Not my night?

Travelling into Southport for a drunk on Orange Lodge day was, perhaps, not the wisest of moves. But for Paul “Kenzie” McKenzie’s birthday, I would bear all unbearable sorrows.

Getting into town early for a warm up snifter sent me by homing instinct to the Mason’s where I was greeted by wall-to-wall desperate men wearing Rangers shirts. “Do you like to fight?” asked one as I walked in.

Explaining that the Southport Drinker was a lover not a fighter, I jogged over to the uber-cool Core bar that used to be the municipal public toilets building and ordered a Bloody Mary.

5 feckin minutes later it still hadn’t arrived and then the barman dropped the bombshell that they had no tomato juice.  Message to whoever owns the place: a cocktail bar that can’t provide a Bloody Mary to its clients is bloody useless.

I moved onto the Wellington, where the staff were unsure how to make the drink - what the hell are they teaching kids in school these days?

Once the recipe was explained, vodka was poured into a pint glass over ice. Then another bombshell. No tomato juice there either.

“It’s not you’re night, is it?” said the beautiful barmaid.