It’s a Thursday night, and I’m at the pub ordering a pint. Nine times out of ten I wilfully ignore the price, and thank the lord that contactless has removed those extra pin-typing seconds that enable me to second guess a purchase. I’m pleasantly surprised this time, however – £2.55 for a pint. It can only be Wetherspoons. That glorious place where cheap beer flows and students thrive. I’m half tempted to invite a friend after spending the previous hour in my local haunt paying £4.95 a pint, but tonight I’m not here to enjoy the ambience and quality beverages – I’m here to talk about carpets.
Kit Caless, the man I’m here to meet, is an author, journalist, co-founder of a small independent publisher, and most importantly, a patron of Wetherspoons. After being stranded in a Canterbury ‘spoons with a dead phone, a finished book and a missed train, Kit posed a simple question: is every Wetherspoons carpet different?
That question sent Kit on a crowdsourcing quest in the form of a viral blog, that turned into a book: Wetherspoons Carpets: An Appreciation.
I had always assumed that Wetherspoons carpets had foul patterns on them to distract from the layer of grime from drunk revellers, like the ugly patterns on train seats, but apparently if you scratch away the surface ye shall discover wondrous multi-coloured carpets, each one unique and filled with local history.
I’m not alone in my ignorance. “The head of PR didn’t even know they had unique carpets, and he’d been there 30 years,” Kit tells me. “It’s interesting that they’ve never spoken about it, I was the first person to start talking about their carpets.” It is interesting that a pub that issued pro-Brexit beer mats in the lead up to the EU referendum has never mentioned (until now) that their carpets that are made of wool, from Britain, are dyed with dye, from Britain, and are weaved, in Britain.
Having spent an inordinate amount of time in ‘spoons across the country, rubbing shoulders with local inhabitants, Kit gained an insight into the inner psyche of the country and correctly predicted something that baffled experts: Brexit. “I had a lot of conversations about it to people, it was about 50/50ish like it was more or less with the result. The people that wanted to leave
were just that little bit more vociferous about it, a little bit more passionate, it felt like they’re probably the ones that are going to turn up and vote.” Perhaps YouGov should look into holding exit polls at Wetherspoons at the next election?
It does seem as if Wetherspoons acts as a microcosm for the British public at large, attracting a multitude of people all united in their love for a sit down meal and a cheap pint. The multiculturalism and difference you see in the street is reflected in its customers, and in the short space of time we spend at the pub, the environment is constantly in flux as businessmen on laptops dining alone are replaced by couples on a date or families out for a meal.
“In Wetherspoons pubs you just get a cross section of the actual town and when you actually talk to the people you get more of an idea of what people live like in the area than you would if you went to a gastro pub,” Kit says. He even goes as far as to call ‘spoons an “egalitarian space,” a noble, potentially farfetched title for something as unassuming as a pub chain, but Kit genuinely loves ‘spoons and their carpets.
From a young age we’re taught that we should do something we love and never have to work a day in our lives, and that often feels true for arts and humanities students with unemployment prospects looming over our heads. Yet here Kit is, writing a book about a topic he loves and surviving in an industry even he admits is dying.
I ask him if he has any advice for fellow writers. “It’s a matter of patience, I think the big thing that puts people off is when they get rejections, they take it personally, and it’s not a personal thing at all,” he tells me. “As someone who’s edited as well, they’re just looking at the work. It’s fairly objective. My novel got rejected about 25 times, but each time it happens it hurts less.” Rejection is a part of life as a writer and a journalist, and lots of people drop out of the industry every day, but with maturity comes a thicker skin. Kit laughs and mentions that earlier that day, Wetherspoons had tweeted about his book and tagged him in it, at which point someone retweeted it saying ‘I wouldn’t buy that, fuck no’. “I thought it was quite funny, but if I was younger, I think I probably would have been a bit upset about it.”
Perseverance seems to be the dish of the day. Whilst the book only covers 70 'spoons across the country and details the local history of the pub building or area that inspired its carpet’s design, Kit visited over a hundred whilst researching the book. Dedication to the book meant eating breakfast, lunch and dinner in ‘spoons and even meant he put on weight.
Even more impressive is the fact that Kit wrote the 25,000-word book in just 6 weeks. He explains his approach to writing: “I’d say don’t fall into the trap of writing in the way that a lot of young people write, just about how they view the world. Try and interview and talk to lots of other people and get their opinions.”
Maybe next time you’re in 'spoons take a brief moment away from your Strongbow to admire the beauty of the carpet below your feet.
Wetherspoons Carpets: An Appreciation is published by Square Peg: £8.99.