james o'brien

“Your blog’s very polite. Very nice.”, my friend The Other Andrew told me last night at the pub. It was about 6.30pm, I think, and we had been sitting there for about an hour or so. I managed to get in a shout during the happy hour, and I think it was after Andrew’s shout that he made the observation.

I’d received a simple text message mid afternoon from Andrew – “Drinkies?” – and although finances are a little tight this fortnight, I’d agreed to go. I didn’t feel, however, like heading out to Newtown where Andrew lives, so I suggested “The Evening Star”, a pub on Elizabeth Street in Surry Hills.

I’d had a whale of a time there with my friend Graeme a few months ago. We’d gone there on spec, and were delighted to discover a really nice after-work crowd that wasn’t there purely to get smashed. Well, not all of them. A fairly diverse age range, a fairly diverse range of occupations, and reasonably polite staff, led to an enjoyable night all around.

Like me Graeme is also a people-watcher, and when we go out together we sometimes enjoy making up stories about other people in the room, as we did that night at “The Evening Star”.

Actually when I think about it, most of my friends are people watchers. I guess that’s why they’re my friends. While some people get off on “things” and “objects”, I’ve always been far more interested in people and relationships. I guess it’s why I like history so much. I guess it’s why genealogy fascinates me. I guess it’s why I work in the industry that I do. I guess it’s why, at work, when someone comes to me in frustration that someone hasn’t responded to their email, I will usually say, “Have you rung them up or gone to see them?”, with the answer usually being no.

I love people and I love stories, and that’s why when I’m out with friends, we’ll often discuss other people in the room.

Such was also the case with Andrew last night, as we looked around the pub, making decisions about which of the assembled workmates were flirting with each other and so on. In the midst of this we also noticed something “very modern”. Looking over at a man and woman having a drink, we wondered for a moment if they were a couple or just workmates. It was then I noticed she was drinking a beer, while he had a glass of white wine. Very modern, we both agreed.

“You know we look like Statler and Waldorf, don’t you?”, I told Andrew, the two old blokes who sat in the stalls heckling on “The Muppett Show”. “Cruel, but true”, he admitted.

I’d also just told him a fantastically gossipy story about an encounter I’d had with a very minor celebrity. “I wrote a post about it, but deleted it straight away”, I told him. And it was at that point Andrew made the comment about my blog being very polite.

There’s been nothing major happening in my life this week, aside from catching up with Damo on Thursday (who left for an overseas trip on Friday), and joing the usual crew at the pub on Wednesday night. So yes, that’s my life at the moment: very polite, very nice. Quiet.