> brass rail around the bar about 6 inches (150mm) from the ground
A posing rail! Oddly, it allows the body to adopt a more interesting position than upright or slouchy laziness, making one feel at ease, rather than be fumbling for a position to hold without looking suspicious. After all, there is no reason to stay at the bar once you have your drink. Unless you're ogling at the bar wench.
It could also have been installed at a strategic position, together with the hand-rail, to coincide with the position that old pennies settle after hitting the bar wall, thus hiding the dropped penny from the casual impatient search of the punter. The upper bar was placed to ensure a banging of the head while searching from the bar wall direction, and moving away from the bar loses one's place in a highly competitive environment*. So at closing time, this effectively puts the penny in the pocket of the proprietor.
*If your name is Big Bob, then your place at the bar is sacred, marked by the hole in the lino and the shiny patch of the upper bar rail where your belly has rubbed it shiny for the past 20 years. In that case, you'll also have your own stool which is polished to the shape of your bum - which, given your extended patronage, overlaps all the extents of its upper surface. Now there's a subject: ergonomics for the top 5 percentile of big bottoms...
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-11-23 11:21 pm (UTC)A posing rail! Oddly, it allows the body to adopt a more interesting position than upright or slouchy laziness, making one feel at ease, rather than be fumbling for a position to hold without looking suspicious. After all, there is no reason to stay at the bar once you have your drink. Unless you're ogling at the bar wench.
It could also have been installed at a strategic position, together with the hand-rail, to coincide with the position that old pennies settle after hitting the bar wall, thus hiding the dropped penny from the casual impatient search of the punter. The upper bar was placed to ensure a banging of the head while searching from the bar wall direction, and moving away from the bar loses one's place in a highly competitive environment*. So at closing time, this effectively puts the penny in the pocket of the proprietor.
*If your name is Big Bob, then your place at the bar is sacred, marked by the hole in the lino and the shiny patch of the upper bar rail where your belly has rubbed it shiny for the past 20 years. In that case, you'll also have your own stool which is polished to the shape of your bum - which, given your extended patronage, overlaps all the extents of its upper surface. Now there's a subject: ergonomics for the top 5 percentile of big bottoms...
...of course, none of this is true.