Some People Have All the Luck
This pub will be coining it in after the wedding.
The Shape of Things To Come
BBC London has just reported live from a party in Canning Town. Some may think that the royal wedding is a waste of space, but not the East End.
Roll on the Olympics!
A Dickensian Tavern
As I passed through Clerkenwell, I walked up Britton Street to the north of the famous meat market and had a drink in the Jerusalem Tavern. The tavern is owned by St. Peter’s Brewery and serves their gluten-free ale.
If you’ve seen any period dramas, based on the stories of authors like Charles Dickens, you’ll recognise the style of the pub. But of course it doesn’t have footpads and low-life of the period and is probably a lot more hygienic.
So any coeliac who likes their beer and visits London, should put this unique drinking establishment on their list of places to visit.
The Milk Has Gone Off
I don’t think it is the milk, as two cartons; one of goat and the other of cow have both turned in the night. Now I know that a carton of Waitrose goat’s milk usually lasts about two weeks, so being two days past its sell by date wouldn’t be the problem. But the date on the cow’s milk was the 25th December.
So it doesn’t to me seem to be the milk, but the fridge. As various shelves have been broken by the tenants and there are no instruction manuals, it seems this is another chapter in the cooker saga, but with a different piece of equipment.
But this is not so serious, as I have a reliable wine fridge, which is not full, so I can use that instead for the milk. That fridge is also by Baumatic, so it isn’t their products that are a problem.
Whilst I had my shower I got thinking about this. As an Innocent smoothie was also solid, it could be that the fridge was too cold and just froze it solid. But the fridge was on a low setting, so I suspect that it’s gone kaput! It’s a Siemens, but then so was the train home on Saturday.
An Objective in Life!
Last night, I was writing to a friend about the pubs near to my new house. I said the following.
My local is just four doors away, but it needs educating. All it serves is crap upside-down lager and chemical cider. But there are a few Adnams pubs within a few minutes walk. And most Adnams pubs serve the best cider in the world, Aspall, which has been crafted in Suffolk since 1728.
Perhaps my first objective in life is to celebrate their tri-centenary. I’ll only be 81!
I used to worry that because my father and his father died so young, that I might suffer the same fate. But now I’m more optimistic, especially as I’e found out that most of my grandfather’s brothers and my mother and both grandmothers, lived either well into their eighth decade or even into their ninth.
So perhaps, it’s an objective I stand a chance of fulfilling. I’m certainly going to give it a good shot!
The Masons Arms
This pub in Devonshire Street played a major part in my life in the 1970s.
The Masons Arms
It was just round the corner from the offices of Time Sharing Ltd., the company we were all associated with in the early 1970s, so often if you needed anyone they were drinking in the Masons, as it was always called. One of our staff, who later joined Metier, even developed a long-term relationship with the landlord, which still flourishes today.
But it’s not just me, that has pleasant memories of the pub One of my friends, who sadly died a few years ago, had a part-time job in the pub, whilst he worked for AEI. He claimed that someone from AEI New Zealand, the landlord of the Mason’s and himself, enjoyed themselves immensely on a spree in London. Now this was after AEI had been taken over by GEC and all expenses had to be approved by Arnold Weinstock‘s office. It was queried by asking who they had taken out for the evening. The reply was that it was the New Zealand High Commissioner. And to prove it he gave the office, the personal telephone number of the Commissioner. The expenses were paid.
Business is very different these days, but I’ll always remember the Masons Arms with fondness.
A Solution to Binge Drinking?
Nick Sheron is a doctor, who specialises in liver disease. So when he makes a proposal about how alcohol should be taxed, we should take notice.
Read what he says in the Daily Telegraph. As a control engineer by training, I like his solution which optimses the reduction of alcohol intake against the Government tax take.
Let’s hope the Government listens, as his proposal might cut problem drinking and help to save pubs with landlords who want to provide customers with good beer and cider and a relaxed atmosphere.
.
Designer Spirits from Suffolk
I suppose if you’re going to launch a new product in the midst of a recession, gin, vodka and whiskey might be a place to start.
But these are not cheap products, but top of the range ones from Adnams.
When I started drinking in the 1960s. the brewery from Southwold had only a dozen or so pubs. Now over forty years later, Adnams has cemented its place in drinking fokelore as probably the best pint in the civilised world. I just hope that in the next few years, they try to create the first gluten-free real ale. If anybody could do it, then they probably can, as they are a company that when it has an idea, does it in style with the best technology available.
Drinks at the Horse and Groom
I read yesterday in the East Anglian Daily Times, that the Horse and Groom pub in Melton is to be turned into three houses.
I’ve never drunk in the pub, but I suspect some of the locals will miss the hostelry.
I remember though a story about this pub that was told to me at a dinner party in the mid-1970’s.
One of the guests was involved in a project with the Borstal at Hollesley Bay, where on a Saturday or Sunday, they took a group of young offenders and got them to do up the homes of elderly pople in Ipswich. He told how after the work, he usually took them into the Horse and Groom, as it was a very quiet pub, to give them half of shandy or a soft drink, to show his appreciation, before returning the youngsters to the Borstal at seven. I have a feeling that the Govenor knew what he was doing, but I can’t be sure.
Anyway one night the landlord says that someone wanted to see him out the back of the pub. He was greeted by the local police Sergeant, who asked if he’d got lads from the Borstal with him. He said yes and the sergeant said that they’d been a complaint. The sergeant then asked what time, the boys would be leaving and the story-teller said they’d definitely be gone by seven. The sergeant then said they’d better be as they were raiding the pub just after the hour.
Of course the complaintent got their satisfaction that something was being done, but the quiet drinks were able to continue.
I just wonder where those kids ended up in life. Did treating them like real adult human beings help? I certainly hope so!
Blast! I Just Broke a Glass
I like to document all my clumsiness, so that I try harder! I was looking for something to drink and found a bottle of Green’s Premium Golden Ale. it’s not my favourite, but I try to like it. Perhaps these thoughts made my hand slip with the opener and the bottle fell over on the tumbler and broke it!
I must be more careful, next time!
The Anonymous Widower 