I'm robbing you eh?

Pictured is a standard beer glass. 7 fluid ounces, (these days 200ml)

The glass is under a standard "flip" style tap, although too far from the tap (too low) to pour a perfect beer.

The "flip" type of tap is very easy to use, but there are those who are too stupid.

The tap should be snapped on & snapped off so fast that your wrist breaks, (otherwise you are doing it too slow)

UK blogger Magistrate Bystander has had a bit to say in a recent post about heads on beer & how pubs are "deliberately" adding head to beer to "short pour" customers. He actually goes as far as to call it an "active conspiracy" to defraud the drinking public!

His post has a nice picture of what is probably a pint sized glass, and has a very good head on it.

Clearly Magistrate Bystander has never tried to pour a beer. Or if he has, it must be that flat swampwater which Britain uses instead of beer.

Far from deliberately adding head to beer, Mine Host is forced by customer demand to put a decent head on each glass. "Come on, finish it off!" they will chant if there is not enough head.

Pictured is a standard beer glass, with a NSW style head on it.

However in mighty Queensland, they demand a thinner head, pictured below.

However far from plotting how to defraud the drinking public of a fraction of a fluid ounce from each glass, Mine Host (like most publicans) is battling the problem of waste. A few barstool experts have (in comments) implied that this is a "management issue" & is somehow easily fixed.

(Here is the picture of a perfect Queenslander)

Acutally equipment in hot weather is the bane of a publican's existence. There are times when nothing seems to go right. Equipment does break down, and servicmen are often several days turning up.

When the ambient air temperature is 44 degrees Centigrade, refrigeration equipment in a pub is hard pressed to do it's job even when working properly. It is made even harder when bar staff start talking to "hot guys" and absent mindedly leave the coolroom doors open.

Beer will not pour at all once it warms to 3 degrees. There is quite an art to pouring ANYTHING if the beer is even warmed to 1 deg C.

When a beer tap has not been used for a while (say a half hour) it is quite an art to NOT pour a beer that looks like this (70% foam)

Quite a lot of bar staff can't help foaming beer over the sides of the glass like this.

Far from making a killing short pouring to customers, Mine Host is fighting a constant battle to prevent 10% of his beer being lost through spillage.

Pouring a beer isn't as easy as it looks.

Pouring one without spilling is rather difficult to teach to some people. *sigh*

1 + 1 = ?

One of Mine Host's frustrations has finally boiled over.

Schoolteachers will believe me, but the rest of you: Get your heads around this:

The average time taken by driveway staff at the completion of their shift, to count out from the takings the $700 starting float is 15 minutes, although some staff regularly take 30 minutes, and one or two of them take up to an hour performing the seemingly simple task of counting to $700 (pictured).

I stress, that all they were doing was counting out the $700 starting float for the next shift to use, NOT counting the entire takings for the day. (Takings are counted by someone else)

Counting to 700 is not too difficult you say?

Sadly, only 1 in 3 people hired for driveway work are capable of counting $700 in cash into a pile.

Counting to 700 need not be done in your head, but by moving cash from one pile to another until 700 is reached. Very similar to dealing cards.

(Sounds simple doesn't it? In fact it is just like using those coloured rods to help with addition & subtraction in the early years of primary school)

To make it easier Mine Host gave them bank issue change pads, which have denominations, columns & everything all ruled out & labelled. (should make it really easy, HAH .. I should have known!)

This only made it more complex for them.

LESS than 1 in 3 staff are able to correctly fill out this change pad, detailing how they reached the total of (hopefully) $700.

As rare as it is for someone to actually count to $700 and get it right, it is even rarer for the amount they write on the change pad to match what they counted.

It is almost beyond the comprehension of Mine Host that people can leave school and be totally & completely incapable of counting out $700 from a pile of cash.

This is not calculus, this is not algebra, this is not working out the cubic metreage of earth removed for a dam, this is not measuring the cubic capacity of the wheat silos.

It is simple addition, there is not even any subtraction required (the concept of subtraction seems to be beyond many people)

The culmination of despair came one evening when Mine Host was showing a school leaver how to close up the shop, and at the part where we count out $700 the lad just stared in incomprehension at a pile of cash when Mine Host casually instructed "Oh, & while I do such & such, can you just grab $700 from the takings & put it back in the cash register"

Some 45 minutes of careful instruction later Mine Host realised that despite having moveable cash (chips to push around which measure what he has counted) this fellow was never going to be able to count to $700.

After years of persevering with trying to teach what must be the simplest of arithmetic to boneheads (i.e. how to count to 700) Mine Host has given up, and issued a directive that all driveway staff are to henceforth bundle up the entire contents of their cash register drawer, and deliver it to the cashier, (who is capable of counting money accurately)

Absolute Video Gold

Mine Host & staff have been gloatingly viewing the contents of the security camera hard drive, the cameras having captured every last bit of the brutal break-in and assault upon Wayside Tavern staff.

The quality of the video is such that it is almost as if the incident was made for TV. Police officers with 20 years or more of service have said that the video evidence is "pure gold" and by far the best they have seen in their career.

As shocking as anything else is the identity of the perpetrator. He is married with children, has a thriving business, with employees, lives on acreage just out of town.

He is the son of a senior policeman.

The video evidence indisputably reveals there is not a single mitigating factor for the offender. He and a group of friends walked casually up to the door of the Wayside Tavern, calmly smashed the door, then set about a psychotic frenzy of brutal assault upon the staff.

The only thing out of the ordinary is that the Wayside Tavern has cameras, very good ones, peppered throughout the joint like it is a porcupine.

Unaware they were on camera, the group of offenders commenced their usual cover-up; they hadn't broken in at all, the staff had confronted and challenged them, provoking them with foul and insulting language, and striking first. Forced to defend themselves, they had hit back only after stating they didn't want a fight. blah blah blah, etc etc etc etc.

The diametric opposite is shown on the security camera system's hard drive.

Video Gold

Staff at the Wayside Tavern were subject to a break-in and brutal assault!

A long quiet night, relatively few customers, weary staff cleaning up & letting the stragglers out one by one.

From up the street & around the corner, a small group of males nonchalantly approach the door. Staff recognise them as locals, not patrons of the Wayside Tavern, but long term locals, regulars of another pub.

Their own waterhole having closed (as have all waterholes in the town) these fellows seek to continue the bonhomie they have experienced over a few drinks.

Staff at the Wayside Tavern are a cohesive and comradely bunch. Most of them will turn up at closing time (without extra pay) to help with eviction of stragglers and tidying up of the premises in readiness for the next day's trade.

Thus most of the staff were present when events took a most irregular and alarming turn.

Staff advised through the windows that the Wayside Tavern was closed, and cleaning up for the night had commenced. (nothing new in this, happens all the time)

A tirade of abuse came from the small group outside (nothing new in this, the underclass are incapable at any time of behaving with dignity)

With a splintering sound the front door broke open and the group poured in.

The staff put their hands forward, palm outward, open handed, in a universal sign which means "no further, entry denied".

The leader of the group wasted no time and immediately began to lay into the staff. This person is a powerhouse, within 10 seconds he has knocked unconscious 6 male staff, critically injuring one. A melee followed, in which several more staff were assaulted.

Once the leader had his fun, his mates bundled him outside and they went on their way, leaving bruised, bloodied and injured staff in their wake, along with lots of smashed windows and fittings.

The ambulance is called for the young man who was critically injured. He received three and a half litres of blood in the hospital, and several hours later is evacuated by the Flying Doctor to better hospital facilities in the south. His condition is serious.

The entire episode captured perfectly on the hard drive of the security camera system.

Stand up Straight!

The benefits of Security Cameras are many.

However the law of unintended consequences has struck, and the most noticeable change has been a most unexpected one.

We all stand up straight.

The benefits of security cameras as a posture enhancement tool, who would have ever thought it?