War Stories: Nor any drop to drink

Thursday afternoon, and someone has decided that the thing to do - right now - is dig a big hole in the floor beside the main bar. What's more, they've decided that once you've started going down there's only one way to go, and cut a water main in the process.

So, while four workmen and five bar staff try to stop the main floor flooding with mops, cardboard boxes and towels, one lucky guy gets to turn off the water supply to the building. Thing is, when you turn of the mains water supply, the sprinkler system sets off the fire alarm. Because the fire alarm has gone off - and this is not, funnily enough, a drill - we have to evacuate the building and wait for the fire brigade to arrive and check the building.

It all goes rather well, all things considered. The fire brigade have a look around, and they're pretty happy that nothing's on fire. So we start letting customers back in to the upstairs bar which is at least dry. On the downside, we still have one bar under an inch of water and no running water anywhere. All of this means we have no draught beers or mixer, and sooner or later the ice machines are going to start complaining. Because the water is off and the sprinkler system has triggered the fire alarm, the gas has shut off automatically and we have no food available, and a table of 25 booked in right about now.

Two and a half hours of bailing water later, we get the bar dry, the pipes fixed, the water back on and we reopen the main bar. Five hours after it all started, we've done four days work and we've still got a hole in the floor.

Spectacular.