Baseball Bat out of Hell

So we brought the rock to Croydon. A punishing, three-hour slog through the sprawling, abstract concrete nightmare of London and we found ourselves hunkered down in The Harp Rock Bar. Once an estate pub, in the shadow of the surrounding flats. Now a den of noise and hair, a red brick temple for the acolytes of metal.
Undaunted by the handicap of not being a metal band we took to the stage and hammered through a brutal set, held up only by cigarettes and cheap curry. The small audience cheered. The landlord roared approval from inside his wire mesh soundbooth, beating on the cage with a baseball bat in time to the thundering drums.
Extreme noise too from gig-organisers Blue Rat and the headliners, Flowers of Flesh and Blood - a DC hardcore punk sound fronted by a dreadlocked Rollins figure and powered by ferocious, machine gun metal drumming.
All in all then, a winner and worth staggerimng through the door for at 3am.
One question though: why was it that when I asked the bloke in South Mimms if I could pay for "pump six" did he start rummaging around to try and find me a packet of condoms? That's fucked up, surely?