Temple Barred
I have a new all time least favourite pub and it's called Fitzsimons. My first inkling as to its nature should have been clear on approaching the door as I could see multiple screens flickering. When I got in there were not 2, not 3, not even 4 but 5 screens. Ranging from a decent sized, would-do-for-the-bedroom TV to a gigantic 492 square meter screen. I swear a whole football pitch could be displayed to scale on it...
4 screens were showing one football match, while the smaller one was showing another match. The volume on all screeens was so high that shouting was in order. Anyway, after 90 minutes of fun and frolicks it was all over and I thought (hoped?) the screens would be rolled up and the TVs turned off, but no. The big screens were changed to women's Golf (one of my faves) and the little 'un changed to 10 pin bowling from the states! Scintillating.
Much drink was needed to endure all this so I was at the bar quiet a bit. Pints were expensive - 4.80 for a Guinness, which was poured more or less in one go... Shoot me now. The toilets stank, you could feel the bacteria crawling up your trouser leg while you tried to pee into the urinals, which were full of discarded packets of john player blue and bog roll. Sometime earlish in the evening a pile of puke appeared on the stairs to the toilet. Aah, I love this town.
Around 11pm they turned on the house sound system (127 dB) and didn't even turn the TVs off. Instead they were just muted. There goes the environment. When I thought it couldn't get any worse a live musician turns up and installs some speakers which would not have sounded out of place in Croke park. He started playing and much to my amazement they didn't turn the music off, I could still hear a distinct tune or two coming through the other speaks. So here we were with 5 TVs on mute, the house sound system on in the background and a live musician belting out U2 at a pneumatic drill level. Conversation was futile. So we ran, left, skidaddled, parted (only about 4 hours too late).