Bedford, Barley mow

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  • Although me and E-J have enjoyed many fab nights out, and even highly recomended the Barley Mow in the past, like so many other places, it seems to have gone bad on us.

    We went out last Saturday and started with a lovely meal at the Dragon Inn, a Cantonese restaurant, where we are always made to feel welcome. Shame its not busier because the staff there are wonderful, and they deserve better, but I guess they are no more credit crunch proof than anywhere else these days. Then it was on to the Barley Mow. This is well known in Bedford as its now the only LGBT friendly venue in town. Sadly it seems this is no longer the case. We got served our favourite tipple of two halves of Fosters, and made our way round to the pool table. Having been relieved of 3 quid deposit for the queues, and 50p for the game, one of the yellow balls failed to come out, so I went up to the bar to tell them.

    “We seem to be missing a yellow ball” I said
    To which a very drunk Lesbian replied,
    “Have you checked your pants mate” and then fell about laughing.

    I shrugged that off, because she was obviously very drunk, and wouldn’t have a clue about what she had said, even tho she had only just said it, so I let it go. A few minutes later a small group of blokes, part of a much larger group on what seemed like a stag do, came over from the next door pub the Bedford Arms, and struck up a conversation with the bar maid. Thats when the nudging, nodding, and pointing started. They were also trying to “pull” the barmaid, and were asking her what time she finished, and were telling her how “normal” they were. “Not gay or anything, no we’re normal” After a while, one of them came over and said he wanted to play with me! He wasn’t talking about pool either, I doubt he could even see the pool table, even tho it was bright pink and he was stood right in front of it. Yeah right! If thats your idea of normal, then I guess there is at least some hope for you!
    And so it went on. All night long. From the moment we walked in at 8 ish, to the moment We walked out in disgust at 2 ish. 6 hours of relentles disrespect by almost everyone who walked into the pub. Sadly it didn’t end there! The last two blokes to have done the nodding and nudging thing decided that the pub wasn’t for them and left. Then it started again, only this time it was transphobic insults. When I approached the door man to ask him to intervene, he said he wasn’t a police man, so he couldn’t get involved in what was going on outside, only inside, so the whole thing escalated. Naturally. All of a sudden, the door man was very much getting involved in what was going on outside! Looks like he had finished his texting, and was now taking notice of exactly what was going on. All of a sudden, he was dragging E-J away from the two arseholes, which is when someone made themselves known to me as a police officer, and seemed to be telling me that we were in danger of being arrested on a public disorder charge!!! Ok, fair enough, we were by this time hurling expletives at the arseholes, but they were also hurling them at us!!!!! No matter tho, They weren’t the ones being warned, so I told E-J that we needed to shut up, or we would be arrested. Once the arseholes were in their taxi, I set about remonstrating with the police officer, who turns out to be off duty and was just passing by at the time. Having explained what we had been subjected to all night, he did at least admit that we, in fact no one, should have to endure what we had last night. Then we noticed that one of the arseholes was bearing his backside in the window of the taxi, which was still parked up!!!! Was that not an action likely to cause a breach of the peace? It seems not! Our off duty police officer who just happened to be passing, did absolutely nothing, made no attempt to stop that from happening, and no attempt to warn the arsehole about his actions. So then the arsehole sits back down in the taxi, winds down his window, and starts hurling more Transphobic hate at us in the street. You know what happened next? Our off duty police officer who just happened to be passing, did nothing all over again!!!!!
    And that was that. There we were in floods of tears, in a taxi on our way home after a really crap night out, thanx to “Our off duty police officer who just happened to be passing, and I think ending up wishing that he had kept on passing” the “Doorman” who was so wrapped up in texting, he kept missing the people he had refused entry sneaking past behind him, “The Bar staff” who are too busy to care, and a multitude of straight men who seem to have a real problem with the LGBT community, even tho they were in a gay bar.
    You might now be asking yourself just how typical is this of the Barley mow? Let me say this. Even the gay couple who own it don’t drink in there on a Saturday night! They prefer to go to another pub!
    So will we now, along with most of the former locals, we’re going elsewhere. CHEERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      July 20, 2009 7:10 PM BST
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