As I worked on my review of Dušan Šarotar’s Panorama, I gathered quotations and I gathered reflections, and did my best to marry the two, one supporting the other. It took me back to my school days, my university days too, the point where writing feels more like brickwork than creativity, but generally an exercise where with a bit of thought and sweat you can produce something reasonably sturdy. Read the rest of this entry »
The twentieth century pub is not just a public house, it is a public home. A home from home. An ideal home. A broken home. It is everything you could want from a home – a refuge, a retreat, a place to entertain, a place to be alone. A place that disappoints, that you grow out of, that you leave. It is somewhere you want to improve, somewhere you never want to change. It is an extension of our identity. A window into our likes, loves, weaknesses and strengths. It is who we are, for better, for worse, richer, poorer. A home.
This is a response to Boak and Bailey’s challenge/competition to write 100 words or so on the 20th century pub, which is also the subject of their latest book.
I sometimes wonder if the archetypal English country pub really exists. There are the country pubs turned gastropubs, country pubs turned children’s play centres with a pub attached, country pubs turned inwards for a select clientele and nobody else, country pubs turned into something else entirely.
I like bands that make music to watch drinks by. Drinking Music. I don’t even think you have to drink to it, but it has that kind of feel. And there are two kinds of Drinking Music. There is the music to wallow by. The music that transports you to a bar stool, nursing a whisky, wondering where it all went wrong. Then there is the other kind of Drinking Music. The kind that transports you to that place two drinks in where the worries of the world are fading and you start to feel like you can take on that same world and feel a little less alone within it too. Read the rest of this entry »
Saturday saw the second anniversary celebrations of Crayford’s micropub, The Penny Farthing. In two years the pub has gathered both awards and a band of loyal drinkers. It is all well deserved. The pub, based on the simple concept of serving well-kept beer in a pleasant environment, is a wonderful place to drink. They just get it when it comes to what makes going to the pub brilliant. Read the rest of this entry »
Wait until next year 