Thurs, 10 March 2016, 21:38: After my dinner for one on the south bank of The Thames, I am not ready to go gently into that good night. I am ready to walk over to the north bank to see what they know. And my preferred conduit for crossing the river right now looks like this.
After I shoot that video I walk across. (It’s the Millennium Bridge, in case you don’t recognize it in the dark.)
At Pizza Express I’d asked for intel about nightlife on the north bank from Alban, my Albanian waiter. (Will I one day be served by a Colombian waiter named Columbo?) Alban recommends a nearby club from which you can hear the music pumping from a ways away. He says after leaving this restaurant, cross the Millennium Bridge and turn right. I’ll be able to hear music coming from the area of the buildings that are visible behind and to the right of St. Paul’s from my seat at Pizza Express. Just follow the sound of it.
Despite not being interested in any loud club scene, I figure I’m dressed too sharply and the night is too young to just go back to the Mad Hatter Hotel. My mild Peroni buzz decides to take me walking to find this alleged club— or the first alternate locale that looks fun.
Yeah. I walk all the way to the end of the second block of the street just behind that row of buildings I could see from the restaurant. Nothin’ but closed office buildings, and barely another soul on the street. Man, The City is a wasteland after dark. (“The City” refers just to this specific area of London, the small part that actually was the entirety of the city way back in the day.)
I decide to just head back. But as I walk closer to St. Paul’s I do hear music coming from somewhere: a tiny building signed “Yager Bar.” It sounds like the sort of current music that I avoid at home; therefore it probably DOES attract youthful London people. So why not? I can have one beer and leave if it sucks. Plus I have to pee really bad… so bad I won’t make it all the way back to the Hatter, and Lord knows no other pee spot will be open between here and there. This part of town is deader than Wang Chung’s career. 
First thing I do is hit the men’s room, on the right just past the front door. A jovial and probably high older black dude is taking tips for handing out paper towels. I graciously give him a pound after I let him squirt soap into my hands and we have a brief laugh, about what I can’t tell you. Did I mention I think he’s high?
I’m standing at the not-very-crowded bar only a minute when a female server asks what I’d like. I’ve already quickly inspected the taps on offer. She’s patient as I rifle through my small Ziploc of British change.
If you can come up with the correct amount efficiently while a server or cashier is waiting for you to settle up, buy small things with your pocket change. The weight of coins may not feel like much, but there’s no sense in returning home with lots of loose foreign change.
I pay 4,90 pounds in coins for a pint of Kronenbourg 1664. I choose this beer because it was the first pint I ever bought in London, in January 2006. And yes, I realize it’s a French beer, but you can smirk as I tell you that I didn’t realize it at the time. So, yep, I celebrated my very first night in London EVER by starting with a beer from France. *face palm*
There’s a second young female server, a blonde, I think. Neither one takes the slightest interest in chit-chatting with me. In fact, apart from ordering that one beer, I interact with no one during my 30 minutes or so in this joint. (Shame, really. I’ve got a great funny story to share about accidentally ordering a beer from France, then ordering the same beer on purpose ten years later.) I take my beer to a corner couch flanked by a couple of chairs, place my beer on the table in the middle of this furniture assortment, and simply watch the eight or so customers hang with each other in two small groups.
The Matt-unfriendly music turns out to be coming from a live DJ. He spins nothing that makes me want to stay even a minute longer.
I pee again on my way out (it’s a chilly twenty minute walk home) and so again am forced to interact with the bathroom attendant. He’s super eager to start another mini-conversation and is doing the “lean in” in hopes that I’ll lean, too, in some sign of submission to his “let me squirt on your hands again” body language. This time I keep my hands to myself, pumping my own soap, reaching for my own towel, and quickly skedaddling without tipping.
I mean, I gave the dude a whole pound the first time. Should I have spread the wealth and given fifty pence at each of the two hand washings? Is he high enough to not remember I was in there before and already tipped him, so he thinks I’m a total non-tipper? Then again, if he’s that high, maybe he hallucinated that I did tip him the second time.
Why do any of us feel even remotely obligated to give money to a stranger lurking in a restroom anyway? I tip a waiter because he listens to what I want, goes into a kitchen to fetch it, and brings it to me. If I were allowed to stroll into the kitchen and pick up what I wanted myself, I sure wouldn’t toss any dollars the waiter’s way. The bathroom attendant isn’t taking special requests or getting me something I can’t access. I can pull my own paper towel out of the dispenser, thank you. Er, well, not with you standing right in front of it, actually. Could you slide to the left just a little so I can… oh, never mind, here, have a dollar.
Yager Bar went out of business later in 2016. Its lone selling points, in my limited experience? (1) It was the only place a man could urinate within a mile’s radius after six in the evening. (2) This close-up view of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Seriously, you walk out of the front door of what used to be Yager Bar and this is what you see.
