The show outside the show

MY SHOUT ... with Ivor Thurston

Sadly I’ve decided to stay away from one of my favourite licensed establishments for the next 10 days or so.

Regular readers of my column would know that the Jubilee Hotel in St Pauls Terrace, Fortitude Valley, is one of my favourite haunts, where I mix regularly with other top members of the Fourth Estate and from The Courier-Mail to discuss world, national and local politics and other important issues with my peers. We enjoy a tipple or ten as we chew the fat so to speak. Sometimes younger scribes join us too when they’re not to busy pasting their stories into their scrapbooks or writing their latest missives to management about why they should be made senior feature writers or editor now that they’ve been at the job a full six months or more.
We always have good times there – we’re old- school journos, of that there can be no doubt – but as I said at the outset, the Jubilee at this time of the year gets just a little too crowded for yours truly.
The pub over many years now has garnered a reputation for being the place to be after a day or night out after the Ekka – the show outside the show, if you will. Loud music, that sort of rubbish. Nothing wrong with that, but your columnist is too old to share any premises with hordes of young people having post or pre-Ekka fun. What’s worse, many of them will be clearly of a giddy mind and staggering about uncontrollably!
Now before you race off to alert the Liquor Licensing people, I’m not suggesting in any way, shape or form the Jubilee provides alcohol to drunken folk. Heavens above, no. These youngsters will be of unsteady gait and troubled stomach because they’ve tried to ride some darned fangled machine there called the mechanical bull. I was invited at a pre-Ekka function once a very long time ago to try out this contraption, and I can tell you now that after that rather unpleasant experience you won’t find my hush-puppies within a bull’s roar of it.
Now it is true that I have been known to be seen at the Jubilee slightly unsteady on my feet and of light head, but I blame that entirely on the pretty barmaid who was just a little too enthusiastic with the upturned bottle as she prepared my favourite tipple – the Pimms Dakota with citrus peel.
The poor lass was human, after all, and her generous pours were her way of flirting with me. True. While I might be getting on a little in years, I know no-one of the female persuasion who can resist a dapper chap in a lime-green cardigan.
But may I conclude by taking the Jubilee management to task over their ad on the back page of this journal. Things happening there “every nite”, kind sirs? The word, I believe, is “night”. Well it was when I went to private boarding school in the Old Dart. Is it any wonder my old chums and I when we meet at the Jubilee reflect sadly on the declining standards in our once-great profession?

Bank interest

He’s always tinkering with them, so I guess that’s why my very good friend Les Pullos is so good at business.

One of the biggest players in the Valley hospitality scene, Les recently gave his FatBoys cafe – part of his Royal George/Ric’s empire – a makeover, putting in a bar at the back for his loyal patrons.
And sitting there sipping a flat white the other day, I see he’s crossed the mall and is tarting up one of his establishments on the other corner of Ann Street, the Bank I believe it’s called.
I’ll look into this matter and report back soon about what’s happening. He’s a restless man, that Les. Never seems to be able to just sit back and take it easy, unlike yours truly.