An old man walks into a pub ... and out again

I learned just how far behind the nanny zeitgeist I am a couple of Fridays ago, when we had leaving drinks for an old friend from the paper.

Evidence that senility is creeping up on me – or perhaps that the world is racing off in directions I’m not able to follow – is mounting daily.

It’s not just the new-found appeal of the cardigans rack in David Jones – 40 per cent off! Are you people kidding me? – or that when overtaken on the Pacific Highway by some meth-fuelled tradie I now lift my foot from the happy pedal and say, “The joke’s on him, we’ll see him at the next lights.”

It used to be of mild concern to find myself standing in a room, wondering aloud what I’d come in for – “It’s the toilet,” my wife Sally would shout, helpfully – but some days it’s worse: I wake up all metaphysical and ask why I’m here on Earth. “To annoy me,” Sally says, missing the rhetorical elegance of the question.

“Old-man noises,” say my darling daughters, clapping and laughing at the involuntary groans and sighs as I lower my feeble body into a comfy chair, unaware they must survive the perils of life for a few more decades before they too can enjoy being mocked by the young.

But add everything up and there’s no dodging the truth: there are lots of kilometres on the oldometer, and none of us knows when the fun will stop. Worse, my idea of fun appears to be marching out of step with modern times.

I learned just how far behind the nanny zeitgeist I am a couple of Fridays ago, when we had leaving drinks for an old friend from the paper. I faced a long drive the following day, so after a couple of beers I went to the bar to buy a small farewell round: four schooners, two glasses of wine, and a rum and coke for me.

“Can you make that a large one, please?” Uh-oh. Mistake.

“I’m not allowed to serve doubles,” the young woman said. “It’s against the law.”

“Actually I don’t think it is,” I said, then had my fatal brainwave: “Can I buy a rum and coke for myself, then, and a straight rum on the rocks for one of my friends, please?”

Unfortunately she wasn’t playing. “No,” she said. “Because I know what you will do with it.”

Defeated by this irrefutable mind-reading I smiled, paid and carried the drinks over to the party. A few minutes later a diminutive security guard approached to inform me I was cut off and wouldn’t be served any more that evening.

“Why not?” I asked, genuinely puzzled.

“Sorry sir, I don’t know,” he said, sounding uncomfortable. “They just told me to tell you.”

To spare the venue any embarrassment, I won’t name it, save to say it reminds me of the Roman goddess of the dawn. I’ve drunk there for more than 30 years in the lively company of some very colourful journalists without seeing – much less causing – any trouble.

But rules are rules, and today’s pub has transitioned into a safe, smoke-free space for nervous teetotallers who are triggered by the boisterousness of mildly tipsy revellers. Hence Responsible Service of Alcohol to accompany their responsible rows of pokie machines and TAB betting terminals, and their responsible closing time of 6am to foster social harmony.

So as I walked out of the place, never to return (oh yes, I’m a petty, grudge-bearing man), I was saddened and nostalgic for the days when pubs were an escape from the wowsers; and I marvelled again at how our politicians and busybodies are surreptitiously reshaping our society in their own joyless, risk-averse image.

I am saddened and nostalgic for the days when pubs were an escape from the wowsers.

Twelve hours later, about 8am in Coles in Lane Cove (up early; told you I was old), out of the blue came a message over the loudspeaker to interrupt the easy-listening music: “If your behaviour makes anyone feel unsafe,” the nice supermarket lady warned, “you will be asked to leave and the police may be called.”

It probably wasn’t directed at me personally, although I was tempted to drop my basket and trousers, bare my teeth and rampage up and down the aisles screaming at the other shoppers, “Do I make you feel unsafe? Do I?” But that’s a job for a younger man.

Instead I drove home feeling glum, listening to the weatherman on the radio, who as well as telling me a cold rain was on its way suggested I carry an umbrella and wrap up warmly.

I don’t know if it was because I didn’t buy that stylish brown cardigan, but a sudden chill ran through me. If I weren’t such an irrepressibly sunny, glass-half-full kind of old idiot, it might all have been quite depressing.