A productive and positive day business wise. My phone rang at about nine o’clock this morning, the screen showing a number I didn’t recognise. I was going to press the cancel button because although I was awake I was still a bit groggy but I’m so glad I took the call. It was from a man called Knut in Berlin who has a website called Global Hangover Guide. We only became aware of this long after coming up with the name Global Hangover for our own project and although the name is slightly different, it was still going to cause major trademark and copyright problems. The other problem arose from the fact that Global Hangover Guide is a bar directory, and despite our idea being completely different it would also contain a bar directory and this, combined with such a similar name, was going to cause big problems and anyone would naturally assume we’d copied the site, even though in fact it would have been coincidence. So it needed to be sorted out.
Knut turns out to be a very pleasant man who has a good sense of humour and is open to negotiation. Unfortunately we don’t have any money to negotiate with, but I had suggested a profit share option when we are up and running (and if we make any money!) and so it looks like we will be exploring something along these lines. But anyway, it’s great that we now have verbal contact and have swapped phone numbers. Hopefully if everyone is honest and reasonable then we’ll come to an agreement soon.
Wade was coming up from London today for a meeting and rung soon after my conversation with Knut. I’ve never heard anyone drunker! It was very funny, he’d been working last night and hadn’t been to sleep. When he rung he needed to get to Euston but was wondering up Primrose Hill. I told him to wander back down Primrose Hill, head to Camden, and get to Euston. I don’t like bad drunks (who does?) but Wade’s state was amusing – almost childishly incoherent. He rang later from Euston saying he’d made the train with a minute to spare and I advised him to have a couple of coffees.
At Liverpool Lime Street station two and a half hours later I stood awaiting his train. Three members of the Transport Police were standing with me as it pulled in, who then walked towards the train as it came to halt as I waited at the barrier. ‘Surely not….’ I thought.
But sure enough, yep, they met an impossibly inebriated Wade off the train and I stood, agog, watching as they spoke with him. They soon let him on his way and he met me at the barrier. “What did they want?� I asked. “They asked if I was drunk?� slurred my business partner. “I said of course I was.�
“Good. Right, let’s go.�
He rarely gets into this sort of condition and so it’s really nothing to worry about business-wise, and God knows if we were going to insist of constant sobriety I’d have to fire myself, so it was quite funny to see. The meeting with FortyEight was interesting to say the least.
But it doesn’t matter how amiable someone is when they’re drunk, it’s still hard to talk to them when you’re stone cold sober and so we went to a couple of bars so I could begin to talk on a level. I like going to for a drink after the FortyEight meetings anyway because they’re they always leave me excited and full of enthusiasm for the future.
A visit to Hannah’s bar, then onto the Lion. Wade was fading though and so I took him back to mine for a bit of shut eye before immediately returning to the pub. Probably should have stayed at home myself because I ended up getting drunk and was in no state to be critical of Wade come closing time as I was slurring a bit myself. Not that I’d ever be critical of someone being drunk. Unless they’re driving the cab I’m sat in, I couldn’t care less. And everyone deserves a Friday night down the pub after a good deal has been achieved during the day, and so there’s no harm in that.
There isn’t. Stop tutting. There isn’t. It’s what you do on a Friday night. You go down the pub with your fellow man and have a beer. Funding the local economy also so it’s all good. And everyone loves listening to someone’s poorly conceived but rock solid arguments being screamed into their face from two inches. Everyone loves that. I am providing a service if anything.
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