5 Handy Life Lessons You Learn Working at a Bar

A standard night at the joint.

If you aren't already aware, I work in a bar. You know, what sells drinks and stuff. Rhona works in a bar too. Lots of other people work in bars, and some of them run lifestyle blogs with pastel-coloured backgrounds covered in cupcakes where they write grammatically-inept, obnoxious list articles about what amazing, fulfilling life lessons you learn working in a bar. Others post lists on BuzzFeed, featuring no words, only mildly related gifs with a title above each.

I, however, am so different, self-entitled and far more unique compared to you common folk in every which way that I am going to do neither. We shall blaze our own path of glory through the hell of list articles and burst forth into the sea of completely identical and just as easily accessible list-shaped content, to be lost in the swell forever. I'm going to tell you about the skills and knowledge that come from working behind that most sacred of wooden platforms that can be transferred to your everyday life.

Prepare yourselves, for these are the lessons taught only by the tap, the harsh truths of the back-bar that might well be just what you need to MacGyver your way out of a sticky situation in the future:

1. Soda Water is Your Best Friend

You've been to a bar before, I assume. If not, you've at least offered your patronage to some sort of fast food place, be it a Subway or MacDonald's. Either way, you'll have likely tasted the wonders of post-mix soft drinks; that uniquely awful mix of weird syrup and crap soda water that's apparently the same as drinking an ice cold bottle of Pepsi.

This loathsome contraption right here. 

You might be surprised to hear that this little doohickey actually does more than just serve refreshing cavity water; in fact, it is the first and most useful tool in the barman's arsenal of gadgets against that most insidious of enemies: stickiness. The plain soda water (usually found under an ominously large button labelled "CARB") from these guns is used for everything, from keeping fruit fresh once it's been cut to cleaning out the measures so you don't get hint of Chambord and Aperol in your vodka coke. It's most important job, however, is actually to clean out the glass cleaners.

"Who cleans the cleaners...?"

Round the back of every bar in the world, there will be a row of massive glass washing machines which work by firing lots of hot water at the establishment's shitty glassware until it looks less filthy than when you first put it in. These machines get gungy faster than a bukakke porn star, filling up with loose straws, bits of dirt, cigarette butts and god knows what else; eventually the filters in the bottom of them end up resembling that slime monster from Spirited Away. What we do is pull those filters out and chuck 'em in a bucket of soda water to soak for a few hours and all that grime slowly bubbles off, forming a lovely film (buy Oilatum today!) on the surface of the water. Fish them back out, give the more stubborn patches a quick scrub with an old toothbrush, and sling the lot back in the glass wash; job's a good 'un. All in all, there are two lessons to be learned here:

1 - Soda water will clean anything.
2 - Everyone is disgusting (see entry number 2)

2. Everyone is Disgusting

We are vile creatures, we really are. That's not even regarding this post; human beings are just horrible. But we reach a new level of gross, both as patrons and publicans, when it comes to being around booze.

"Who would have thought being in close proximity to this stuff would impede my judgement?!"

Quick quiz. If you're sitting at home making yourself a drink and you spill something, do you:

a) Clean it up

b) Throw a napkin on the spill and walk away

c) Look expectantly at the nearest person to clean it for you

Two of those options happen at a bar; and neither of them are a). Customers will knock drinks over, leave rubbish anywhere they can think of, shove random crap in their lipstick stained glasses, cover (as in absolutely coat) the toilets with toilet paper, sanitary towels, nappies, drug residue, and just generally be absolute lazy pigs. I once spotted a pair of people sitting on a patch of grass, smoking, with their discarded butts littered around them and an unused ash tray literally within arms reach on a nearby table. It took me actually handing it to them to get them to use it. Then there's the folk who almost seem to be running interference on you; like those who will be sitting at a table, finish their drink, get up, and, instead of just leaving it there for us to collect, shove the glass in a nearby bush. Like elbow deep in there. Why? Why do you do this to me?

A re-enactment of what is likely going through that person's mind. 

But we get our petty revenges, oh yes we do. Because you may be disgusting, lowly public, but we are disgustinger. Oh my are we terrible. It's not just our glass washing facilities that are filthy, it is our very selves. Have you ever sniffed a barman at the end of their 10 hour shift? I'll save you the experience. Don't.

Even the most hygiene-conscious barkeep cannot keep on top of the constant onslaught of muck that gets thrown at them. You restock the bar, you have to go lug about some filthy boxes; you change or roll a keg, your hands end up looking like a chimney sweep's; you go walk around the site fishing items out of the foliage, you make friends with a healthy dose of spit, ash, dirt and bird poo; you lean on the damp, sticky bar; you touch the bar taps and measures and bottles that a dozen other grimy-handed colleagues have also touched. There is not one part of the job that doesn't involve getting at least a little dirty; and if, like me, you work on a temporary site with no immediate access to running water... Yeah.

I guess the lesson here is don't shake hands with a barman.

"You can let go now."
"It appears I am stuck..."

I have learned, however, that if you're looking to clean your beleaguered hands with something other than shitty alcohol gel, rub an ice cube for a bit. Works a treat.

3. Money Keeps You Alive

I make good money at my job, I do. And, unlike some countries where your basic human rights are shunned spectacularly, I don't get taxed on tips. That means no-one is obliged to give me any more than they have to for their drinks. That said...

Uhoh...

If you buy some drinks that tally up to £4.95, or any other amount that results in small change, why not just leave the 5 pence? It's nothing to you and, frankly, it's nothing to me, I'm not going to remember someone who hands me shrapnel; however, that tiny token means so much more to the person who just served you than its face value. That pittance says you know you're going to spend your evening enjoying yourself, and you know that person is going to stand exactly where they are and make sure you do. It's a metaphorical pat on the back if you will. Now to those of you who say "you shouldn't need patted on the back when you're already paid to do it", I'll agree but also remind you that I'm not telling you to do this, it's just nice. It's an action that costs you very nearly nothing, but is simply good to another person; and shouldn't we all try to make each other's days a little brighter? It's not a one-way system either, you know.

"Quid pro quo, Clarice."

That 5 pee quite often turns into a measure overflowing a little bit, a better garnish, and a much more genuine smile from the person wishing you a good evening. Money shouldn't be everything, and it definitely shouldn't be a motivation to do better at what you should already be doing well, but in the context of the barman/customer dynamic it's a token of appreciation that helps remind the sleep-starved, paper cut-riddled husk on the 14th hour of a shift that they want to. Tips stop us from collapsing into an exhausted heap, not through their value, but by splashing us with a little milk of human kindness. Oh, and if you ever tip a member of staff on floor duty while they're picking up cigarette butts and performing topiary cupectomies, that's you just earned a fast track into heaven, you wonderful creature.

4. Always Have at Least Two Pens Handy

There are three more things that are essential to have on your person when working behind a bar. The first is a bar blade; those things are wonderful. The only issue with them is that you will be guaranteed to have it swiped by another, likely bar blade-less, member of staff; often from your pocket while you're working. The second is a pen. And the third is another pen, for when exactly the same fate befalls your first pen as did the bar blade. I swear, sometimes it feels like bars have a similar recruiting strategy to the Night's Watch.

Incidentally, this is my ID photo.

Pens are great, though, so always have a spare for when the first invariably goes missing. They can open the tape on a box just as quickly as a pair of scissors, be used to write (holy shit, that's what pens are for?!) down random crap you need to remember (stock, weird orders from management, names of staff members you keep forgetting cause there's like a hundred of them), and, most importantly, they are the best procrastination tool around, save for juggling a few mangy looking limes. Working on a bar has a habit of being extremely busy for the majority of the time and deathly boring the rest. I got through two puzzle books while chilling about waiting for stuff to happen last year, including the fucking word searches; no-one chooses to do a word search if they can help it.

They are the middle child of the puzzle world.

With a pen at hand you can doodle to your heart's content and keep on top of your various odd duties with ease. Speaking of odd duties...

5. Routine, and then More Routine

You know how in the Holocaust the Nazis made the people in their work camps pick up heavy rocks and move them needlessly from place to place just to keep them busy? Working on a bar is nothing like that because, christ, who would be so insensitive as to compare pointless tasks at work to the greatest example of human suffering in modern history?!

Not this guy. Nuhuh.

Bar work has its fair share of really stupid shit to do, which will obviously vary from place to place, but wherever you are you will very quickly learn the universal truth that half the crap someone makes you do has absolutely no purpose whatsoever. So you stack all the chairs at 1am to unstack them again at 9 the next day; makes sense so you can sweep under them. Why do I also have to take all of the flower pots on the tables and put them together on one, though? They don't get cleaned, they just get moved every evening and put back again every morning. Why do I have to wander around with a stick and poke the grass back down through the decking? It's grass.

I have no quarrel with thee.

Why do I have to lug cleaning supplies to and from the toilets for the cleaners to use when there is a cupboard in there full of the stuff? Why do I have to take all of the bottles out of open boxes in the store room and put them all together in a different crate also in the store room? I just don't understand. Nothing makes any sense any more. I should just resign myself to the fact that I will never understand what is going through the mind of my manager.

That's it. That is the greatest lesson bar work can teach you. Eventually you will grow to accept the cosmic absurdity of existence and learn to live your life free of the confines of mortal toil. Pulling pints is the path to ultimate enlightenment. Join me, brothers and sisters! Worship the one true God! Praise be unto it's glory, the infallible Soda Gun!

One day we will all be drinking the Great Post Mix in the Sky...

Movie Props: Film Stuff We Really Want

Hi everybody! It's summer time! And that means no more uni work and many, many afternoons spent watching TV I've already seen and producing various baked goods. This may also now have taken over work as the primary reason I've not actually written anything but shush, I have earned my cookie time, y'hear?

No-one can take me away from my cookie. NO-ONE.

As a special summer treat, us folks at The Pop Culture Cynic have been asked by them peeps over at Invaluable.com, the on-line auction site for all your odd antique and memorabilia needs, to come up with a list of movie props we would love to get our slimy, jam-covered hands all over. Those of you who have been around a while might remember the guest post we had a while back looking at great nerdy goods you can pick up for affordable prices; well this is less cool stuff you can actually buy and more our dream team of spectacularly awesome movie bits and bobs that we'd love to display in our six story mansion made out of gummy bears. We've put together 5 pieces of film history that we'd love to have, so sit back and join us in groaning loudly at not being able to own any of this:

The Pop Culture Cynic's Top 5 Filmy Things

Why didn't he just hide the hammer inside the tunnel rather than in a bible?

1. Andy Dufresne's Rock Hammer - The Shawshank Redemption

I thought I'd start my list with an instantly iconic item from one of the most universally adored movies of all time. No, not Kurt Russell's chin from [insert Kurt Russell movie here], but the adorably tiny rock hammer that kindly helped Andy Dufresne escape from Shawshank Prison in that movie with Rita Hayworth in it (spoilers). This movie is pretty much impossible not to like, even with all the brutal beatings and gay gang rapes, and it's IMdB rating proves that; to have anything from this film would be a privilege, but that hammer would be the icing on the Morgan Freeman's face-shaped cake. Plus, you could keep it inside a bible because of course you'd have to.

Although...

A close second would have to be that beautiful tin hidden under a rock in Buxton, Maine. It's aged, beautiful, and ever so vintage looking; it even has a White Star liner on it! I'd love to keep my cuff links in a tin like that.

"Oooh, yeah. You're so dirty, aren't you?"

I would ride everywhere screaming "NYEOOWW!"

2. Ramona's Rollerblades - Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

The only reason I've not yet done a Film Favourites post on Scott Pilgrim is because I've not devised a method of condensing my love for this movie down into few enough words for normal human beings to consume. When that hurdle has been scaled, we'll have it, but until then I'll just keep re-watching it every two weeks and weeping quietly to myself.

Now there's a lot of cool merch to pick from in this movie, like any of Scott's nerdilicious t-shirts, the band's instruments, or any one of Ramona's beautifully coloured wigs; I, however, have gone for one of the more awesome but very underused items in the aforementioned lady-person's roster of goodies: her rollerblades. They turn up in like one scene, scorch the very Earth, and then vanish completely for the rest of the movie. I WANT AWESOME INTER-DIMENSIONAL FIRE BLADES TOO.

Although...

There's always the coolest fictional arcade cabinet ever devised to choose from too. Who wouldn't want to have this thing in their house, making every moment of their life that more awesome simply through its very presence. Every family dispute would boil down to a game of ninja Dance Dance Revolution (Ninja Ninja Revolution); that's a household I would be proud of.

"Just put the fucking bins out!"

If you're feeling cheap, just paint an old tin of ham black and make a fake
certificate of authenticity.

3. The Film Reel - Cinema Paradiso

More people need to see Cinema Paradiso. That's the long and short of it. Any person with even an ounce of film buff in them will get major feels for this movie all about the relationship between an elderly projectionist and a little boy. It is equal parts beautiful and heart-breaking, as any good film should be, really, and the final scene when Toto watches the film reel his old friend left him is just...excuse me... *sob* Straight up raw emotion is what it is.

Although...

That sign. That gorgeous neon sign. Give it to me.

Right above my front door, please.

Here is the full scene in all its glory.

4. Hynkel's Inflatable Globe - The Great Dictator

Charlie Chaplin's best movie is City Lights, and I will challenge anyone who disagrees with me to a hilarious 5 minute long boxing match to determine who is right. That said, there's not many iconic items to be had in that particular movie, so to fulfil my requirement of at least one Chaplin item I've gone to his second best film, the Liberal coup de grace to both the horrors of fascism and Chaplin's own career, The Great Dictator.

If it were possible, I would just have an original reel of the whole movie, but that's not technically a prop so I discounted it. Then, there was a bottle of Chaplin's golden voice reciting that spectacular closing speech; again, not actually a thing. So, I went for the scene that had me giggling at its iconic silliness all the way through; the crazed dictator gleefully juggling an inflatable globe around his office is simply satirical perfection. Sure, it's probably deflated and horrendously fragile by now, but that's a keepsake if ever there was one.

Although...

I am tempted by the mustard pot in the elaborately silly obligatory food scene. Fill it with cream and serve strawberries with it.

Public Safety Announcement: Please inspect condiments thoroughly before applying to any comestibles.

Are you ready? Then let's play Round One of...Scalp or Scotty Dog!

5. The Scalp of O-ren Ishii - Kill Bill: Volume 1 

No, I'm not picking a Hattori Hanzo sword. That would be too obvious, and there's plenty other awesome things to choose from in Kill Bill. Like, for example, the scalp of the infamous American-Chinese Yakuza boss, O-ren Ishii.

Oo, wait, maybe the Pussy Wagon's keychain... Or a Crazy 88 mask... Or Elle Driver's eye patch. Oh my days, there's so much choice! Oo, oo! How about The Bride's yellow jumpsuit? And this is without even considering Volume 2...

Although...

I want the headstone of Paula Shultz. Anything that was involved in a scene where someone literally punched their way out of a grave, I want.

"Must...have...cool stuff!!"

So there we have it, my list of countless bits of cinema gold that I would love to have. If you've got any goodies that you've always wanted, or if you happen to know a guy who knows a guy who could get me this stuff, feel free to tell us below. It's been good fun thinking up some fun and unusual bits and bobs for this article, so thanks again to Invaluable.com for the idea; maybe they'll even send me some priceless movie artefact in thanks. That'd be nice...

Many thanks.

Everything, Adequately #3 - The Season Finale Is Not What It Seems

David Bowie makes everything better. New Bowie Bran Flakes; buy them while stocks last!

Try Calligraphy: All the Cool Kids are Doin' It

Difficulty - 3/5
Duration - 5/5 (As long as you like, really)

So, you're bored. Uni's over, all your friends are away home, you've caught up on Season 3 of Orange is the New Black on Netflix and so there's nothing left to watch. Why not try a hand at calligraphy? Hell, you probably already know how to read and write so half the battle's done for you.

If you can't, please get the person reading this to you to hurry up with teaching you to do it yourself.

A friend of mine introduced me to scribbling words in fancy ways back in the spring and was even kind enough to lend me his Pilot Parallel calligraphy pen and some ink to get myself started. I swear, aside from knitting I have yet to find another pastime that is more gloriously mind-cleansing than calligraphy. It is the most zen thing even; just turn your head off and write down the first thing that comes to you.

I had watched quite a bit of Black Books that day.

Now, the important thing is to get the basics down first. Start big and then work down to smaller sizes of text; you'll notice your mistakes better if the letters are larger. With that in mind, pick up a broad spring loaded pen like the aforementioned Pilot Parallel (this post is brought to you by Pilot) and practise on lined graph paper. Once you've chosen a script to work with and feel like you're getting the hang of it, you can pick up a cheap fountain pen with a couple of different widths of nib for doing smaller work.

Right. You've got some kit; now for the writing. Get yourself a book that goes through how to construct each letter in a script nice and thoroughly. I've been using The Art of Calligraphy and it's great; super concise, easy to understand, and totally not available as a PDF for free...ahem.

Start with a script that you both like the look of and is nice and simple to begin with, but be sure to double check what kind of pen is best for each text. Then, practise.

Lots of it.

Repetition is the name of the game. Start with just going through the alphabet, focussing particularly on the letter O as it usually features a lot of the major components of the script, particularly size and scale. Pangrams will also be your best friend. Then start doing the thing with random words.

I was hungry this time...and apparently thinking of ice climbing.

I even practised while revising:

My train of thought when writing words will be studied for millennia to come.

The last challenge you can go for is trying to write longer or larger scale works and new and interesting fonts.

Some Mervyn Peake in Chancery Italic.

My first super big endeavour is writing The Higwayman by Alfred Noyes for a special lady friend's birthday in Fraktur, with the fancy big capitals in the boxes and everything. I even did the good old dipping paper in cold tea trick to make it cool and old-looky.

"Oh my, would you look at all these papers haphazardly strewn over my desk in an aesthetically pleasing fashion..."

The bottom line of it all is relax, enjoy yourself and mess around. Writing is something we all do every day, and it's nice to step away from the standard of typed text and hark back to the days of pen and ink for a while. It'll shine a new light on something you've never really stopped to think about before.

Happy writing!

The Calling (Spoilers ahead)

Gosh, I've been a tad abysmal at this whole posting thing haven't it? You're probably all sick to death of reading me saying sorry and explaining why I've been unable to post, so let's just get on with it shall we?

Susan Sarandon and the guy from That 70's Show team
up to catch a serial killer, what more do you want?

I'm going to go ahead and warn y'all that spoilers are imminent within this review, but somehow I don't think you'll mind, as I highly doubt any of you are going to watch this film, and I can't really talk about it at length without going into spoiler territory, so otherwise this review would just be this:

Lisa Simpson: providing more reviews for Pop Culture Cynic than Rhona

So, straight off the bat, this was director Jason Stone's first full length film and boy does it show. It's awfully formulaic. Small town where nothing much happens is shaken when one of it's residents is murdered in a grotesque (their word, not mine) way. Enter alcoholic, worn out detective Hazel Micallef (Sarandon), poppin' pills like no tomorrow and doesn't need anyone's help. Next up is Detective Ben Wingate (70's guy Topher Grace), young and full of life and spirit and is everything Hazel isn't. It's clear to see where Stone got his influences: I feel like he probably watched Fargo and Se7en in the same night and thought to himself, "Heeeeeeeeeeeey. I gots an idea, so I do."

There really aren't many screencaps of this
film floating about, I don't think anyone has
watched it.

This also appears to be screenplay writer Scott Abramovitch's first full length feature film screenplay, which is equally as glaringly obvious. The screenplay really isn't particularly strong at all; the dialogue, though generally passable, is very clunky in parts, and the plot itself is something I have a lot of issue with. The killer is revealed to the audience fairly early on in the film, and it's explained to us that he's killing for religious reasons - he wants to use the people he's killing as sacrifices to bring back his death brother. The catch is that he needs the people he kills to be willing sacrifices. Key word being willing. As soon as it's revealed to us that the victims are willing (all of them suffering from some terminal illness or another), my interest in the detectives catching him kind of died a little. Like, I don't really care that much any more, these people wanted to die, they don't really need saving. This film is no longer a thriller.

Oh hey Marge- wait. nope.

Next is that there are a lot of these weird throw-away lines to do with Hazel's past - we can gleam that she lost her child somehow, she was married at some point, she was in the hospital (possibly for an overdose) and she's injured her back somehow. None of these get developed upon in the slightest, and sure it's great to let the audience piece things together themselves, some of these definitely could have done with some development for Hazel as a character. We don't know why she is the way she is and it makes it hard to identify or sympathize with her. It's possible that she miscarried her child, this put a strain on her relationship so her husband divorced her which led to her attempted overdose and this alcoholic, pill popping cycle. But that's me filling in a lot of them blanks, and there's other stuff in the film that contradicts this story. She also had this weird relationship with this guy who was literally in two scenes, Andy. They appeared to have possibly had a relationship in the past, but he's married now, and Hazel and his wife have some kind of rivalry? I don't know. So yeah, could've done with a bit more fleshing out.

Lastly is the fairly unsatisfying ending. Hazel is abducted by Simon (the murder) and it's made clear that he's going to use her as his final victim (he needed 12). He creates this concoction for her to drink which would kill her and Hazel (depressed having lost her child) is almost convinced to drink it. But then she literally just says no. She doesn't want to die. Which throws the killer's plan way off, since the whole point is that the victims need to be willing sacrifices. So he just kills himself. Like it's so unsatisfying. Hazel doesn't fight him off and escape, the other detectives don't do anything. He kills himself. The house catches fire so that creates our sense of threat and adventure I guess. When Ben visits Hazel in the hospital at the end of the film, the stock dialogue of:

"You did it."

"No, we did it."

I was just sitting there like, no. Y'all didn't do shit. You didn't catch him or arrest him or kill him. 

"Heard you were talkin shit." No, no Susan, I'm sorry- AAAAHHHHH.

Finally, this is the kicker, remember how I was saying that these killings were motivated by a religious belief that would result in bringing Simon's brother back from the dead? No? Well I just explained it again so there you go. Simon had been keeping his brothers body wrapped in towels soaked in formaldehyde in a camper van, this is discovered about halfway through the movie. At the end, after Simon has killed himself and all 12 willing victims have been sacrificed, detectives that we haven't met before go out to the camper van and investigate it and dun dun dun - the fucking body has moved, implying that it worked. Gah. No.

"Go on anon, send Rhona hate!"

Okay, I know I've been shitting on this movie a lot. But, I didn't entirely hate it. The film looked pretty nice visually and the performances were actually reasonably strong. It just goes to show however that good actors can't save a film that suffers from poor direction and writing. 

Till next week time follks!

Everything, Adequately #2 - A Nice Warm Cuppa

You're getting another comic because I'm super stressed and this is helping me relax. Once resits are done we'll have ourselves some proper posts. Also, yes, that is my Troy and Abed in the Morning mug.

"I am wearing my pyjaaaamas!"

(This comic is in no way autobiographical. Any resemblance of characters to reptiles living or dead is purely coincidental.)

Everything, Adequately #1 - Greetings

I have been doing much more drawing recently that I have writing, so you're getting another comic! Hooray! This will hopefully continue to be a regular thing, let me know what you think of it all; I want it to be fun to read as well as draw, so tell me if it's crap.

Newts are notorious card sharks.