Roll out the barrel

Pub 262. The Cooper's Arms, 3rd June 2014.

Ah this is more like it! Carpet, wood panels, properly upholstered furniture and no juke-box! Good stuff. No ale though, so the Guinness had to do.

Cue man at the bar who'd already mimed a toy boxing fight when I walked past him to enquire if I was Irish. He then didn't shut up for the next 10 minutes, repeating the same things over and over - his age, his daughters age, and something about my jacket. Oh - and "I'm joking!".

I got bored and went to sit down. So he picked on some lady say at the bar, and they had some heated argument about where he was born. He was annoying most folks by now and the land lady had to tell him to shut the F up. And another punter apologised to me for him! He was harmless really though, all good pub fun I suppose. And this is a good pub - if only they put an ale or two on. A cosy, friendly peaceful escape from the hustle-bustle of the Kilburn High Road

Also, I reckon it's the only pub in Camden where you can clearly see another pub from the gents' window.  A pub pub-toilet fact!

Ker-ching!

Pub 261. The Old Bell, 3rd June 2014.

It's a rainy afternoon in Kilburn, and the Old Bell is rammed. Rammed full of old men. Old men drinking lager or keg bitter, watching horse racing and laughing loudly. Just as a pub should be in the afternoon!

A pint of Courage was £2.10, yup. £2.10. Not sure if that was a special offer, but not bad eh? I don't know if I'd be tempted by the two meals for £7.45 though but no wonder the place was full. Mind you I didn't see many other people on the ale.

For one scary moment loud music started blaring out - but it just some tinkering being done on the roll done screen for the horse racing. Thankfully it was only a brief assault on the shell-likes, and then they went the whole hog by turning it off all together. No doubt much to the annoyance of the old chaps with their Racing Posts spread out in front of them.

No love lost

Pub 260. The Old Red Lion, 3rd June 2014

 

I remember when I lived round here that this was one of the roughest pubs in the area. Well, for "rough" read "untarted up", and as a fresh-faced 20-something never went in.

However I did go in during its later incarnation as The Westbury, but didn't like it much. Fancy sounding lager in big glasses, large chunky tables that look like they've come out of a castle kitchen with big chunky candles on which look like they've come out of a castle dungeon. Big low sofas and a general air of "we're so cool and hip and fancy but still a pub - we've got everything." but it wasn't really my cup of tea, and not most other people's either which is why it's something mysterious called "Love and Liquor". It was open when I was passing today, but it looked like a strip club. Turns out that it's a "Bar, club and party venue." which doesn't sound like my cup of anything.

Oh how I miss the Old Red Lion (one of the oldest pubs in Camden) - even though I never went. Use it or lose it.

Wood is half ful.

Pub 259. The Fulwood, 1st April 2014.

By the time you've managed to reach the bar in the Fulwood, you're certainly ready for a drink if you weren't before - it's a long walk. And sadly they've only got lagers when you've got there.
It also gives the two drunken suited buffoons a good run-up so one could walk into me with full force. The table of suited lads were a bit boorish as they tried to out-piss-take each other so I sat outside.

The passage it's on is quite pleasant. The two drunk blokes after visiting the toilet together gave their bottle of wine to a couple of girls and staggered off. I drank my lager as the evening warmth faded. And went home.

Taking a bung.

Pub 258, Davy's Bar & Grill. 1st April 2014.

Yikes! A wine bar?! But one apparently offering real ales. And it doesn't look to wine-bary so let's take a look. On asking for the ales, the very nice and smartly dressed wine-barman told me it was down stairs I was after. So down to the Bung Hole Cellar I went.

This is the door straight down to the cellars. Impressively plain for such a fancy place.

Anyways, once down stairs we find ourselves in what is for all intents and purposes a proper pub. Of the two ales on I went for the Davy's Wallop at £3.60 or £3.80, and it was very nice. I expect the Scotch egg at £5.95 would be very very nice!
The clientele were mainly gentlemen of certain on some kind of renuion or regular meet up downing the Wallop, and a load of young legal eagle go-getters, quaffing stuff in tall glasses from ice buckets.

I don't know why they don't give it a proper name though, or do they want to keep it sounding like a wine bar? Probably. But don't fear, it's not too bad.

Needs a polish.

Pub 257. Bar Polksi, 1st April 2014.

What makes a Polish Bar Polish? By calling it a Polish sounding name. Not a lot else seems very Polish in here, unless your average Pole likes drinking in a bland concrete box with metal furniture.
Mind you one of the three draft beers was Polish. But I'm sure the fridges and optics were bristling with Polish intoxicating goodies. And the menu did look very Polish to be fair.
At £4.60 for a pint of Meantime Pale Ale (I'm sure that was right - but it sounds unlikely now... or does it!?) I'm not sure how many jobbing builders would come here often, and that would probably account for why everyone that was in were young English professionals.

By George

Pub 256. The George, 10th March 2014.

Apologies for the Google picture, but as this is one of least photogenic pubs in Camden I don't think it matters much. I think the exterior tells you want sort of pub it's going to be.

Very modern, probably wanting to be more of a wine bar with that odd smell of cleaner hanging heavy in the air. The barmaid was nice and the Doom Bar was a snip at £3.60 - I think. But it tasted a bit funny. I drank it mind, but didn't stop for another. The array of worryingly large loud speakers on the wall didn't bode well for when it's busy.
The big opening windows and outside area at the front might be nice on a hot day, but there again I prefer to be inside a pub whatever the weather. I'm sure the local profs and suits like it here though.

Phil her up

Pub 255. Philomena's, 10th March 2014.

Not only is at a Irish Bar, but it's an Irish Bar & Kitchen! Double the craic. It used to be an O'Neils (then a "Cafe Bar") and before that The Sugar Loaf, which goes back to God knows when and just occupied the left hand bit. But enough of history - how about the present?

It's very nice. Quiet, nicely gloomy, and comfy & cosy with it. Their own eponymous brew was nice enough - £4 a pint though you would hope so. A few tourists were lapping up the genuine Irish charm tucked away at the back, and a few more more wiley drinkers were sat at the bar. All very nice for a Covent Garden I suppose. I even found a table for me next Valentine's Day!

Total Control

Pub 254. TCR Bar, 4th March 2014.

When I was a nipper TCR stood for Total Control Racing, which was a fancier Scalextric. I think it was fancier - I never had one. Anyways, now it stands for Tottenham Court Road. And this is the Tottenham Court Road Lounge Bar Restaurant. TCR Bar to its friends - which can't be many.

Hard to believe now there's been a pub here since 1775 - The New Inn which mysteriously went missingin 1941. When rebuilt in 1951 we got this building and it became Ye Olde Surgeon. Then The Pint Pot. Then The Bar at TCR. Now the TCR Bar. Follow that? I think I know which incarnation I would have preferred - damn Luftwaffe!!

Anyways, it's bland and soulless, but quiet none-the-less - music turned down and just at one end of the bar. Quiet apart from the few clientele that are in insist on speaking to each loudly in a Middle Eastern bark from opposite ends of the long room. The Doom Bar was £2.20 for a half - obviously targeting a higher income stream than my own, so I'll leave them to it, I can only afford a Scalextric.

The Northumberland Arms.

Pub 253. The Northumberland Arms, 3rd March 2014.

Gosh, I can't stand music in pubs. In a pub, on a weekday afternoon when there's only two middle-aged gentleman in, both of them ensconced in their papers, what is the need for very loud music? Nice music fair enough, but even so - who's it for??
I was in a pub on Friday night, one that is always very loud anyways, and this night was no different. While I was the bar the bar-maid saw fit to turn the music up even more - presumably it was a song she liked. Bar staff of a certain age can be like that. I involuntarily grimaced at the aural assault I was now getting which she saw. "Too loud for you?" she sarcastically enquired, "Yes" I replied. "You only have to ask to turn it down it you know..." she said back. As she was doing so a chap behind the bar nodded at her and mentioned something about the neighbours. After she came up to me and said "It is a Friday night you know... we've got to try to give it some semblance of a Friday." The place was packed. I gave her a "bollocks" look.
Anyways, back to the Northumberland.

As I ponderously ordered thus "Hmmm, I'll have a half of ... ummm...." the bar inserted an "ooh!" as if to say just a half. That's not happened for a while. Mind you at £2.10 for half the Wychwood's Dirty Tackle I don't think I could afford a pint.
 

There's not much more to add really. At one point the next song to come on was Scott Joplin's The Entertainer. Ooh I like this one! I thought. But then the 80s soft rock continued - it was just the barmaid's ring tone.

Brick in the wall

Pub no. 252. The Bricklayer's Arms. 6th February 2014.

Another pub that had been walked past many times but not entered as following on from earlier boundary confusion I didn't realise it was in Camden. Rather stupidly though on this occasion as it is clearly in Camden, and even has a sign (for Stephen Mews) saying 'Camden' on attached to it.
How silly of me.

Anyways, what you get is a bog-standard Sammy Smith's pub. At lunch time I had the place to myself, had some banter with the manager about the amount of food & drink people leave behind.
Then he left, and a hairy youth of a barman came in and his constant shuffling, rustling, dragging of stools, and bronchial coughing left the usual lovely Smiths peace & quiet in tatters. I did get a grunt when I left though.

But as it turns out, I have been here before. Now I know that we're in Camden here after-all, this could be the very first pub in the borough I came to - possibly taking the honour away from the previous claimant, but too be honest after all this time I really can't remember. It was one of them.
We'd been to visit Channel 5 on some work outing, and afterwards came (or were taken I seem to recall?) to the Channel 5 works pub. I remember being very excited on being told it was a television pub and all the top (Channel 5) telly people come here. "Cor! Exciting this London innit??" I thought to myself.

These days I'd rather have it to myself thanks.

Wheat from the chaff

Pub no. 251, The Wheatsheaf. 5th February 2014.

This pub almost never happened! Let me explain. I am fairly au fait with Fitzrovia, and had walked past this lovely Tudor-schmudor-boozer many times, but had been convinced by the City of Westminster street sign a couple of doors down that it was in Westminster and therefore irrelevant to me - and quite reasonably so I thought.
Then one day I was chatting to a good friend of mine Pickles, who's also familiar the area, but she was trying to tell me that the Wheatsheaf was in Camden. "Don't be silly!" said I. "Let's look at a map" said she. So that's what we did, and lo and behold she was right. It is in Camden, along with a not insignificant length of Rathbone Place. Cheeky Westminster!! LBC have been informed, as have the local press. So we agreed to go for lunch sometime, but I couldn't wait. It was raining. 

A lovely small quiet pub, Pride and Doombar the ok but unexciting offerings. Telly on - but joy of joy - NO JUKEBOX! Hoorah. I took my Doombar (£3.80) and ambled off to the back-room hoping for a quiet lunch time perusal of the Daily Telegraph.

But it wasn't to be. The otherwise relaxing tranquility was shattered by two young Australian ladies, or more accurately one as it was just one doing all the talking. Talking a: about bollocks, and b: with the ever-annoying raised inflection. "So I said let's TALK. WhatsApp or GMAIL. So I added him on WHATSAPP. And so he called AUSTRALIA. And sent me a teddy BEAR. To my DOOR! It was like the sweetest THING. The best surprise EVAAAHHHH. I'm not ashamed I dated ROB. But when I met Simon at Rob's parTEEY, I wasn't SURE. I just want the BEST for ROB, and I'm not sure that's SIMON. blah blah blah" All the time the other one was agreeing / disagreeing when appropriate / innappropriate, her sole contributions were how they should go to Fabric, and isn't the countryside lovely but there's nothing to do there. If vacuous twerps like this can't keep their inane twaddle to themselves they should by transported for life back to whence they came. The couple at the table right next to me were managing to converse in such a discrete polite manner I couldn't make out a single word they were saying. Listen and learn girls.