around the tables of syrupy lager pints, samizdat fanzines, SWP flyers, gig posters and roll ups. My glistening ten-pack of Benson placed carefully at the card table, to see me through to the bell and the shouts, the lurch back to bedsit or villa lounge room crash pad with its Nakamichi tape deck, unwashed tea mugs and a two bar fire. Smoke and shiny faces in the pub, a crowd five deep along the bar. Outside it was recession and strike, faraway nukes and CND marches, no money for a landline and four channels on the box. But it was buzzing in the rooms with beer-sticky swirled carpets and smoked glass partitions, we had reason enough to celebrate, we were in here and not out there.
