Diary Saturday 14th October 2017

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After a week long movie festival, which I was working on as a volunteer, today was a chance to unwind at a beer festival in Preston City Centre. The Oktoberfest recreates German/Bavarian beer festivals in the UK with quality lagers, Oompah Band entertainments etc. I had seen the festival advertised but the admission fees are very high so I had decided not to go, but a friend in Manchester won some free tickets in an online competition and as he couldn’t make it along to the event he kindly sent me a ticket, Cheers John Hulls. The beer itself was expensive and only sold in two pint steins, buying a half or even a single pint was impossible. This also applied to wines and spirits. Some ladies were served two pint of Prosecco at a time. I went alone and at alone for a while. After about an hour some people I never met before spotted me and invited me to join them at their table, which was lovely. We rapidly became the naughty table. There were rules cards scattered on every table warning customer not to smoke, not to stand on tables, etc. The list of do’s and don’ts ended with the advice to ‘Enjoy yourself’. We tore away the rest of the rules list and wore the ‘enjoy yourself’ bit like badges. Some of my friends did stand on tables and got told off by the security bouncers each time. I tried briefly but I was too heavy and the table was in danger of tipping or breaking with me on it. We soon had a whole cluster of the security crew just watching us with intense suspicion, especially as our waitress had a habit of joining us in the dancing while most others just stuck to their work. Ours clearly looked like she just wanted to join in the fun. The Oompah band and the DJ were terrific, though the compere-comedian was rather biased, constantly baiting a group of American students (now studying in the UK as their own university buildings were destroyed in the recent US hurricanes. He also made several ‘Brokeback Mountain’ references to a suspected gay couple. A few people were booing him. A lovely day among many new friends with some great, if rather expensive beers. Thanks all round. Arthur Chappell