your move.

[Hank Venture]

Britain is the Alabama of Europe. Why are there so many garbagepeople living there?

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

What a sublimely inane 'insult'. Reminds me of when a group of bored young ne'er do wells from around my way were whispering amongst themselves about me 'He's always got a bag'. And then one of them went for broke. 'Oi, mate! Why have you always got a bag?' Crushed as I was by this devastating barb I managed to cock an insouciant eyebrow and volley a response. 'It's got my stuff in'. 1-1, urchins. Your move.

What a missed opportunity to riposte: "It's full of body parts I'm disposing of".

[The Giggling Bean]

My friend and I once walked into a, virtually, empty bar and where greeted with "HEEEEY IT'S THE HOME BOYS"......or it could have been homo, my hearing was going about 18 years back. There where a group of about 4 or 5 lads who decided we where tonight's sport. Whilst there we where both grabbed in a headlock and wrestled to the floor. One of them was in my face talking at me. I was so un nerves that all I could do was go "hmmm" to which he said "if you go hmmm again, I'm gonna smash that chair over your head". I stared pleadingly at the barmaid who just seemed to be watching the scene with mild amusement. Things came to a head and I managed to escape and ran out of the pub.....however my friend was still inside. I thought he'd have understood my frantic eye gesturing towards the door, he hadn't and was stuck with them. I began to panic when I saw an acquaintance, a big guy you wouldn't mess with, walking through the village. I asked if he would help me get my friend out........a request which was denied as he left. Shortly after my friend and one of his captors appeared. I was then treated to a 10 minute lecture by this fool about being in the army and never leaving your mates behind etc etc.

Yes I know this story paints me as a massive chicken but there's my wankers in a pub story.

[The Masked Unit]

I like to think myself a reasonable liberal type when it comes to crime and punishment, but I only have to read a few stories like this to realise that my actual gut instinct when it comes to people trying to pick a fight with or seek to intimidate random strangers, is that they should be executed on the spot without access to a defence lawyer or even a jury.

If I were a superhero my whole shtick would be hanging around in public until this sort of thing happened, honing in on the perpetrator and offering him the choice of a quick death by a single punch, or humiliating him in front of everyone by, oh I dunno, making him dildo himself on the train while moaning "Ooh, daddy, fuck me harder - I'm your little bender."

[Doomy Dwyer]

I've had worrying encounters with two 'Special Forces' bullshitting bastards. The first was a chap called Derek Whitehead, I've not changed his name because he's probably dead now. Derek was actually in the TA's, but he intimated that he was attached to some mysterious special elite unit that undertook shady Black Op wet work type missions deep behind enemy lines with extreme prejudice and ultimately answering to no one but themselves. Presumably only at the weekends, though. He was a genuine lunatic – he'd had an awful car accident that nearly killed him. He was, quite naturally, horribly pissed one early evening and drove off the road, went sailing down an insanely steep hill and his car ended up somehow actually in a tree, him with a head smashed open like a willful toddler's boiled egg. He was in hospital for months. When he came out he had a metal plate in his head and moods that swung like Benny Goodman. Everyone said that it was the accident that changed him, but they were being kind because I remember this arsehole from before that and he was a consummate dick head even then.

You had to be very careful what you said to him, it was like talking to everyone's favourite wet haired gangster Joe Pesci in that famous scene in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York Goodfellas. He was being barred from the pub in which I worked on a fairly regular basis, but because his wife was tight with the landlady he always got back in again with promises to curtail his excesses. Plus, the rest of the boys all went back a bit with him and tried to look out for him. I think that there was a feeling amongst them that 'There but for the grace of God go I" as they were all rampant drink drivers, as are many blokes from that generation. He wasn't even supposed to be drinking, post trauma, but as well as being an arch cunt he was an enthusiastic alcoholic and couldn't leave the sherbet be. One day he came in and it was instantly obvious that he was in a foul mood. There were about four or five of the early crew in and they didn't even try talking to him. I was working behind the bar, he ordered a pint and threw the money at me. Not on the counter, but at me. I picked it up and threw it back at him saying "looks like you dropped your money, Derek" like I was Clint Eastwood. I think I even did the squint. Derek and I had never really hit it off, he was always going on at me for wasting my life, encouraging me to be a real man and join up with the warning that I only had about eight good "killing years" left in me. He was undoubtedly a despicable twat, but he had a point – my life did lack direction. But I didn't think then, nor do I now, that spending my weekends smearing my face with rabbit shit and eating corned beef out of a tin in a wet field was the direction I wanted to take. Which is exactly the same reason I've never been to Glastonbury. It's not for me.

I should have  just refused to serve him, I shouldn't have thrown the money at him, but I was a bit reckless in those days, I was pissed all the time and wasn't particularly bothered about living or dying at the hands of the Ladybird Andy McNab. He made a lunge for me but was held back by the others, which was lucky for him, looking back on it, because the bar flap was open and Del could quite easily have fallen through it. He stormed out. Everyone called me a cunt, I called them cunts for calling me a cunt when the real cunt was Derek and then they said that whether he was a cunt or not was neither here nor there because he was a mad cunt and I shouldn't have been a cunt to him because I knew what the cunt was like. While we were sorting this out, the cunt only comes back in, but this time he's carrying something in his hand which he pointed at my head. I didn't know what the fuck it was, which was a blessing in a way. But then he told me. It was the mechanism of a starter pistol, the type they use in athletics. I asked him if we were going to have a race. He told me to shut up. And then we just stood there for a while. It sounds cinematic and terribly macho, but it wasn't. It was boring. We weren't being manly - I genuinely think that both of us didn't know what happens next, our lines had not been written - me never having had a gun pointed at my head before and he – despite being a trained killer – never having undertaken this type of thing in the snug of his local before. We were out of our depth in uncharted waters. Two clichés in one short sentence, there. The others were saying "Come on, Del. Leave him alone" and stuff like that, which must have sunk in, because he calmed down, lowered the gun and we all had a big laugh. He asked for a drink and I poured him one, and he got me one as well.

After a while we started asking about the gun mechanism thing - was it real, how did it work and stuff like that. He took us outside and fired it into the night sky. It was only then that I realised what a truly mad bastard he was and how close I had been to having my life finished by a starting pistol by the TA's very own Captain Willard. It still meant nothing to me because I was about twenty one and had no conception of my mortality, I thought I'd live forever - this was the nineties after all and you heard that shit on the radio all the time.  I was as indifferent to the prospect of immortality as I was to eternal oblivion, the two concepts being one and the same to me. I still feel the same way now, to be honest. But it did cause me to sober up enough to know that I wanted another drink.

Another time in the same bar a man who was pissed when he came in and grew steadily pisseder by the minute spent the evening spouting bullshit like an errant muck spreader. Two claims stick in my mind (which was a bit fogged at the time) were 1) That he was the heir to the McAlpine engineering millions, and that 2) He was also ex-SAS but didn't like to talk about it, a noble vow that didn't seem to prevent him from talking about it at great length for the interminable remainder of the evening. The conversation ended when he demonstrated how he could rip my face off with his bare hands by getting me in a headlock and inserting two of his fingers in my mouth and telling me that all it would take was a quick thrust and twist and I'd be dead before I hit the floor. I declined his offer. 

I also lived next to a Viet Nam Vet called 'Strike', too, when I lived in Southgate. He could only have been about five years older than me, which means he would have been about seven when 'Nam ended. They don't make toddlers like that anymore. He spoke in a comically unconvincing American accent. He was quite a nice bloke actually and not at all confrontational. Nor was he in a pub, so I don't know why I brought it up.

Sorry.