Round the Town (3)
So there I was at the Poets' cafe listening to the regulars and Daljit Nagra . At the interval I stepped outside with my thermos of coffee for a crafty snout. The door opened behind me and out came three young men with pints. One of them engaged me in conversation. I sighed inwardly; a pint of lager in the hand of one's interlocutor is a sure sign of impending boredom at best and unwanted aggression at worst. Lager!? In this weather? Fucking stuff should carry a health warning. Sure enough, the ginger whinger wore a Stella scowl to go with his Heineken hump and was scathing about the comedy act taking place in the other theatre. I adopted an air of unforced bonhomie , changed my register to street slang mode and agreed with everything he said. Don't get me wrong; I've nothing against a punch-up, especially with a fool who's had a skinful and wants to give it some large, but I had a poem to read. Anyway, I went back in and thought nothing more of it, but after ...