The real thing and the bar room manoeuvre

I went to hear John Burnside read in Ely the other night. We were upstairs at Toppings, a real bookshop. I've been meaning to go there for ages: they have an excellent programme of readers. Twenty chairs just about packed the place. It's a welcoming den to idle away a few hours, in case you haven't already got enough books in the house. I was racking my brains to recall what the shop had been when I lived there back in the 80s. A bakers, a gentlemen's outfitters perhaps? There's no trace; Toppings have made it completely their own, and it feels as if they have been there forever. Fabulous! I shall be back.

I wish them every success, and they seem to have both the curatorial sense and the critical mass for it. A much smaller bookshop opened in our village in the 90s and flourished until Amazon and Tesco killed it off. The proprietor was keen on poetry, and knew someone at OUP (remember when they published poetry?), so we had a succession of readings: Michael Donaghy, Peter Porter, Anne Stevenson, Stephen Romer - and others who weren't on the Oxford list, like Katrina Porteous and Kevin Crossley-Holland. There was even wild talk of getting Anthony Hecht over. What days! It could seat about a dozen people on various chairs, tables and bar stools. Much wine was consumed (and Michael played the whistle). It closed last year, the poetry-loving proprietor having long since retired.

It's the first time I'd heard Burnside in person, and found him engaging, thoughtful and unpompous. It was interesting to hear him talk about his work as well as read from it. His publicist won't want to know that he read from his latest poetry collection, The Hunt in the Forest, as well as from the second volume of memoir he is really supposed to be promoting, Waking Up in Toytown. But if she's reading this, she should know he was worth travelling for. I'm reading The Hunt in the Forest right now. It's good to have heard his voice so I can put the poems to it.

At the reading I found myself sitting next to G, whom I hadn't seen in twenty years. We went for a swift half to a pub I'd never set foot in during all the years I lived there, as back then it was a bit too spit & sawdust even for me. It's under new ownership, so G wanted to check it out. He stepped through the lobby to the glazed inner door, and couldn't open it. Push, push, this side and that. Standing behind him, I could see what he couldn't: below his eye level, a sign that said Pull. Who ever heard of anyone pulling open the door to a bar room? That's no way to start a brawl.

It's elf and safety, you see. If there's a fire (even less likely now smoking is forbidden) then the panicking customers must be able to get out quickly. But that oddly placed handle should have been a warning.

Everything had been ripped out, every surface levelled and sanitised. There were some low armchairs and there may even have been a potted plant. Perhaps the imagination supplies that, because it resembled nothing so much as the foyer of a modern mid-market commercial hotel. While we stood at the immaculate bar supping our Adnams, reminiscing about the livestock market and trying to ignore the smell of paint, several other punters batted at the door, finding it as baffling as G had. What sort of pub was it? It was near enough. It served decent beer. It was smoke free and there were places to sit down. There was no canned music, no slot machine (but neither, as far as I could tell, dartboard, pool table or jukebox). No ugly behaviour brewing. But all the while, I felt there was something I was not getting about it. I enjoyed my beer, and was in good company, but what was this pub for? It was almost empty. There was a group of young women talking quietly in the corner, one of whom G knew slightly and nodded to. They were subdued and respectable. It didn't seem to be the sort of place where you should raise your voice.

Like a poem that evinces all superficial properties of a poem apart from actual motive, this called itself a pub, and it sold beer. It certainly provided somewhere out of the rain to yarn away with an old acquaintance. But it didn't feel like a pub. The men confounded by the door finally entered, trailing tobacco smoke, and looked round bewildered. You could tell they wouldn't be stopping long.