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I visited the Boot and Flogegr for the first time last night to meet my wife and a friend for a drink. It turned out to be the most terrible experience. When I walked into the bar area there were two women behind the bar. One (that I assumed for some reason to be the landlady) looked startled when she saw me and stopped me asking if she could help me. She was regarding me like I was some kind of vagrant! I should point out here that I was respectably dressed, I'm 46 and a professional in the classical music industry. Anyway - I told her I had just come for a drink and was then asked in a rather stuffy manner if I was meeting someone. I explained that I was meeting my wife at which point her eyes rolled skyward and she said "and you wife is who?" I thought it might be a trick question - she would have no reason to know my wife from the Queen of Holland but I politely told her my wifes name (not that is was any of her business) at which point I was informed there was no woman drinking alone in the bar and that my wife wasn't there. This was very confusing considering my wife had telphoned me just seconds before I arrived at the Boot and Flogger and told me she was sitting at the rear of the bar. I then saw my wife sitting, as she had informed me, at the rear of the bar with her friend, so I pointed them out to the unfriendly staff member who marched off to the other end of the bar without another word. The other woman behind the bar looked apologetic and embarassed and I couldn't help but ask why i had been treated to such a display. The second woman told me she was terribly sorry and that she had no idea why the other woman had treated me in such a way. The original barmaid then returned and asked in an even more unfriendly manner if I had a problem and when I tried to explain that her initial interrogation had been confusing, she let rip with a tirade telling me that she had never seen me before and therefore wanted to know who I was before letting me drink in 'her' bar (As it turned out she was not the owner/landlady but simply an employee). A male bar manager then appeared who was equally unfriendly and tried to tell me that the bar policy was to greet everyone who entered by saying "good evening". By this time I felt like I had accidentally slipped into a David Lynch movie. I tried to explain what had happened to the manager but the barmaid (who by this time was getting extremely aggitated) told me if I didn't like it I should leave and then told me that I 'had' to leave. I had no intention of staying anyway so I collected my wife and her friend at which point the bar manager came over and told us we didn't need to leave. We left anyway and went to another local bar in the Market area where the people were friendly and didn't feel the need to initiate a list of personal questions before allowing you to buy a glass of wine. A very unpleasant experience and as a local living in the Borough area I would recommend that you try any bar/pub in the area except this one. No evening should be soured by such behaviour.

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