I saw this story on the BBC website. Everything about it is pathetic, but… well, wait and see.
It starts off with the title. This is the kind of classy headline you’d get in The Sun, not the BBC: Rat in Trowbridge pub ‘ran up man’s leg and stole chip’. Of course, just in case this doesn’t paint the picture clearly enough, the Beeb has provided a helpful picture, depicting:
- a pub
- a rat
- some chips
Reece Coombs, the hapless victim in all this, claims the rat was “sewer sized” – so large, in fact, that when it made the alleged contact, poor Mr Coombs reckoned it felt like he’d been “kicked”. He doesn’t mention anything about being left unconscious or requiring emergency surgery or anything, so we must assume that the rat confined itself just to delivering a good kicking.
Wetherspoon, the pub’s operators, evacuated the place immediately and called in pest control. They refunded Mr Coombs (and all the other guests, I would imagine). Naturally, they apologised explaining that fly-tipping in an alley next to the pub may have been responsible. Certainly, I do not live under the impression that Wetherpoon either encourages or subsequently ignores rats on its premises. But this isn’t enough for Reece Coombs. Oh dear me no. He hasn’t had his full 15 minutes of fame yet (evidenced by the standard selfie-style photo of him in the article), and is apparently “still not happy”. He plans to take the matter further.
I wonder where else there is to go with it. The European Court of Human Rights? Amnesty International? Rentokil?
If it was me, it would be over and done with by now. I wouldn’t be craving attention over it, and I probably just wouldn’t go back to the pub involved for a while. I mean, there are other pubs.