Your Local Pub

This is God's Own Pub. Cheap as chips, proper beer, as old as the hills, full of marginal types but cool because Cath the landlady rules with a rod of iron. On days when there's trouble int' air she locks the front door and vets everybody when they knock on. A somewhat Cavalier attitude to license restrictions as they apply to opening times. To say the least. Darts, Bar Billiard, Pool and Pinball. I love this pub.

Settle Inn is probably even more All Bar One-ish that the Duke O'York because they do proper food - not Thai Muck.

I have started going to one on the Mount quite regularly and it's very good indeed, a standard working pub that sells damn good beer, and good food.

I think N. is being unduly harsh about this pub. I was in there for just over an hour on Saturday night and I quite liked it....Bombadier on tap, friendly staff and nicely subdued lighting. The Stoke Tup name is a terrible pun, but the chain doesn't seem nearly as awful a brand as many I could mention....the Latin enscription on the lit up fag machine sign could even be described as cerebral. It began Oves optima (Best sheep? Top sheep?) Can't remember the other two or three words as I don't even possess schoolboy Latin.

However, as soon as I actually move to Highgate, it becomes a flipping 'juke joint' with hipsters lining the walls and checking out each other's boxing boots and asymmetric haircuts. Bah. Although Shane Macgowan hangs out there for days sometimes.

Also - they have bloody live bloody country bloody music on Sunday nights, when I'm trying to get to sleep to remove the badness of the weekend's drinking in order to make a half-presentable appearance at work on Monday morning. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THOSE METROSEXUAL BASTARDS?

The Marlborough is also Enrique's local but he doesn't go out of the house ever.

Also, they have a picture of Art Garfunkel behind the bar.

Just up the road is the Crown, which has two big screens showing football. It's a bit shabby, but basically pretty ILE-friendly, and indeed has been the venue of two accidental SE London FAPs in my time. The fancyapint link is talking nonsense, as there are three pubs and three bars on that road alone andd a further two round the corner. Also, the picture was clearly taken in 1985, as it looks nothing like that any more.

I still go to the Dacre Arms at least twice a week though. It is marvellous and warm and friendly and has a proper pub landlord like off the telly and two dogs and the same six old men sitting in the same place all the time.

Also within mere yards are The Freemasons (slogan: 'it's not what you think it's where you drink' arrgh fuck off), The Farm, the Biscuit Factory, The Coopers Cask ,and the cavernously awful Providence (prev. Litten Tree, prev. Bar Med). Astonishingly, I have never been to ANY of these. I prefer to return to my old locale where I can get Harveys and pool in the inexplicably Aussie-themed Cobblers Thumb (plus lethal Old Rosie cider arrr) or the teeny tiny Rose Hill.

whatever happened to the craic we hear so much about???

Also I suspect with very few clubs open I've gotten used to going out where I can walk home as opposed to taking a 40 minute bus journey, so lazy.

It may have chanbed since, but I doubt I'll go back anyway.

there are countless pubs near my house (i live between upper street and essex road), but i hardly go to any of them at all. probably most recently i went into the jorene celeste.

i am, clearly, not using the resources of my locale to the fullest advantage.

"Do you like hospital food?"

That one cracks the pub up usually as the moron wonders what to say and then BAM you smack him in the face with an ashtray eh? You know what I'm saying? It's a proper working class pub right?

the Hobgoblin is the building on the left of both pix altho i think in the old pic it was called "George Canning's Pub"

i also have a swish bar near me w/no name on the front but which the proprietor assures me is called "Mango Landin'" - it's on Brixton Water Lane about the same distance away as the Hobgoblin but in the other direction

The nearest real pub is the Three Wheatsheafs, but there's always boys racers with their tracky bottoms legs rolled up hanging around outside, so I'm scared to go near it.