Conversation in a Pub

He’s melting my brains this auld yin with his prattling and whinging. You’re taking a risk conversing with the older generation. Sometimes it can be very interesting listening about wartime experiences and their time as shop stewards and that kind of thing but sometimes you just got bigoted auld fucks like this yin and his views on immigrants and trade unions ruining the country and that sort of offensive shite.

Offensive to me anyway but this yin hasn’t seemed to have taken that into account as a possibility. He hasn’t pre-empted his bile by saying ‘Hope you don’t mind me saying this, but this is just my view'. Naw. His type never do. The more knee-jerk and reactionary and ill-informed the more sure they are that they’re right and you’re just a blind fool if you don’t agree.

 

“Enoch Powell was right!”

 

“Enoch Powell was a mad, twisted, racist auld fuck!!” is what I think but don’t say. For some reason we’re meant to be respectful of these auld bigots and being Brits we don’t like confrontation. Except for auld Alf Garnet here, he’d love it.

 

“Surprising really that auld Enoch held those views,” is what I say. You have to treat the wilfully thick like you would a cat with a piece of string.

 

“How’s that, son?”

 

‘Son’. I’m fifty-two years old yet I’m still ‘Son’ cos I don’t wear a bunnet and a blouson and probably don’t drink at the bowls club. Scotland is nothing if not parochial.

 

“Well, with his Jewish background, you’d think he’d be more sympathetic to immigrants. Aside from the fact that was him that invited them over in the first place to supplement the workforce.”

 

This has got him so flummoxed he lets his pipe extinguish.

 

“Enoch Powell wisnae Jewish, son!”

 

“Aye he wis. I read his autobiography. Shenkie Lebowitz he was born. Parents from Lithuania. Changed his name cos he didnae think it would help him in politics. Lot of Jewish folk did that. Look at Barbara Streisand.”

 

“Barbara Streisand?”

 

“Aye, a load of people you widnae think were Jewish actually are. Tony Curtis wiz Bernie Schwartz, for example. Elvis Presley. Mick McGahey.”

 

“Mick McGahey?”

 

“Aye, the miner’s leader. Born Abraham Zoltie in Giffnock!”

 

“Christ! I didnae know.”

 

“Christ. Right enough. He was another one. Born Hymie Goldberg but hud tae change his name cos it wiz just a bit too Jewish.”

 

There’s the click of dominoes at a nearby table and the faint roar of traffic outside. I can hear the slow cogitations in this auld yins mind. He’ll have images building of auld greetin-faced Enoch wearing a skull-cap wi’ the Locks of David and thae shawls they wear.

 

There’s more than one way to cheer up your day.