Mr. And Mrs Lima are trying to get tickets for a concert from a ticket agency
Clerk: Mr. Lima:
Clerk: Mrs. Lima: Clerk: Mrs. Lima: Clerk: Mr. Lima: Clerk: Mrs. Lima: Clerk: |
Yes, sir. Er . . . the Angla Symphony Orchestra concerts. Are there any tickets left for tomorrow night’s concert? Sorry, sir. Sold out. Sold out? Really? I’m afraid so. I really wanted to go to that concert. A limited number of tickets are available on the day of the performance. Where from? From the box office at the concert hall. It opens at ten o’clock in the morning. Will we have to queue? The A.S.O. concerts are very popular. I really think you should try to get there early … as early as possible. |
(The next morning, outside the concert hall in the rain.) |
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Mr. Lima: Mrs. Lima: Mr. Lima: Man: Mrs. Lima: Mr. Lima: Man: Mr. Lima: Mrs. Lima: Man: Mr. Lima: Man: Mrs. Lima: Man: Mr. Lima: Man: Mrs. Lima: Man: Mr. Lima: Man: Mr. Lima: Mrs. Lima: Man: |
You should have waited at the hotel. This rain! Just for a concert! (Trying to attract their attention:) Psst! Pardon? I didn’t say anything. Psst! Pardon? I didn’t say anything. No, I did. I said: “Psst!” Well? Are you waiting for tickets? Yes. I have some three-crown tickets for only ten crowns. Six crowns. Eight crowns. Four crowns. Six crowns. Two crowns. Three crowns. Two please. Do you have two seats together? Of course. Six crowns please. Six crowns… I don’t know why I do this. (He leaves.) |
(That evening at the concert hall.) |
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Mrs. Lima: Mr. Lima: Attendant: Mr. Lima: Attendant: Mr. Lima: Mrs. Lima: |
Why’s that door closed? Excuse me. May we get to our seats? Latecomers will not be admitted until the interval. Latecomers! It’s only a quarter past seven. We’re not late. The concert began at seven o’clock. It was in the paper. The paper! I don’t read the paper. Harry! Let’s wait at the bar. Next time I’ll buy the record! |
Notes:
a limited number of – a few;
are available can be bought;
latecomers – people who arrive late;
admitted – allowed into the hall.
Clubs
The club is a decidedly British in institution. It is the sense of a club which is the most obvious feature of the House of Commons.
Apart from Parliament-often called the Best Club in town – no other institution has become more utterly representative of a certain aspect of the British way of life than he club. There exist school clubs and college clubs, political clubs and cultural clubs, town clubs and country clubs. There are sports clubs of all sorts including yacht clubs and driving clubs and “The Pony Club” with a membership of 77,000. There are numerous Shakespeare clubs which appeared as the predecessors of the Scottish groups celebrating their “Nights wi’ Burns” and of Dickensian Fellowships. There are more than 820 “official” music clubs and societies belonging to the National Federation of Music Societies. With the folk revival in the late fifties folk clubs began to develop on a large scale, the main catalyst being the political and cultural ferment among the contemporary young.
In London Clubland is concentrated in the palatial houses in and around St James’s Street and Pall Mall. Boodles, Brooks’s, the-Athenaeum, the Reform, the Travellers, St James’s, the Garrick, the Carton, the Union, Bucks, the Turf, the Saville and the Savage, that unique Bohemian haven for artists and writers, are but a handful of distinguished Metropolitan clubs.
Among the most famous clubs of London “The Other Club” occupies a special niche. It was founded in 1911 by Winston Churchill and has developed into a powerful pillar of what is often called the Establishment. Members of the club gather for dinner once a month when Parliament is in session and their traditional meeting place is the Pirate Room of the Savoy Hotel, for it has no premises of its own. These meetings are strictly private and uninhibited; informality and gastronomic distinction jointly reign.
Limited to fifty, the list of members includes members of the Commons and the Lords and other prominent people. It was given the name “The Other Club” because it aims always to hear the other man’s point of view.
If the title of this club is odd, so were many in the past. There used to be an “Everlasting Club” which failed to go on for ever; the notorious “Hell Fire” and “the Humbug”; “The Mug House” which succumbed in disorder, and “The Ugly” with a taste for disfigured faces.
Pubs
The pub has evolved over the centuries, always playing an important part in social life. Originally a stopping place for weary travelers, it was then called an inn or tavern and was one of the few places where a traveler could get food, warmth, shelter, and of course a drink. Even in those far-off days the inn was often the centre of community life in an area, and it was there that gossip and news was exchanged, and the latest political developments discussed.
Many English pubs have names which show their former use: “The Traveller’s Rest”, for example, or “The Coach and Horses”, or “The Pilgrim’s Arms”. Other pubs have humorous names like “The Cat and the Custard Pot”, “The Man in the Moon” (a pub in a lonely spot is often so called) or “The Who’d Have Thought It” (a pub in an unexpected place).
Every pub has several rooms; originally, this was a division of classes, and still is to some extent today. The richer travelers did not want to eat and drink with the “lower orders” of the local village, and therefore certain rooms were set aside for them, usually the tap-room, lounge or private bar. Today there is a smoking-room, a lounge, and a public bar (where women do not usually drink) and sometimes a singing room.
There are generally no waiters, for the customers fetch their own drinks; but in most rooms there will be a long counter presided over by a barmaid, or barman who stands behind several large handles, the beer pumps. The English drink beer because they like it, and because it is the cheapest alcoholic drink. Spirits have a heavy tax on them, and whisky and soda, sherry or gin, although drunk by working people, are usually the preserve of richer customers.
The British drinking laws are full of absurdities. They cause plenty of irritation, but probably do not reduce the amount of drinking. Perhaps this is the reason why the drink trade itself seems little interested in attempts to get the laws radically changed. Alcoholic drinks, including beer, are allowed to be sold in any place for nine hours each day; it is for the local Justices of the Peace, to decide exactly what those hours should be. Special rules apply to clubs, and special exemptions from the normal rules may be granted by magistrates for particular occasions. Again, drinks may be sold only in establishments licensed for the sale of drink, and in practice these are either hotels or pubs, or licensed grocers or wine merchants which sell bottles to take away.
Some of the most agreeable London pubs are to be found in Holborn. The clientele is mixed: lawyers, commercial travelers, char women, bookkeepers of mature years, shopkeepers, company secretaries, clerks. Though women are not unwelcome, such bubs remain essentially male establishments. They are clubs as much as pubs-relaxed, pleasantly noisy, a great place for exchanging stories and tips.
At “The George Inn”, Southwark (usually crowded with medical students these days) you can absorb the flavor of an old coaching inn and see the wooden galleries round the country-courtyard where Elizabethan players acted.
The music hall or “club” type are too numerous to mention, but there are also more than a dozen London pubs with good live jazz.