YOU'RE BARRED
Damien McCrystal laments the ousting of the traditional bouncer by a chi ppy new breed of 'security consultants'
BEING thrown out is not a new experi- ence for me. It is something which has happened on a frequent basis since I was 16 and first thrown out of school. A year later I was thrown out of another school, followed shortly by expulsion from a tech- nical college. Some months later I was ejected from Israel. Within another year I had been sacked from three jobs and another college, which was my final, futile attempt to educate myself.
Then I became a journalist and was thrown out of all the pubs in the little town where 1 worked. I moved on to a bigger job and quickly was identified as prime throwing-out material by all the landlords in Fleet Street. I do not think there is a pub in that street (apart, perhaps, from the new ones, where I will not go) from which I have not been chucked over the past 15 years. In several establishments, such as El Vino, where the managers are good friends of mine, the number of ejections runs to double digits. Twice, I have been carried out of Annabel's and warned never to return.
Similar fates have befallen me at Tramp (ghastly place), Rags, the Roof Garden (once known as Regine's), Mor- ton's and Stringfellow's, of all places. I have been severely beaten by bouncers at two nightclubs on the northern fringes of the City. I was even once thrown out of Feelings, a now defunct late-night drink- ing den in the Fulham Road, where in the early 1980s they did not allow you in unless you were drunk (the point of that, I think, was that the prices were so high only drunks would pay without protest). So being thrown out is not new. It is a familiar phenomenon, with which I have become comfortable — even expert over the years. The boundaries over which it is dangerous to step have been tested many times and firmly established. I know what is required to be thrown out. I offer junior colleagues consultancy in this matter.
That is why it was so baffling to be ejac- ulated from a new bar in Smithfield a cou- ple of weeks ago. It is not the sort of place I would normally visit, being rather too loud for my taste, but it had been chosen as the venue for a farewell party by a girl who has resigned from the Daily Telegraph to travel the world. The cream of financial journalism was there, as were many of the City's most senior public relations people. Unusually, I was on best behaviour. But at about midnight, as I stood at the bar chat- ting to a colleague, the bar's bouncer approached me with an ominous look in his eye.
He was not your standard bouncer. These are normally big, beefy characters, chosen not for what they can do but as a warning to drinkers not to become too excitable. This fellow was different. He was very small, with cropped hair and a goatee beard, and wearing an FBI-style phone headset. It was this last which set my alarm bells ringing, for there was no one he could possibly have been in touch with and was therefore wearing it purely for show. His eyes were rather ferrety and it was clear from his manner that he despised everyone, particularly himself.
'I'm going to have to ask you to leave,' he announced, Initially, I laughed and looked around for the friend who had bribed him to say this. There was no one, and he was serious. I asked him why but he refused to explain, saying instead that if I did not go immediately there would 'be trouble', The colleague with whom I had been chatting — a fairly distinguished fel- low — intervened and demanded to know the reason, but was told to mind his own business. Things looked like turning nasty, so I decided to spare myself further embarrassment and to leave straight away. As I walked out, escorted by this chippy bouncer, I asked again for an explanation, but was refused.
That would have been the end of it but a little later, as I sat in Morton's ponder- ing the iniquities of life, realisation dawned that I had left my credit card behind the bar of the Smithfield estab- lishment, Heading back towards the City, I took the precaution of phoning the bar, explaining that I was coming back but did not want to rejoin the party, only to coi- lect my credit card.
It was waiting for me at the door, in the safe-keeping of the bouncer, and as I took it from him I said, 'It's all done, now, and I'm on my way home, so won't you please tell me what prompted you to chuck me out?' I was desperate, you see, to discover his motive. 'Clear off,' he said, 'and don't be causing any trouble.' Now wait a minute,' I expostulated, 'I am only asking for an explanation.' In truth, having begun to feel rather hard done by, I believed I peppered my protest with some fruity phrases. He responded with: 'Why don't we step around the corner and sort this out?' It was a threat of violence, and if you doubt me I should add that he advanced so men- acingly that my driver felt compelled to leap from his seat and interpose himself on my behalf.
So, where does all this lead us? I have pondered it greatly and reached a conclu- sion. This frightful man was a New Britain bouncer, a self-important product of the Blair-Brussels era that has made every- body, no matter how mean, feel that they are equal and deserving. His phone head- set gave the game away. I have subse- quently discovered that he does not call himself a bouncer, but a security consul- tant.
We now live in a world where such peo- ple have ceased to be amusing curios remember how we all laughed when American dustmen started describing themselves as refuse engineers? — and are now the norm. Now is the rise of the third- rater. It is their time. But instead of accepting their extraordinary good fortune with grace and dignity, they are deter- mined to stamp their new authority upon all of us. It is a terrifying prospect and makes me yearn for a good, honest beating from the bouncers of old.
Damien McOystal is diarist and restaurant reviewer for Sunday Business
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