"London, Friday, evening, pub ..."

Police operation what it can be

Photo: THENEWDAILY.com.au

Do you imagine what the London Pub looks like on Friday evening? That's exactly how he looked. It’s not enough to say a crowd. It was, it’s scary to think what a crowd! Like herring stuffed into a sprat barrel. Gwalt was as if not just Chelsea played with Manchester, but as if they were playing on the exchange, and all the fans were also brokers and screamed not only in support of their team, but also in connection with the fall of quotations - that was the crowd. People stood closer to each other than at the peak in the subway. People were dressed in some deliberately funny clothes, as if not just came to drink beer and meet friends, but also a little for the masquerade. Gentleman in a green twead cap. A young man in a sports jacket with the inscription "USSR". A red -haired girl with such (only red) white and delicate skin that if you take a girl under the elbow, then there will be a bruise. Worker in overalls. Or a City clerk, pretending to be a worker. A woman of about fifty with freckles in the entire neckline. Giant. Dwarf. Drunk, who would fall, but nowhere. In a word - London, Friday, evening, pub ...

A glass of beer with a human mouth could not be brought to the mouth. It was easier to sit down to your glass stuck under someone's elbow in order to sip it out of it. The glass was necessarily sticky. The foam necessarily dried over the edge. If I drank beer and want more, it was necessary to put the money in your sticky glass and transfer the glass above the heads towards the bar. About five minutes later, the glass returned full. If you ask for food, the bartender looked at the madman: “What? Fish and Chips? REALLY? " It was still in those days when it was possible to smoke in London pubs: tobacco smoke hung over their heads, which resembled cotton wool. And it was fun. It is harmful, of course, to health, but more fun than now.

And people all arrived. And there was no place for everyone. They stood on the sidewalk, on the street, in a square across the road. From a pub was transferred to the outside beer. In general noise, it was impossible to understand what all these people spoke to each other, but they spoke hoarse.

I also stood near this pub, whose owner was terribly proud that I refused to sell my Rat & Parrot network. I drank a traction, like honey, a stout with a black -brown syrup and chatted with a black -bangladesh girl, like a night, like a night. The girl was unexpectedly called Valery. A few days later, British troops were supposed to enter Iraq. The next day, an anti-war demonstration was supposed to take place in the Hyde Park, and Valeria seriously said that if a million people came to the demonstration, then there would be no war, and Tony Blair will have no choice but to resign. In the street darkness, only white teeth, white eyes, pink lips and pink pendants on the neck could be discerned from all of Valeria. And she seriously believed, this girl dissolved in the darkness, which would go to the Hyde Park tomorrow and stop the war.

“No, you listen,” pink lips fluttered regardless of an exotic moth. - The government simply will not be able to resist. Do you imagine how much it is - a million people? "

On these words, some particularly heart-rending cries were heard from the pub. The crowd in the pub began to swing, as the ocean sways. And people spilled out of the door, as beer foam splashes out of a glass.

“What is there? Fight! - Valeria stated in exactly the same tone as she had just said about international politics. -Interestingly, did anyone call the police? "

I had no idea how the police called in London. But someone clearly called them. Three minutes later a police car drove up to the PABA, and two young people came out of it in this beautiful police uniform with helmets, accepted, it seems, during the time of Queen Victoria. The police were unarmed. Now, after the explosions in the subway, the London police sometimes go with weapons, and then, before the war in Iraq, they did not wear not only pistols, but even batons.

The fight in the pub continued. The police busily approached the door, stood for a minute, exchanged a couple, apparently, completely professional considerations, took off their helmets, put the helmets in front of the doors on the sidewalk and resolutely entered the pub, as a different swimsuit, resolutely enters the raging sea waves. A minute later, the fight was stopped. The police left the pub, and each of them led under his elbow for a hefty guy, which, apparently, were the instigators of the fight. With one of the instigators, the police decided to carry out explanatory work. The policeman who was older told the guy who stood in front of him as a guilty schoolboy: “You acted badly. Fights in public places are prohibited by law. This is an official warning. Return to the pub and never, hear, never again arrange fights in the pubs. ”

By the second instigator, the police, after conferring, decided to apply punishment. The policeman who swayed in heels and said: “You acted badly. Fights in public places are prohibited by law. You started a fight and even resisted the police. Go home immediately. ”

“Why am I home, and he is back to the pub? - tried to object to the punished. “He fought no worse than mine.” - "Go home immediately!" - the policeman cut off in a voice that did not terminate objections.

The incident was exhausted. The punished trudged home, and the police, calmly picked up their helmets from the sidewalk, headed for the patrol car.

And then I could not stand it. Curiosity sorted me so much that I left the pink moth independently fluttering in the dark and continued to a lecture on the international situation. I caught up with the police and stopped that older: “Officer, sorry! - I do not understand the British police officials at all. “Please explain to me why you left the helmets on the sidewalk before entering the pub?”

“You see,” the policeman smiled, “the helmets are rather hard, and there was a crowd in the pub. We risked injuring someone with our helmets. ”

The next day in the Hyde Park, an anti-war demonstration really took place and the protesters really were more than a million. A few days later, war began in Iraq.

First published in NT 21 of May 26, 2008