#more pubs

[ashmarie1687]

Milroy's Of Spitalfields - More London

Sam’s friend Dramble_on aka Fraser Campbell was tagged in a pic so this was a little easier lol.

**Edit to say it’s actually Milroy’s of Soho, right around the corner from Dog and Duck.**

[wittypenguin]

Friday October 24th - London to Vancouver (Day XI-XII)

Early early early leaving. Alarm at 5:45… ow. One had only barely got used to the time zone and now I’m up at an un-godly hour? Brrrrrgggggg…

Dress, shove the last things in the cases, descend to lobby and do the “rapid check-out” by tossing my key and form in a slot in the front desk, and I’m out the door to locate a taxi… which immediately presents itself. Huzzah!

On the way to Paddington Station [not the one on the left, that’s St. Pancras], we discuss the much over-discussed Economic Situation and the need to stick it out. He’s been driving a taxi for 24 years, and worked through the last recession; now he’s married 16 years and is continuing to continue as before, with the benefit of experience to show the way again. This ought to be good, and the thought in one’s mind is that perhaps it’ll be of assistance to one’s own business is tenuously accepted.

We agree that it’s best to try not to obsess about the whole matter, while still being well-informed about the events at the same time. A difficult, yet important balance. I tip £5 on a £10 fare, telling him to “weather it well”. He seems to be a sound feller.

Train, terminal, check-in (with security confirming I’m not some other guy yet again), locate æroport gate which isn’t open… ‘daft buggers!’, think I; and so I sit on a six-inch-deep ledge covered in some sort of fine plaster dust, and listen to the tiny lap-top with noise-cancelling headphones eliminating the hum of the “Air Conditioning System” and some bizarre drilling being done somewhere which is altogether inconvenient. All but a remaining 15% of those both are gone when the switch is “on”. The women prattling to my right about sweet nothing at all, however, comes through loud and clear. Damn.

The return flight comes complete with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (aka: “Indy IV”; a daft, un-necessary corollary to tie-up some loose ends which didn’t need fretting over in the first place, and along the way provide more trivial inside references than any film warrants at the best of times, but ultimately benign with solid production values and editing), the meals are okay, and there is turbulence over Greenland as seems to be usual.

I am tired, so very tired.

One suspects that this was the correct time to have left, albeit with un-resolved questions regarding others’ degree of dedication and timely effort regarding various matters left in their hands. Having not actually checked e-mail before leaving Heathrow, it’s quite possible there’s more encouragement to be had than appears just now. One hopes so. Have those individual boxes left yet to various people who’ve paid for their books months ago? Have a couple of boxes left headed my way? Do we have a rough inventory of stock on hand at the moment? What of… oh, a gazillion things, really…

While it’s tempting to conclude the whole thing as a corporation and rinse ourselves of so many heavy debts – to say nothing of the fact the President & C.E.O. (Acting) doesn’t live on the right continent – the effort to wrap-up a company in the UK is an insane amount of paperwork and shit, so we’re stuck with this structure, it would seem. Lord knows how we’re going to sort that, though. Damn it, we need to sell a shit-load of books and then pay bills… and then sort some way to make some decent money to get the next lot printed… and so on.

Grumble…

Need sleep.

So, in conclusion:

Once again I leave the UK with the sense that the place is crawling with things almost the way they ought to be done, to wit:

pubs are plentiful and convenient

people are able to speak to complete strangers without being thought about to begin proselytise for Dianetics or something

art and culture are considered ‘parts of life’ and not “something them fucking book-worms’ do ’cause they’re not real peoples”

traffic is grudgingly accommodated, but walking about in areas un-trammelled by motor-vehicles is far easier than one might think

mass transit is seen as a requirement

buildings which aren’t fresher than yesterday’s milk aren’t immediately ripped-up and replaced with big ugly blocks of concrete (well, mostly)

Essentially, things there are as I wish them to be.

Well, except for the bits that cost money. That’s a pity, but ubiquitous the world-over, damn and blast.

Too Bloody Early; Terminal 3, Heathrow, England

  Friday October 24th – London to Vancouver (Day XI-XII) was originally published on I.A.M. Musing About…

[wittypenguin]

Sunday October 19th - London (Day VI)

I arise around 10, probably. The head is still full of a bit of pooh, so the rest is good. Granted, today will probably set that health back a bit from being fully realised, but who cares?

Leaving the hotel on my way to breakfast and Wi-Fi, the pretty young African girl at reception brightens at my passing and greets me. “You’re not wearing your hat” she says, having obviously been on the desk yesterday afternoon when I wandered in under a red fez. This is what happens when you stay more than a week and don’t set fire to your room or engage in a drunken brawl: they remember you because of your anachronistic headgear.

Crossing Great Percy Street, I see two men eating chicken and each sucking heartily on large tins of Foster’s Lager. On the pavement. The boxes of chicken are sitting on the top of a metal dispenser, or rubbish tin ,or something. Right next to the road. Wow. Upon my return, the men have gone and the empty Foster’s tin has been joined by an empty bottle of Tesco’s Scotch Whisky, so they are clearly men of selective and discerning tastes. Thank goodness they chose to share this display of hearty Lord’s Day Buffet with the public, so that the rumours of London’s citizens being able to carry-off any sort of behaviour and get away with it are continued.

Granted, this isn’t Mayfair or Knightsbridge, so what does one expect?

Caffé Nero has Diana Krall (Nanaimo’s Greatest Export) singing away about nobody wanting you when you’re down and out; how nice it is to hear a voice from home. However the staff recognised and greeted me me as a local – I think – or at least as someone other than just an anonymous bloke looking for coffee. How nice to be treated as belonging somewhere 1/3 around the world from my home. I could live here. Perhaps I am already doing so, in a way, but only for a short time?

After e-mail inviting me out for an afternoon, it’s back to the hotel to then meet up at King’s Cross [intersection, above] for a wander to the new King’s Place Arts Centre where we have cups of tea, browse some newspapers and see one of the many canals which make London accessible by barge. Mostly this is used for transport of things such as heavy transport goods now, but in the past has been used for bringing in ice and other supplies for use in The City; as well as people on barges taking a holiday or simply living and working on the canals of England, which they still do. More information on this ‘hidden gem of London and Greater Britain’ is available through the good people at the London Canal Museum.

Then it’s off to a find one of the famed London Black Cabs where an address is given to the driver who responds it with something akin to ‘where the hell’s that, then?’ After being chided for having done The Knowledge, help is offered him from one of his passengers sitting in one of the ‘jump seats’ behind him, and enquiry is made of another passenger as to what our destination is. “We’re going to The Pineapple!” I stare blankly at him, having no idea what he’s talking about. “It’s a pub.” I absorb this information: Pineapple, public house. Visions of people with massive arrangements of fruit on their heads serving drinks fill my mind, only to be replaced with images of people pulling pints into hallowed-out pineapple shells, or possibly fermented pineapple-juice.

It is as this precise moment that I internally shrug and resign myself to the understanding  that I am no way in control of the rest of the day’s destiny, and accept that anything can – and probably will – happen.

The Pineapple (51 Leverton Street, Kentish Town, NW5 2NX) is a wonderful place to spend the afternoon in a massive chin-wag. Pints are inevitably involved. These are two of The Three Good Things in London (cf. 1066 and All That, Messrs. Sellar & Yateman [Methuen, 1998 re-print – ISBN-10: 0-413-77270-5; ISBN-13: 978-0-413-77270-1]), the third being currently discussed by a large committee struck to determine what it may be (word is that the third century of debate went rather well, but the fourth seems to be a bit distracted with discussing the introduction of motor carriages and ‘them dashed, pesky Labourites’).

I got the first round as we came in the door, we settled in ‘the snug’ with newspapers many… and then things got away from me as people came and went over a number of hours. At one point we had the day’s theme snack as it was “Sausage Sunday!”, which wasn’t bad to be honest. However, I’ve no idea who paid for my actual lunch of a Chicken Satay Wrap, which was also delightful. Rounds came and were consumed throughout, and again they appeared without my involvement… many people are owed pints by me… if only one could remember their names…

The lane behind the pub was visited, “because Ian wants to take a photo of it.” I did…? One doesn’t recall saying this, but upon arriving in it, the charm of it was immediately evident, and photos were taken [there’s one on the left, for instance]. A heaven of cobblestones, it harkened to a time of earlier days when the area was very working class and filled with a mixture of industrial filth and equally filthy people. These days the filth and the industry are gone, but the buildings – to an extent – remain, most of them having had ‘all mod cons’ rammed up their backsides and walls and floors moved around to accommodate the massive collection of stuff which the typical ‘civilised person’ scatters about their nest.

Time continued inexorably onward, we retired to the Solarium in the pub’s rear for a bit, then… Eventually we left and headed back to King’s Cross, on the way having a race on London Transport with one of our number taking the Overland Railway whilst the other two took the Underground. I’ve no idea the time at this point, nor if dinner was had, but I doubt it. I do recall coming back to the room to read The Independent on Sunday‘s “Forgotten Authors” column and a piece about the new film W, all about the soon-to-be-ex-President.

And I watch more Blake’s 7. God, it’s slow to get going… the only suspense in it seems to be the question ‘will there be tension anytime?’

  Sunday October 19th – London (Day VI) was originally published on I.A.M. Musing About…