But I loved Nick, so I watched him play a lot of chess, gleefully talking too much while he and his opponent tried to think. I hate chess, because it requires a strategy and planning is alien to me. Nick, my boyfriend during my first year at uni, was a pool shark, but he was like that with all games, especially chess. I was a hazard dancing around the pool table, and no-one is worse at playing pool than me. I would be hearing When Doves Cry, Sweet Child of Mine, Desmond Dekker crooning about the Israelites, George McCrae and Destiny’s Child before I went home to my toddler. Joe the barman could see me and my wretched song choices coming so he would jam up the jukebox with coins and his music in advance, but I was in it for the long haul. I’m not really into the Dunedin Sound, I’m into Al Green. Being in charge of the playlist in any social situation used to matter a lot to me. Not for the bands, I was there for the jukebox. I used to go to The Crown quite a bit in my twenties.

Rattray St is a crumbling beautiful ruin, but The Crown seems eternal.

The Empire closed and tried to reopen briefly later but the wairua was gone. I was avoiding Norma, who knew I was underage. Six years later, during the last glorious days of The Empire pub and before the drinking age was lowered, I would move up and down between the Bavarian Bar and the bottom bar, which had Suspicious Minds on the jukebox. Talia MarshallThere used to be a lot of night life on Rattray St, I snuck into the Tai Pei nightclub when I was 13 during the street’s long inelegant decline.

Billiards near me