I went down for a pint or four last night.

“It’s quiet tonight?” I said to Pullit as I sat at my favourite stool and lit up the pipe.

“It’s the football,” said Pullit as he placed a nice pint in front of me. “They’re all over in the Inn shouting at the widescreens and getting themselves into a frenzy.”

“Jayzus, but I hate football,” I said after knocking a couple of inches off my pint.  “A shower of nancies chasing a ball around a fucking field isn’t my idea of entertainment.”

“I could never see the attraction,” Pullit agreed as he started pouring a couple of pints for some Americans who were huddled in the corner writing postcards.  I noticed he was using the slops from the previous night, which should give give them a nice dose of the gawks.

“How’s that web thing that you write coming on?” he asked as he engraved a couple of shamrocks in the heads of the pints.

“Terrible,” I said.  “I wrote about that treaty thing and now they are all blaming me for the No vote.”

Pullit laughed.  “Why were you so strong on the No thing anyway?  I didn’t think you were that much into politics?”

“It was Herself.  She dragged me up North to do some shopping and we ended up in the Sprucefield Shopping Centre.”  I shuddered.  “It was a terrible place.”

“What was so bad about it?” asked Pullit after shouting at the Americans to collect their pints, which were already going flat.

“There were only two fucking shops,” I replied. “A Boots and a Marks and Spencers.  I had to spend a couple of hours drinking coffee in a fucking McDonalds while she trawled the shops.  It was a nightmare.”

“What has that got to do with the treaty?”

“It has everything to do with the treaty.  I have had nightmares about Sprucefield ever since.

So I certainly never want to see Lisburn again.”