Seven Welsh priests walk into a bar, get mistaken for stag party

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Seven Roman Catholic priests were refused service in a Welsh pub after staff mistook them for a stag party in fancy dress.

 

After realizing a mistake had been made, Cardiff's City Arms offered the clergymen a round of free drinks to apologize, the Archdiocese of Cardiff said in a blog post on Tuesday.

 

Arriving at the pub on Saturday to celebrate the ordination of Father Peter McLaren, the priests were told by a bartender that the City Arms did not serve large groups in fancy dress.

 

The archdiocese said they had started to leave when another staff member said he believed they were real priests and invited them back in for a free drink.

 

"We'd like to thank The City Arms for being good sports through all of this and their kind gesture to our seminarians," the blog post said.

 

It said the priests had initially thought the bartender was joking when he mistook them for a stag party, an all-male bash held for men who are getting married and which in Britain often involves dressing up and consuming copious amounts of alcohol.

 

An assistant manager of the pub told the BBC that it was the policy of the pub to turn away large parties wearing fancy dress as there had been a number of issues with such revelers.

 

"A slight misunderstanding from us but everyone was happy in the end," the pub said on Twitter.

 

(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by Catherine Evans)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-08-02

I would have thought seven Roman Catholic priests could quite probably out-drink a stag party, so that might have been reason enough to stop them from starting. Seven Methodists obviously would be a different story, though highly unlikely to find them in a pub in the first place.

Seven Welsh priests walk into a bar, get mistaken for a stag party.

That sounds like the opening line of a dirty joke instead of a real-life misunderstanding.

But everybody kept their cool.

All's well that ends well.

Heigh-ho!

Kept waiting for the punchline: "Seven Welsh priests walk into a bar..." 

27 minutes ago, USNret said:

Kept waiting for the punchline: "Seven Welsh priests walk into a bar..." 

You're thinking of a Scottish rhyme:

 

Four and twenty virgins

Came down from Inverness.

When the ball was over,

There were four and twenty less.

7 minutes ago, blazes said:

You're thinking of a Scottish rhyme:

 

Four and twenty virgins

Came down from Inverness.

When the ball was over,

There were four and twenty less.

That's a rugby song, which, I imagine, the good people of Cardiff are not unfamiliar with.

Seven customers in fancy dress are refused service and asked to leave a pub. That in itself is downright quizzical. So, UK drunks often don fancy dress to go out and get soused; how quaint.

Clearly they did not obey the dress code.

 

They should not have shaved for at least a few days and certainly not showered that day, gone down to the charity shop and bought some really shoddy jeans, then up to another store for a hoodie and a teeshirt and over to another store for some trainers. They would have then fitted in perfectly.

Yep gotta be careful them might be looking for Altar Boys  (:

Did ja ear the one aboot....

There was a young bard from Japan,

who wrote verses that no one could scan

when told it was so

he replied "Yes I know" 

" but I always try and get as many words on the last line as I possibly can"

Seven Priests walk into a bar..........You would think one of them would have seen it............

19 hours ago, smotherb said:

Seven customers in fancy dress are refused service and asked to leave a pub. That in itself is downright quizzical. So, UK drunks often don fancy dress to go out and get soused; how quaint.

Yes they do, & some of the men wear suspenders.

Just plain daft.

2 hours ago, faraday said:

Yes they do, & some of the men wear suspenders.

Just plain daft.

When I first went to the UK in the late '60's the pubs had drastically limited hours of operation--no  mornings, no late night-early mornings, and had to close for a couple of hours in the afternoons. I asked why and was confronted with mostly dumb looks. One man finally suggested the authorities thought the Brits couldn't handle more pub hours--too many drunks.  

2 hours ago, smotherb said:

When I first went to the UK in the late '60's the pubs had drastically limited hours of operation--no  mornings, no late night-early mornings, and had to close for a couple of hours in the afternoons. I asked why and was confronted with mostly dumb looks. One man finally suggested the authorities thought the Brits couldn't handle more pub hours--too many drunks.  

Licensing laws were brought into effect in 1914 at the beginning of the first world war in the Defence of The realm Act...

No, I do not remember it....

4 hours ago, AhFarangJa said:

Licensing laws were brought into effect in 1914 at the beginning of the first world war in the Defence of The realm Act...

No, I do not remember it....

Well, yes, it was a law; but why?

On ‎8‎/‎2‎/‎2017 at 11:55 AM, smotherb said:

Seven customers in fancy dress are refused service and asked to leave a pub. That in itself is downright quizzical. So, UK drunks often don fancy dress to go out and get soused; how quaint.

Not UK Wales........I worked in Wales a few years back....Haverford West - every week-end whole groups of Spidermen. Batmans, Witches, fairies, Robin Hoods, Vampires etc etc  it went on and on....They came from surrounding towns like Fishguard, Pembroke, Millford Haven and free busses were laid on from the these outlying towns and took them back at midnight before they all turned in to Pumpkins......"Whose coat is this jacket boyo?"........

52 minutes ago, lonewolf99 said:

Not UK Wales........I worked in Wales a few years back....Haverford West - every week-end whole groups of Spidermen. Batmans, Witches, fairies, Robin Hoods, Vampires etc etc  it went on and on....They came from surrounding towns like Fishguard, Pembroke, Millford Haven and free busses were laid on from the these outlying towns and took them back at midnight before they all turned in to Pumpkins......"Whose coat is this jacket boyo?"........

That's a very informative post, and goes a long way toward explaining what caused this incident.

4 hours ago, lonewolf99 said:

Not UK Wales........I worked in Wales a few years back....Haverford West - every week-end whole groups of Spidermen. Batmans, Witches, fairies, Robin Hoods, Vampires etc etc  it went on and on....They came from surrounding towns like Fishguard, Pembroke, Millford Haven and free busses were laid on from the these outlying towns and took them back at midnight before they all turned in to Pumpkins......"Whose coat is this jacket boyo?"........

Jesus, they really must need a drink.

Must have been a Gay bar.

14 hours ago, smotherb said:

Well, yes, it was a law; but why?

I think, this was the reason......

The Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) was passed in the United Kingdom on 8 August 1914, four days after it entered World War I. It gave the government wide-ranging powers during the war period, such as the power to requisitionbuildings or land needed for the war effort, or to make regulations creating criminal offences.

DORA ushered in a variety of authoritarian social control mechanisms, such as censorship:

"No person shall by word of mouth or in writing spread reports likely to cause disaffection or alarm among any of His Majesty's forces or among the civilian population"^[1]

Anti-war activists, including Willie Gallacher, John William Muir, and Bertrand Russell, were sent to prison.

The trivial peacetime activities no longer permitted included flying kites, starting bonfires, buying binoculars, feeding wild animals bread, discussing naval and military matters or buying alcohol on public transport. Alcoholic beverages were watered down and pub opening times were restricted to noon–3pm and 6:30pm–9:30pm (the requirement for an afternoon gap in permitted hours lasted in England until the Licensing Act 1988 was brought into force). 

The irony is one hour later 7 tarts walked in and were mistaken for nuns.

14 hours ago, smotherb said:

Well, yes, it was a law; but why?

Jeremy Paxman did a program about Passchendaele this week, and he said the new pub laws were put in place to prevent drunkeness and so more people could help with the war effort.

1 hour ago, AhFarangJa said:

I think, this was the reason......

The Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) was passed in the United Kingdom on 8 August 1914, four days after it entered World War I. It gave the government wide-ranging powers during the war period, such as the power to requisitionbuildings or land needed for the war effort, or to make regulations creating criminal offences.

DORA ushered in a variety of authoritarian social control mechanisms, such as censorship:

"No person shall by word of mouth or in writing spread reports likely to cause disaffection or alarm among any of His Majesty's forces or among the civilian population"^[1]

Anti-war activists, including Willie Gallacher, John William Muir, and Bertrand Russell, were sent to prison.

The trivial peacetime activities no longer permitted included flying kites, starting bonfires, buying binoculars, feeding wild animals bread, discussing naval and military matters or buying alcohol on public transport. Alcoholic beverages were watered down and pub opening times were restricted to noon–3pm and 6:30pm–9:30pm (the requirement for an afternoon gap in permitted hours lasted in England until the Licensing Act 1988 was brought into force). 

Alright, so it was law enacted in 1914 to protect national security during WWI; but it lasted unit 1988.

Hmm, seems very similar to what I received as answer in 2012 from a Brit as to why Brit sausages and burgers contained quite a bit meal with the meat. He said that during the war meat was rationed—I pointed out the war was over almost 70 years; he couldn’t see my point.

I think the answer I got back in the sixties must be right.    

1 hour ago, vogie said:

Jeremy Paxman did a program about Passchendaele this week, and he said the new pub laws were put in place to prevent drunkeness and so more people could help with the war effort.

Yeah, sounds like the answer I got in the '60s.

I can remember coming back to UK for a two week break from Germany early 70's where you could get a beer anytime and asking someone why all the pubs were shut on a hot sunny afternoon. They looked at me as though I had horns.

Jeremy Paxman did a program about Passchendaele this week, and he said the new pub laws were put in place to prevent drunkeness and so more people could help with the war effort.

Yes. The armaments factories paid well, to attract workers - labour was scarce with so many men in the army. The trouble was the well paid workers liked to go boozing, and with labour shortages unlikely to be sacked for absenteeism. Solution - curtail the pub opening hours.