While Billy Joel approximately sung, ‘It’s five o’clock on a Friday and the regular crowd shuffles in’ this is not so for we have the joint to ourselves apart from the staff or as I once heard someone say of his daily pre-noon hotel visit, ‘The bloke what usually serves me, he’ll be there.’  The Port Admiral, perched on Black Diamond Corner—a quintessentially Port Adelaide location—was vacant.

However, contemporary punk music blasts throughout the barren bar. Formerly, I would’ve enjoyed this but not now as my Triple J days are increasingly done and we listen to Classic FM when driving. It keeps the pulse passive although I find it difficult to pronounce Shostakovich with any confidence. Too much sibilance. Rachmaninov, at least the way Scottish morning announcer Russell Torrance says it, is less knotty. I remember old school mate Davo pronouncing Chopin as choppin’. He was habitually phonetic.

Claire and I explore the pub up and downstairs: broad, inviting balcony, generous dining rooms, and even The Bottle Shop which is a bottle shop but also a snug chamber with every table home to happy folk. Squatting everywhere are bookshelves and I spy Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet; the story of two families sharing a sprawling old house in Perth: the deeply religious Lamb family, and the tempestuous, boozy Pickles clan. Gazing about, I reckon the Port Admiral’s the type of hotel protagonist Sam Pickles would frequent. Sam’s a ‘little truck driving bloke with no schooling’ who makes dreadful decisions but remains earthy and likable.

I love books in pubs and pubs in books.

At the top of the stairs there’s a scattering of games including Yahtzee. Claire confesses, ‘I’ve never played.’ I reply, ‘It’s a game with five dice.’ Claire adds, ‘I don’t like games of chance.’ I whimper, ‘Oh,’ glancing at the Connect Four box, thinking it might be more likely.

Mystery Pub’s singular purpose means I’m content there’s no wide screens showing footy or the Menangle trots or tachyon cricket from India. There’s also no TAB, meat trays or other distractions. Down the Port, there’s plenty of these, elsewhere.

The Port Admiral’s the rarest of pubs: just a pub. 

Claire conjures a Martini Espresso to celebrate the week’s wins and I survey the rows of taps before buying an XPA. It looks like Grandma’s pea soup or melted honey or both. However, I think it’s the first beer of the day from this keg and sipping some, it presents like Shaun Tait on a lively deck: problematically. It’s rarely worth being a beer pioneer.

And so, in this massive, sprawling, mostly empty old pub we squirel into a nook by the staircase. It’s cosy and secluded and reminds me of Jordan’s observation in The Great Gatsby, ‘And I like large parties. They’re so intimate.’ Two old chairs are separated by an occasional table. Beneath the stairs is a cram of firewood, which is merely ornamental.  

We speak of our afternoons, our weeks, tonight, and next month… There’s much to investigate. To enhance our empathy, we swap chairs after the first drink. We could be in a period drama set in Oxfordshire save for ridiculous bonnets and forbidden, urgent panting.

I then opt for a Two Bays Pale Ale from Mornington Peninsula while Claire returns with the hitherto unheard of Piquepoul. I learn it’s similar to Riesling and grown in Rhone and Catalonia and the Barossa by Lienerts. Meanwhile the front bar punk explosion continues for an absent demographic. We hear no Billy Joel or Shostakovich.