There are three conditions to owning a pub in England:

1. You have to purchase a license to sell alcohol
2. You are required to erect a stag’s head somewhere in the bar area
3. You need a cliché name

Let’s face it – when it comes to pub names in England, we’re not very creative. It only takes a 5 minute drive through any town to figure out the formula:

The < insert royal or significant title here >’s < insert a bodily part or accoutrement here >

This complicated algorithm results in a variety of choice, as shown by the random pub name below:

The

Sometimes, though, you find a pub that has referred to itself as a nonsensical combination of animals:

The and

What pair of drunken sods thought up this utter load of trollop? The question answers itself.

To end, here are a few real pubs and their locations in England:

• The Saracen’s Head, Broad Street, Bath
• Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, Brewhouse Yard, Nottingham (they claim to be England’s oldest pub)
• Bedford Arms, High Street, Bedford
• The Elephant and Castle, 12 Elgin Avenue, London
• The Queens Arms, 30 Queens Gate Mews, London
• The King’s Head Inn, The Green, Bledington, Oxfordshire

And, finally, The Rat & Parrot is actually an established pub with chains throughout England.

For some, it is a place of pain and misery, of endless struggle and excruciating agony. For others, it is a haven of self-betterment, the juice of Olympian strength from which only the most committed may drink.

It is… The Gym. Notice the capital ‘G’ – only a revered place of worship is worthy of such capitalisation.

Over time, I’ve come to notice that anyone who goes to the Gym can be categorised in to at least one of the following groups:

• The Newb

The Newb is a shy and reserved being. Not used to his new surroundings, he wanders the Gym flitting from machine to machine, but never actually gains the courage to use one lest he make a fool of himself. He will avoid all eye contact and finally retreat to the exercise bicycle where he feels most comfortable.

• The Defiant Weakling

You watch him carefully as he racks weight upon weight onto the bench press bar. You look at his physique then back at the humongous weights he’s attached and 1 + 1 does not add up to 2. You want to warn him and spare the Gym the disaster of last month’s Defiant Weakling, but decide it’s none of your business. A Narcissist (see below) then appears and explains in a arrogant manner that he ‘can’t possibly lift those weights, fool!’ Nevertheless, the Defiant Weakling remains… defiant, and fobs him off with a closed fist display. He lays himself nicely below the bar, gets comfy, and in a flurry of motion, throws his hand up to the bar, subconsciously hoping the momentum will make up for his lack of strength. The bar edges millimetres off its metal base, tilts precariously from side to side, and slowly, slowly, comes crashing down onto Defiant Weakling’s pelvic area, thus ‘delivering the blow’ to his chances of ever producing offspring. Ladies and gentleman, a Darwin Award please!

• The Cardio Nut

‘You gotta get pumped! You gotta sweat it out! You gotta move, move, move those legs, you know wh’ah’m sayin’?’ The Cardio nut will tell you before he makes an excuse to leave and jumps on the treadmill, sets the speed to 102 and zooms off. Any machines involving weights of any type will incur a snort of dismissal from the Cardio Nut. For the Cardio Nut, the treadmill is God’s gift to man, and the ONLY machine you’ll ever see him on.

• The Audiophile

Derived from Latin audire (“to hear”) and Greek philos (“loving”), the modern day gymgoing Audiophile is in love with hearing himself. Picture a quiet scene save for the occasional clinking of metal or rattling of pulleys, when all of a sudden you hear a deafening groan followed by a heavy intake of air. Activity then ceases in the Gym while all eyes turn towards the lone man in the corner, the Audiophile, who is currently busy lifting weights.

• The Narcissist

One who spends more time flexing in front of a mirror than sweating it out on a machine, the Narcissist will randomly stop in front of you, flex a bicep or two, shadily mutter something to the effect of ‘Oh, yeah…’ while nodding his head then move on to the next unsuspecting gymgoer. Their most famous pose is the constipated-face-with-upper-double-bicep-flex, but they have been known to produce a bent-knees-underarm-double-bicep-flex at times. Some Narcissists have the appearance to back up their flaunting, but most of them are victims of an inflated self-image.

• The Raging Bull

The Raging Bull is a towering, bulky figure that sees all in shades of red, and as his name suggests, launches a ferocious attack on everything around him. Ridder of Newbs, archenemy of Narcissists, and obliterator of Audiophiles, the Raging Bull can lift mountainous weights with his little pinky and break a steel bar in half without warning. Whether this is due to an indulgence in steroids or not is unknown as few are willing to confront him for fear of agitating his already crumbling humanity.

A commonly seen mutation of the Raging Bull is the Lumbering Giant, who is similar in every aspect except for the intense rage.

Of course, normal people go to the Gym too…

I was in North Cyprus this summer from the 5th to the 23rd of July furnishing a villa in Bellapais for rental (article about it to come shortly).

Near the central mosque of Ozanköy village, there is a bookshop called the Five Fingers run by a lovely lady named Libby. It consists of a single room, a few over-stocked shelves, and a bucket of books. I questioned her about it, ‘So this is the only bookshop in the whole of North Cyprus?’

‘Yes. It’s rather sad isn’t it?’ she laughed.

However, the magic that is Harry Potter spreads far and wide and Libby travelled on the 20th of July to Nicosia in the South of the island to pick up a massive batch of the books. On the 21st, she hosted a Harry Potter themed party where we concocted potions, played muggle quidditch, and drank the most vile of liquids ranging from dragon snot to dragon piss. I was placed in Slytherin, which I thought ironically fitting as I had had my hair cut and gelled back in a very snobbish fashion that day.

At the chime of 2:00 AM (12:00 AM British time), the books were hauled out onto a long table, and little (and big) fans queued up to buy the book, my brother among them.