THE ‘Spoons is closed so there’s no longer anywhere to while away the day. Follow regular Norman Steele’s tips and turn your own home into a daytime chain pub.
Never make eye contact
Set up your phone or laptop to one side of you, to capture your craggy boozer’s profile and your frequent long, despairing exhalations. Never look at it just as you’d never look at your fellow drinkers. It’s enough that you’re in the company of like-minded souls.
Never speak
Nobody needs to hear a load of prattle when they’re supping their pint of heavy. That’s for the evening crowd. Keep yourself to yourself, and make sure there’s no music in the background to disturb the grim atmosphere, just like the real Wetherspoons.
Give your pub a name
Look up a local luminary you can name your pub after. Perhaps a man who lived on your street invented the mop-and-bucket or composed a stirring martial march and deserves recognition. Or just name it after whichever previous resident gets most unpaid gas bills. Your regulars won’t f**king care.
Walk a very long way to the toilet
If Wetherspoons are known for anything, it’s walking across the pub, up the stairs, up the next stairs, and down a long landing to the toilet. Recreate that magic by doing nine laps round your bedsit before having a piss, leaving your pint alone on screen for others to salivate at.
Go home at 6pm
Your virtual Wetherspoons will soon be flooded by the young, the cheerful, those who still have hope. Leave them to it. Shut your Zoom session down at 6pm sharp. You’ll see all the same haggard faces at 9am tomorrow anyway.
