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While I was in Boston this week I couldn't resist paying a visit to the Cheers bar. The pub is really called the Bull & Finch but it trades unabashedly on its association with the famous TV show. In reality, only the outside of the pub appeared on the TV show so it was strange descending the steps and finding an unexpected layout inside. The bar area is quite small, with rather more space allocated to dining. The Heinz tomato sauce bottles on the tables seemed a bit out of place. Then there was the inevitable signpost to the souvenir shop round the back, where one could buy everything from t-shirts to mugs. I made my selection at the shop counter and then spied a vacant stool at the bar where I sat and ordered a glass of Boston's best known beer.
It was 5pm on Sunday afternoon and the place was busy although by no means packed. A couple of TV screens behind the bar showed a baseball game. Somehow it seemed that it would only only be a matter of time before Sam Malone, Coach, Norm, Cliff, Diane or Carla would walk in. In my mind I began to play the theme music about the place "where everybody knows your name."
Except, of course, that nobody did know my name. Or, at least, I didn't think so. I smiled as I considered an elaborate practical joke involving a hapless English tourist being allowed to sit for a while in apparent isolation before the whole room suddenly burst round and addressed him by name like a long lost friend.
"Hey, great to see you here Nick!"
"Er, who the hell are you?"
Then I thought, if I were a movie star or a TV celebrity then it would be like that all the time - in every bar I ever visited. Total strangers would know my name and I wouldn't have a clue about theirs.
What an awful thought! I would not like that at all. The bar where everybody knows your name was a nice idea, but somehow anonymity seemed a whole lot safer.
I quietly drained the remnants of my Samuel Adams and left.
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