Wild Samhuinn In A Northern Sea Of Flickering Pumpkins

Mild Swimming 
Immersing oneself in new pools or other water courses is part of an urban adventure designed to be somewhat exhilarating but not as outlandish or unrealisable as an advertisement of the same theme might suggest. A reasonable lack of concern over being an unofficial member of the misadventure club is an essential part of the freedom of the individual. Going into public spaces wholly unfamiliar, excepting for the extant erudition and information of an Ordnance Survey map or Google Earth, can be frightening and exhilarating as long as you remember to remain aware of the possibilities of undercurrents, objets d'art and real sodden paraphernalia that may obstruct one's freestyle experience. Watering holes can have hidden depths, so modest excitement can be gleaned from fathoming out just how many monkey wrenches might emerge to menacingly grip one's nuts and prompt one to bolt for the fire exit aflame with fear and smokey trauma.
Moon-bathing is a romantic ideal, so midday sun-dipping is usually recommended for urban mild swimming in worlds where happiness can be all too virtual but anxiety and nervousness can be all too real. So, despite the effects of a spectacularly classic modern summer's day wherein cat's and dog's tongues hang out like eager, flesh coloured washing, one can seek the cooling shade of a classic and/or modern watering hole, the likes of which may not have been fully discovered, except by its regular mappers. In the modern British summers, it might merely be a desire to whet one's whistle to avoid getting one's whistle wet in a sudden, BBC-strength squall that has rain spitting through the winds at the earth at a belligerent forty-five degree angle. 

 

CASTLE & ANCHOR, 2 Church Road, Stockton-on-Tees.
A modestly sized establishment on a very busy corner where you can see important veins pumping on the roads of downtown Stockton. The furniture has been rearranged and there's still a feel of recent caulking intended to keep the place afloat in a sea of competitive modernisation. The internal views are enhanced by TVs displaying aspects of the world of sport, possibly to deflect from seeing the church across the road and any consequent contemplation of something more than sporting good and bad fortune. Archived and resolved contests of the beautiful game and current cards from the sport of Kings, Queens and still hopeful sections of the various British classes can be seen from every vantage point throughout the pub.
The upgrade of the husk means the regular, common folk can continue their conversations from the past about the new, technological miasma of plasma that shows the outside from a very well established inside. The pub also has a steady rhythm of humdrum popular music, which creates an ambivalent vibe. The prices are very reasonable in the current climate, and the staff are easily pleasant to all and sundry. This place is a solid house of commonplace affability in a Stockton currently in the eye of a storm of redevelopment.

THE ROYAL OAK, 20 High Street, Stockton-on-Tees. Just beyond the aforementioned Church Road in the heart of Stockton town.
The previous theme of necessary rejuvenation is evident in this pub, upgrading having taken place from its former historical, somewhat vibrant character. The bar is bigger than most and has two guest ale pumps amongst a plethora of popular, everyday beers, lagers and ciders. The furniture is still very comfortable, combining old wood and more modern surfaces very well. This pub, again, has a notable number of TVs dotted around the dark wooden walls, and plays popular but not pop music at a level where you can still talk and listen to the exchanges of clearly frequent clientele. The atmosphere retains a feeling of enduring steadiness under the consistent shadow of economic pressures to evolve, to develop a sense of generic salubriousness. The prices are reasonably comparable to the Castle & Anchor. My visit saw me take up a welcoming window seat that enveloped me like a satiated Venus flytrap. I was able to see the local theatre The Globe from this vantage point whilst quietly quaffing a half of Birra Moretti.

THE SUN INN, Knowles Street, Stockton-on-Tees. Less than a stone’s throw from the Royal Oak.
A small, cosy regular Cider With Rosie kitchen feel with obvious regulars already installed in their apparently appointed places, chatting about old world subjects whilst stealing a glance at the modestly sized TVs on the walls reliving moments of good and bad luck in repeats of already run races. The person serving at the small bar was very welcoming and greeted me as a stranger with a good-natured, cheeky ice breaker to put me at ease amongst the decorative red cross-hairs whose presence made an uncomfortable point of focus for anyone visiting from the not too distant future. The pub is well connected to community agencies and has music nights at weekends.
There was an undercurrent of a group identity of somewhat parochial protective mien. The obvious regulars were very comfortable with their positions, and their long in the tooth easy habitual socialising. The primarily liquid victuals on offer were the nationally identifiable session drinks but there were bar snacks available to round off the experience. 

The three Stockton-based mild swimming locations had a theme in common, that of being economically evolved to accommodate temporal compromise so as to appeal to visitors and indigenous alike. The first two particularly had necessary ambivalence to the common purpose of public places and coercive zeitgeist. All three shared an existentially lexically compromise to the point where community responsively shields itself from wider collective psychological tropes.

All three had walls which, could they talk, would regale any listener with tales of yore that might encourage, through their vital, shared voice, fresh thought and more active cognition and comprehension of the existential experience of mild swimming.

THE STOCKTON, 122 High Street, Redcar.
This pub has grand old furniture, an old-style wooden bar, new TVs on a number of the wood panelling walls and good old fashioned prices.
It has an appeal for regulars in its upgrading to visual information while retaining a tangible reminiscence of older and apparently simpler times.
The pub also has a significant amount of natural light as the summer sun is welcomed in by windows which are on the generous side. Looking onto a small beer garden the large back window resembling a lazy eye – a very large TV half obscures it - allows enough light to read any racing card by.
Although it has a couple of modern flashing-light gaming machines, one can still 'hear the gentle sound' of its regulars handing over their noiseless tenners to continue what are now seen as antiquated ways and wishes to maintain a slightly uneasy status quo. The limited, staple bar, however, means that only the diehard customers might get whatever they want, as there is no evidence of beautiful, mythical sirens pouring out their ambiguous promises from the mainstream pumps. Although I was satisfied by a high quality draught Guinness on offer.

PIG & WHISTLE, 27 Station Road, Redcar.
This pub is quietly confident of its particular and olde worlde feel: the furniture is unashamedly old and very comfortable for an extended stay. It resembles a museum with its different rooms and it has a double-faced bar to easily serve all of the various places a visitor can ensconce themselves.
Two of the rooms are reminiscent of old 'snugs' and have many pictures of old Redcar and paintings and photos of local historical referents. Only one of the compact rooms has a discreet TV that can be turned on by request, so you don't need to evoke moving images of the outside world if not desired. The main bar room has an extended area where pool can be played without distraction. This bar space also has the locals who congregate during the day time even when visitors are scarce. One drawback with this pub might be identified by the limited range of drinks on offer but one could easily feel inclined to compromise in favour of spending time in the understated convivial atmosphere.

O'GRADY'S, 18-20 Queen Street, Redcar
An Irish welcome to all-comers is offered by a well-appointed, tastefully furnished repro watering hole that serves an extensive menu of food at reasonable prices.
It has two ale pumps living alongside the customary typicals, as well as a number of significant TVs informing of the outside world of sports. There's no music in the background as the TVs have low but audible sound for those interested in the various events covered.
The layout is constituted of primarily restaurant style tables as it is also an active hotel which provides victuals for temporary residents visiting Redcar and the wider north east coast, and anyone wanting to go through an absurdist defamiliarisation of a place they live in. Its three-pronged character (pub/hotel/restaurant) means it can be confident of significant numbers of regular and irregular customers throughout the year. This place has a certain charm about it with its nicely adorned decoration coupled with genial snippets of Irish-Gaelic wisdom on the walls, and it can boast a general sense of openness that means it can flourish in the present conditions without need for any further upgrades. 

The timings of visits to these urban mild swimming holes create a kind of Jekyll and Hyde character to proceedings. Afternoons would be the Dr Jekyll as chemical experimentation is sparsely undertaken by mostly economically inactive swimmers, treading water, still staring at a starless firmament. Evenings would be the Mr Hyde aspect as dilettante debaters might raise their lubricated volubility tussling over a chair whose status is worthy of scrutiny: one arguing that the chair is freer than they feel, the other countering with a form of quantum of solace view that although empty, the chair is not free but merely physically bound by well established rules of existence.
Afternoons see somewhat tentative ripples of conversation between groups which are common to the place and are aware of the place being very common to them, without any accompanying Aaron Copland or ELP fanfare.
Afternoons are for wandering anthropologists and unattached individuals sheltering from various existential climatic variations. Evenings are for the bravest of observers whose vitality of experience is more visceral than cerebral. These timid excerpts of mild swimming are from afternoons.

The Great Wen In The Reign Of Charles III. I Don't Take Whores In Pubs. A Heckler Shouts "Well Let's See 'em Then"

Pasear y beber por Londres no es cosa menor, dicho de otra manera, es cosa mayor. Así que se impone desde hace un tiempo revisitar las arcaicas guías y recomendaciones que se hacen desde las páginas de este mainblog para aquellos que se acerquen a la gran Sodoma del espíritu anglogalicioso y pretendan disfrutar de la Gomorra de la cask ale, los pork pies y los sandwiches guarros con pepinillos.
Muchas cosas han cambiado desde que esas viejas crónicas fueron escritas, Dios ya no salva a la Reina si no al Rey, hay que echar mano del pasaporte para pisar la isla, y los viejos billetes del tamaño de sábanas han sido sustituidos por pequeños billetes plastificados. Toda una revolución que puede confundir a los torpes y aturullados visitantes que no son porcobravos, y que se animen a cruzar el charco anglogalicioso.

Para testear lo que sigue igual y lo que cambió en la capital del Imperio, hablamos con Nicholas Hawksmoor, viajero impenitente y arquitecto druídico, que llegó recientemente de una visita relámpago a la capital del Imperio más rápida que lo que tarda el Main en bajarse una pinta. Nos citamos en un pub de su elección. Acudimos a su encuentro y nos lo encontramos sentado a la barra, manteniendo una conversación con un interlocutor aparentemente ausente. Le interrumpimos, fija su mirada en su nueva compañía y nos concede audiencia. Empezamos por la galeguidade ó pau:

- Nicholas... ¿qué?

- Bueno, que te voy a contar, todo esto está muy bien, pero la fiesta nos la pueden quitar de los fuciños, como se suele decir.

- ¿De que me estás hablando, Nicholas?

-Ya sabes, hoy estás aquí, mañana allí,…, pero me estabas preguntando por Londres, ¿no? Pues eso, sigue igual pero distinto. El centro de Londres es un bloody parque de atracciones (ya lo era en realidad) para turistas, cada vez hay menos vida de gente normal en la calle, menos pequeños negocios, las franquicias y la gentrificación se lo comen todo, y en lo que a nosotros nos importa, las multinacionales de la cerveza se están comiendo a los free house pubs, ya se los han comido in fact, y la variedad de cervezas y cask ales distintas que puedes probar y descubrir es mucho menor que antes del Brexit, del virus chino y del fucking Charles III.

- ¿Es esto el Ragnarök del british beer style entonces? tampoco será todo tan apocalíptico, Nicholas.

- Los beerholes míticos siguen ahí y las breweries de toda la vida, Fuller's, Samuel Smith,… también, pero la impresión que te llevas es que se pierden cervezas y sitios a mayor velocidad del que surgen los nuevos, no hay cambio generacional, donde antes había un pub de Fuller's, por ejemplo el Old Bank of England, con su interior de madera tallada, sus tonos oscuros, sus parroquianos recien salidos de las oficinas de la City… se ha convertido en un pub de moda, con acabados en inox, clientes con pinta de instagramers y cerveza de, oh sorpresa, Asahi. Ahora pedir una pinta de bitter de cask se ha convertido en una rareza, un modo de resistencia.

- Pero las catedrales del porcobravismo siguen ahí, ¿no?, las has vistado, supongo…

- Por supuesto, cada viaje es una peregrinación y hay que rendir visita a los lugares de poder para recargar energias y llenar los chakras de cerveza templada y olor a meados. Llegué a Londres por Liverpool Street Station y la primera estación del Via Crucis fue el Princess Louise, el mejor sitio para reconciliarse con la city y el british style: madera, moqueta, reservados, urinario en el sotano y toda la Samuel Smith que puedas imaginar…, la primera en la frente, y a partir de ahí la búsqueda de los lugares ya conocidos, donde fuimos felices con una pìnta en la mano y un puñado de parroquianos locals borrachos compartiendo nuestro alcoholismo. The Ship Tavern, Cittie of Yorke, los “oldies”: Ye Olde Mitre, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (si por alguna extraña y siniestra razón sólo puedes ir a un único pub en Londres, que sea este), Ye Olde Cock Tavern, y creo recordar que ese día acabamos en The Coal Hole.

- Ni tan mal entonces, ya me esperaba una relación de Costas, Nero's, Burguer Kings, Mc Donalds, Nandos y Pret a Mangers…

- Siempre hay que tener a tu interlocutor en vilo, ponerle en lo peor y después ir abriendo un hueco a la esperanza, que las cosas vayan mejorando hasta el culmen final, el camino del héroe, desde la caída hasta la redención, es de primero de Oratoria, que yo me eduqué con los clásicos.

- Continúa pues, oh Demóstenes de la Anglogalician, el relato épico de tu viaje por los rincones oscuros de la capital británica. ¿Donde os alojasteis? ¿Centro? O un poco alejados, ¿Camdem,Hyde Park, Victoria Station,...?

- Los precios de alojamiento se han vuelto mas imposibles aún, pero por una casualidad del destino, encontramos un chollazo cerca de Covent Garden, así que allí nos dirigimos. Era en la zona que ahora se llama “The Seven Dials”, 7 calles que convergen en una pequeña plaza circular y que es el centro del hipsterismo londinense actual, un barrio en el que podrías vomitar arcoíris, no apto para rudos estibadores, de ahí el pesimismo de mi introducción. Pero nos permitía estar cerca de muchos pubs míticos sin estar en el subway metidos todo el día. Por ejemplo estábamos a 20 yardas de The Cross Keys, que visitamos esos dias con regularidad, todo un escondrijo de normalidad en medio de ese entorno surreal que es el centro de Londres, y al lado del mejor sitio de fish&chips de Londres: The Rock&Sole Plaice, donde puedes elegir hasta 4 tipos do peixe do bó para tu ración.
Bueno, pues teníamos también a tiro de piedra mi favorito de la ciudad, The Lamb&the Flag, y a The Harp y a The Coach&Horses, not bad tampoco.

- Esto va mejorando. Siga, siga, go on, please.

- Ya puestos te contaré que también vistamos la orilla sur del Támesis. Cruzamos el London Bridge muy temprano en el día y nos dirigimos al Borough Market antes de que fuera asediado por los turistas. Ya lo sé, nosotros también somos turistas, pero nosotros somos los buenos y ellos los malos, como siempre, y de ahí no me bajo. Después de la pertinente visita al mercado continuamos con la obligada visita a The Market Porter, y luego visitamos a unas pocas yardas de distancia The George Inn, descubrimiento de este viaje para mi, un precioso pub situado en unas antiguas cuadras, con 2 pisos y un increible beer garden central. Después nos dirigimos a la beer mile.

-¿Beer mile? ¿Eso que es? No figura en la sagrada lista-de-lugares-que-visitar-en-londres del porcobravismo...

- Aquí entramos en el territorio del frikismo cervecero. Una vez que estás en el South Bank, tiras hacia el sureste siguiendo las vías del tren y llegas a una zona donde las vias van elevadas sobre un viaducto de ladrillo, debajo del cual siempre se han ubicado pequeñas industrias y almacenes. Ahora es el epicentro de las nuevas cervecerias londinenses, alguna tienen allí sus fábricas y otras, las mas grandes y exitosas, taprooms, sitios donde vender su cerveza directamente al consumidor. Sobre 15 breweries se pueden visitar allí a día de hoy. Desde algunas recien creadas (Mash Paddel Brewery, Southbank Brewery Co.) a otras ya consolidadas y conocidas como The Kernel, Gipsy Hill, Anspach&Hobday, Moor, Bianca Road, London Barrel Project…
Entiendo que el porcobravismo se nutre de tradiciones y de cervezas tradicionales, pero como he dicho antes, tiene que llegar el relevo de lo que se está muriendo y estas new breweries lo son, también hay que señalar que además de las consabidas cervezas “modernas” ipas, sours, dipas, neipas, shitpas y similares, estas breweries siguen cultivando las bitters, porters, stouts, pale ales, etc, y por supuesto siguen produciendo en cask, así que la continuidad de la cerveza inglesa tradicional ale está garantizada.
Una vez recorrida la milla verde cervecera, lo mejor es dirgirse al norte, volver a la orilla del Támesis y reencontrarse con la historia con el trío de ases de pubs ribereños por antonomasia: The Angel, The Mayflower y, cruzando el río en metro, The Prospect of Whitby. Sólo tengo que decir que yo en la terraza del Mayflower, con una pinta en la mano y contemplando la ciudad desde el dulce río soy feliz, en pocos sitios de esta manera.
Para acabar el día, y mientras las sombras se van adueñando de la ciudad, volviendo de vuelta a nuestra guarida, paramos en The Porterhouse, pub sucursal de la cervecera dublinense de su mismo nombre. Es una mezcla de pub paddy, sala de conciertos y club. Tres pisos de distintos ambientes y conciertos en vivo todos los días. El final perfecto para los que se recogen pronto para dormir y el sitio perfecto para empalmar con el ambiente nocturno para los que trasnochan y se lanzan a la London by night. Pero eso es otra historia que merece otra conversación más sicalíptica.

Toda la razón, Nicholas, eso merece otro interrogatorio y otra entrada, pero ni la haré yo ni lo responderás tú. Y con esto te dejamos a solas en la barra de The Crazy Bird, distante a un puñado de sacrificios humanos de tu obra más polémica, con tu pinta en la mano, mientras sigues hablando solo como si alguien te hiciera caso en el ocaso de una tradición de beber que fue modo de vida.

Y ahora, justo ahora, vuelves a ser un niño, mendigando para siempre en el umbral de la eternidad.

Gleam And Glow The Sea-Coloured Marsh-Mosses, Salt And Splendid From The Circling Brine. Watering Holes For The Milder Beast

Whether it's to bring on or take us off
we, despite string science will seek to quaff
whether it's for one or one round for all
we, despite evidence will make the call
whether it's faux or real wind in the mill
we, quixotics, take tilts at a swill

Whether it's to get you out of the Mousetrap plot daily or away from the all-consuming orifice to take a liberty or for a walk to see if it still barks beyond a laptop dog. From the modern joy of The Craft Beer Shop to the ancient Ship Inn we sojourn and wander for something small to ask: fluid contentment.

We in inextinguishable hope still leave our duvets, TV box sets, sometimes even our mobile phones behind to take to the road to contradict those that say the journey is the thing and not the stay at the inn. I, being unexceptional, am a ready visitor to spaces that still have tangible social atmosphere and where talk of life is a little more immediate than the possibility of insect sweat being imagined on a rock too many light years away to be fully comprehended. Yes, seen from space, these boxes of delight might resemble modestly busy ant hills, but to some they might be a base camp at the foot of a mountain and, to some it may indeed be a point of refreshment and rest after a day in an urban jungle. For us milder beasts these watering holes are evidence of a human society and a mark of dignified progression. Ultimately, whatever level of evidence to consciousness, a significant proportion of us gravitate to these enclaves populated by characters who, like ourselves, want to: whet a piercing, dry whistle on Wednesday, thrum-a-throat on a Thursday, or freshen-the-fizzog on a weekending Friday.*
Such watering holes can be a portal through which you can be in your own world and/or in theirs and happily get mortal, alive to those mundane comedic bedfellows of possibility and probability. We can have a rap in the likelihood of keeping our head strong and our bitter mild by being down amongst the vitally absurd.

*This is not ignorant of the many folks who partake of watering holes on any other days of the week, particularly soak-a-liver Saturday and saturate-a-soul Sunday, though Monday and Tuesday are mostly dried up of watering holes on this little coastal spit of the country.


The Ship Inn – At the sea's edge in Saltburn by the sea.

A pub dating back to the 1500s cheek by jowl with a sea dating back even further.
A pub to be sat outside of as it's on the very edge of the North Sea. Only a sea wall stops a pinch of salt and water diluting its victuals. It offers a stunning and visceral vista on the moods of the sea and the wonderful palette of the sky.
Although on very wintry days, inside is as snug as a smuggler in a safe cove. The heavy beams and thick walls ghostly whisper of a long time ago when entrepreneurship was more ship than internet. There's a weight, but not wait, to its atmosphere that chills and warms simultaneously.
There are three ale pumps, often of local cask ales, and three delineated areas inside. There are two dining areas, separated by an open doorway, and a smaller bar area where it feels like you might be asked to sing authentic sea shanties as an introduction to the community therein, which is warmed by the good ale and open fire. From the cosiness of inside you can still hear the sea's cautionary tales of derring-don't commingling with the punters' gentle chatter.
There is a generous outside seating area that enjoys a one hundred and eighty degree view taking in Saltburn Pier, the cliffs and a hefty expanse of the western reaches of The North sea.


The Guns Bar – Milton Street, Saltburn by the sea.

This place has three very different spaces on three levels. The bar area is very familiar in a modern pub organising its space carefully to wlecome its punters with an immediate ale as they come through the door, as an introduction to the other spaces in the place where you can take your drink. At the back of the bar there's a sort of mezzanine lounge with very homely furniture for those suspended between being and somethingness. It is comfortable and somewhere between here and there. Its piece de resistance is the cellar area that throbs with hidden, social atmosphere. It's impossible to be in the cellar without being filled with a sense of plotting or overtaken by conspiritorial alcohol drinking that has aspirations to change the world, if it weren't for CCTV and Saltburn being firmly in the hands of the Tories.
A punter can take to these different spaces a very good choice of craft beers on tap but its drawback is its wholesale – or should that be retail – support for the cashless societal mindset as no dubloons of any denomination are acceptable. I still prefer choice of the polymer that never lies about how much money you have to hand and can proffer as exchange for a pub experience. I still remember little buff envelopes with your weekly earnings held within with a brief explanation of your value to society.


The Marine – The Esplanade, Saltburn by the sea.

Ideally situated it stares at the sea from its high spot overlooking the promenade and beach. It is a reserved place where a quiet pint is easily taken in the lounge where It offers good earnest scran complimented by two real ale pumps. There's also a bigger bar area where there's a collection of TV screens dedicated to sport, a pool table and a velveteen shelf reserved for musical performers at weekends. Though the bar during the idle day is as quiet as the sea in summer as its visitors are hungry and tired locals dotted around a small number of walkers or brave car drivers who have traversed the thirty yards from vehicle to pub.
The pub also has an upstairs bar and generously appointed room that can be hired for social functions. The pub has Victorian cornices atop Elizabethan-style panelling contrasting the North sea on the horizon when it is as placid as a receded negotiating table shouting out just how far is this politically septic isle from Europe and its scurvy social justice. It's lounge and bar are soft places where a soul can drown any sorrows of burnished golden hindsight induced by that regressive, regrettable referendum reflex, to repel an armada of human rights treasures, which, like a servant's tears, can turn 568.261 ml of mild into an imperious pint of bitter.
The Marine can make you feel like you belong to a community of not-in-work crowd of lotus eaters and it is Thomas Moreish and something of a pub for all seasons.


The Clarendon, aka The Middle House – High Street, Marske by the sea.

This place feels historic and if its wallpaper could talk, on some days the pattern morphs into demonic heads, would be a feature on any commercial TV channel all ears to stories of the old seaside north.
It is a kind of audio library wherein you find regulars of the clock poring over betting slips in those who are very interested in the running skills of equine strangers and friends alike. Their bookies' runner has only twenty or so yards to go to deliver on their hopes.
The audio library has its fiction and non-fiction sections, as well as economics, history and ontological narratives to prickle the brown air. And their prices put up their dukes in good old pugilistic style to challenge the crash airbags of inflation. Also, the ethos is stoic tolerance of plastic but they more easily accept shrapnel as currency in this endearing temporal capsule.
The place is served by a Cheers-like bar which serves as a panopticon making redundant any thoughts of CCTV. You can sit in quite ornate chairs of not quite royalty status that show clear evidence of generational human sandpaper elbows and knees gladly patronising the place throughout its long history. They are upholstered by the resilient fabric of this English Oakish wooden universe.
It's the kind of place the sun would go to sit, resting after getting up too early to find it was outdone by a scandinavian frieze that wouldn't give it a look in all the day through. To me it is an Old Peculier place, where I go to meet on old friend whose opinion and taste has somewhat diluted almost to the same degree as the regulars' opinions and tastes have hardened.
Black and white pictures of old Marske adorn the walls and conjure up the notion that the dun dim décor is evidence of the whole place being recently colourised as a nod to modern technological progression. It has what looks like the oldest one-armed bandit in Christendom on which the punters spend time and money shaking archaic hands with the coin of disadvantage. They line up in a kind of ceremony they hope will be accompanied by brass. The gaslight-like candelabra hang from the ceiling to illuminate an inebriate light-bulb moment that ferments in a glass forever half full.


The Wynd Craft Beer Shop – The Wynd, Marske by the sea.

It might be an ex-travel agent's shop front but it's clear from the fairy lights hanging down merrily drunk that the place has the means to facilitate flights of fancy and journeys to places within the brain not always accessible to the stone cold sober.
The door pops a threshold and you are greeted by a welcoming smile and a host who has encyclopaedic knowledge of the victuals therein. After your eyes are drawn to the myriad cans in the fridges on display, there's a tasteful board to surf as you ride the waves of consciousness until sand is obscured by the tide gratefully accepting her invite to take shelter from the norm. The on-tap drinks board is a treasure map offering the chance to play happy families and just friendly acquaintances, dealing the cards in a nine card flush, as the owner imparts her wisdom so we can be drink and gambol aware in a welcoming, comforting space.
She can shepherd the Hamlets and guide the generally unsure, in separating the wheat from the hop and can do an admirable Ginger Rogers tap dance, caring for her clientele sour by sour, ensuring good beer always chimes with good cheer. There's always fecund talk of the subjectivity of taste to break any ice a traveller to the seaside town of Marske might bring in from a bleak midwinter day. The place also offers a haven for dogs that receive special treatment in the shape of treats, behind the bar, from the generous owner.


Golden Smog – Hambletonian Yard, Stockton.

Stockton's first micropub opened in 2014 and has progressively formed very dynamic links with local causes and communities and its ethos has always been a regenerated community-ism without any party political yolk. The owner's quote at the time of opening, to 'be a haven for nice, decent people who appreciate good quality drinks,' has been actively preserved throughout its span. It has created a vibrant space wherein social beings can imbibe the quirkily exotic and the taste-laden everyday in an atmosphere of genuine bonhomie.
The place is decorated with eclectic narratives: from a pictorial history of Tees industries and housing to nostalgia from the Stockton 60s music scene and political commentary, with well-known music posters being altered to voice a witty and rebellious perspective that epitomises the pub's positive sense of self and society's meeting points. It also has a significant dog clientele as visitors are welcome to bring in their furry friends to share the convivial atmosphere.
It occupies a small physical space - the alleyway entrance leading to the place is easily overlooked from the high street - but is vast once inside as its earnestness and thoughtfulness of social dynamics encourages an expansion of consciousness even before you partake of the varied and delectable victuals. There's a choice of five pumps of regularly different small brewery ales and the pickled eggs are to die for. There is a wide range of continental tipples, from the ecclesiastical Belgian brews that include the soul seducing Delirium trilogy, to the tasty, persuasive German Rauchbier, a rich, smoky beer that beautifully finishes off any deeply pleasing session in the Smog, which can begin at 2pm and end at 10pm every day of the week.

Drinking places, or watering holes, often reflect attitudes or moods of its punters,:whether it's drinking to forget - but never forgetting to drink; drinking to remember; drinking in the social space to while away an hour or two; to meet with some kind of destiny or other; or to meet a familiar or reasonably talkative stranger, there's a shared sense of freedom afforded by circumstance, happenstance or wilful contrivance. Whatever the motivation, the hole will provide succour, solace, affirmation and/or stimuli of existence and persistence.

Another key factor in any experience of any watering hole is the chemical poison on offer. Will it be a staple, traditional, conventional, dependable, totally familiar drug of choice, or might it be a swig of wonder, a deep draw of chemical adventure opening doors of perception? Will there be drug induced swimming or floating in a psycho-amorphous primordial swamp, or merely a treading water in a familiar and comforting pool, or will it be a popcorn process from seeded thought, ideas puffed up to fully form sugar-coated drama unfit for human consumption? Will the string taste of candyfloss or of hemp or be a tasteless hank to tie and bloat with unsuspecting melancholy?

Who knows, except the traveller who gets up off their remote to make the necessary small steps or pliant leaps for humankind in order to moisten feet of clay so as to mould a social singularity loosely referred to as personal life. Do watering holes appeal on the basis they provide visceral, real spaces encouraging us to hold up a mirror in order to meet our maker? What's your poison?

Bait The Creel In Na Tithe Uaimh.

 


Empecemos con una obviedad. Vivimos en una sociedad global, ya sea en el decadente mundo occidental, en las megalópolis asiáticas, africanas o americanas o en la última esquina planetaria a la que llegue una conexión a Internet, y los espectáculos, atracciones y demás parafernalia, llamémosle ocio, cultura o divertimento, son comunes a todo el planeta. Es una mancha de aceite que lo invade todo, en cada instante, el trending topic en Tokio llega en minutos a Nicaragua, y en pocos días, una persona anónima puede pasar a ser conocida por millones de desconocidos espectadores por todo el planeta.

Uno de los protagonistas indiscutibles de este circo global hunde sus raices en la evolución histórica desde hace cientos de años: la monarquía británica. Cualquier cotilleo, cualquier foto, noticia, vídeo, filtración de la vida de Charles, Camilla, William, Harry, …, se trasmite al momento como si fuera un folletín en vivo, con guionistas inventándose tramas y diálogos en tiempo real sobre la marcha para el consumo de la masa global, ávida de nuevos episodios de su serie favorita. Pero, ¿de dónde viene esta familia, de donde viene su poder, cual es su origen? Todo comenzó en Wessex.

Poco podía imaginar Cerdic el sajón la que iba a liar cuando en el siglo V cruzó el mar del Norte con sus huestes desde la costa de los Paises Bajos hasta la parte inglesa de la Isla para fundar lo que acabaría siendo esa misma monarquía británica. Estableció su dominio al paso de oca sobre lo que se llamó a partir de ahí la “tierra de los sajones del oeste”, Wessex, y esas tierras han sido desde entonces el germen germano y el núcleo del surgimiento de un reino y una nación. Aunque a pesar de vaivenes históricos ni siquiera albergan a la capital, toda la herencia legendaria del reino de los sajones primero y después de los ingleses, reside en estas tierras, entre sus lugares míticos, leyendas y catedrales.

Mucho antes de la llegada de Cerdic y sus sajones, los romanos ya tenían en estas tierras uno de sus lugares favoritos, con sus villas, sus anfiteatros, sus templos y sus termas: Bath. Hoy en día podemos sentirnos como un tribuno del Senado romano disfrutando y bañándonos en la reconstrucción de sus termas por el módico precio de 24 pounds, y si preferimos algo más contemporáneo podemos sentirnos un noble georgiano del siglo XVIII paseando por el Royal Crescent de manera totalmente gratuita. Pero ya que hemos llegado hasta aquí, más nos vale hacer como poco un trío de pubs. Es imprescindible visitar “The Old Green Tree”, situado en un pequeño local con 2 estancias, totalmente tradicional, tanto la decoración como los parroquianos, y pedir alguna “cask ale” o alguna sidra de producción local. Seguramente el landlord o cualquiera de los “locals” situados estratégicamente en la barra nos aconsejarán cual pedir. Pasear por la calles victorianas de Bath es como ser un extra de “Downtown Abbey” paseando por un catálogo de joyerías y tiendas de anticuarios que seguramente no podemos permitirnos. Si queremos comer algo, callejeamos hasta “The Raven”, un nombre tan anglogalicioso, y nos pedimos una pinta de bitter y un “pie” de stag. Para rematar ensayamos en el "Coeur de Lion", el pub más pequeño en tamaño de la ciudad, y que encantó al Porcobravismo rampante en 2013. Después de disfrutar de la suntuosidad imperial romana y de los Tudor, nos vamos de ruta de catedrales medievales: Salisbury, Wells y Glastonbury.

En Salisbury tenemos la más grande de las catedrales medievales inglesas, y en esta catedral guardan una copia de la Carta Magna, una de las piedras fundacionales del sistema político que acabaría dando lugar al parlamentarismo inglés en el siglo XVII y que es un tratado entre Juan I y sus barones en el siglo XIII. Este tratado fue refrendado por todos los reyes ingleses hasta la aparición de las leyes y disposiciones modernas del XVII. La ciudad se asienta sobre varios ríos, uno de ellos el Avon, y bien merece un paseo y una visita a su mercado. Pub local recomendado: “Wyndham Arms”. Si estamos en Salisbury, hay que ir hasta Stonehenge, aunque no nos guste el tema de las piedras antiguas y todo eso. Te cuentan que hay algo especial, aquí, donde las corrientes telúricas y los 7 chakras planetarios organizan una orgía, y al final tienes que creértelo. Tú llegas al círculo y troquelas un pugilato de piedras. Las piedras no ofenden, nada codician.

Wells es un pueblo pequeño con una catedral enorme. El pueblo es una especie de parque de atracciones medieval lleno de anticuarios (otra vez) y “charitys” de segunda mano. La población local se compone básicamente de jubilados, turistas accidentales y colegialas uniformadas. Todos los pubs van a cumplir con un nivel medio de satisfacción, pero a ninguno lo vas a recordar la semana siguiente. Un vistazo como una catedral y rumbo a Glastonbury.

Y finalizamos la ruta de las catedrales con una trampa, Glastonbury no tiene catedral, tuvo una abadía, pero la tiraron cuando todo aquello del follón de Enrique VIII con Roma y que yo me monto mi Iglesia propia. Lugar de culto desde los celtas, con los romanos, con los sajones y con los normandos, y bonus track, lugar de reposo de los restos del rey Arturo y Ginebra. Y en las inmediaciones del pueblo tenemos una colina cónica, el Tor, que según la mitología celta es Ávalon, la entrada al mundo de las hadas, coronada por una torre medieval donde se ejecutaba a los reos. Jackpot, aquí tenemos a toda la mitología inglesa metida y mezclada. A todo esto añádele el mayor festival de música británico en verano, no va más. Con todo este background, Glastonbury está lleno de hippies, místicos y fumados varios, a los que hay que añadir a los visitantes rezagados del festival, lo que nos resulta el vecindario más variopinto y random de aquí a Londres. Este espíritu entre místico, mitológico y new age está perfectamente representado en el “The George and the Pilgrims” donde tomarse unas pintas entre tableros pintados con guerreros cruzados e imaginería mística celta es obligado al pasar por este epicentro del imaginario inglés. De Cerdic a Charles III pasando por Brideshead Revisited, y los iracundos Gallagher cantando Wonderwall encima de la tumba del rey Arturo. Not bad.

 

Al llegar a este punto, muchos estáis ya pensando que sí, mucho folclore, pero aquí se viene a escribir y leer de cervezas y de pubs (y alguna vez de football), y por ahora en esta entrada hay demasiada historia y poco pub, pues vamos a hablar de pubs con historia, de los que podrían ser los más antiguos de Inglaterra, y tenemos 3 candidatos en uno de los 5 burgos, en las Midlands orientales, en una ciudad llamada Nottingham. Pasamos pues del país de los sajones al país de los vikingos, de Wessex al Danelaw. Como en Inglaterra es imperativo moverse en tren, subimos hasta Bristol y nos dirigimos a la estación de Temple Meads, parando antes en el “Knights Templar” para la consabida pinta previa. Salimos de Bristol dirección Birmingham. La estacion de Birmingham es una aberración postmoderna parecida a un aeropuerto plantado en el centro de la ciudad rodeada del consabido centro comercial. Nada que ver aquí, lo mejor es embarcar rapidamente camino al norte del centro. Nos recibe la estación de Nottingham. La estación es un edificio clásico recientemente (bien) restaurado y como toda estación inglesa que se precie, con su pub adosado, el “BeerheadZ”, que está situado justo junto a la puerta de salida, y ocupa una sala en la que antiguamente los conductores de carruajes podían descansar sin tener que, irónicamente, meterse en ningún pub, para no pasar frío. Pequeño pero matón, 3 o 4 grifos de cask ale y otros tantos de breweries locales.

Nos dirigimos entonces al triángulo de la discordia, los tres pubs que proclaman ser el más antiguo de Inglaterra. Primera parada en el city centre, en el mismo Old Market Square desde donde nos vigila el City Hall y la estatua del más grande, Brian Clough. Allí se sitúa el “Bell Inn”. El pub consta de una gran estancia principal, y 2 más pequeñas, la Isabelina y la estilo Tudor. A pesar de pertenecer al grupo de Greene King tiene una amplia oferta de cervezas locales y cask ales, y su situación en el cogollo de la ciudad le proporciona un ambiente animado durante todo el día. Sus dueños reclaman el título de más antiguo por tener las referencias escritas y documentadas de haber estado en funcionamiento ininterrumpido desde 1437.

Ya que estamos en el centro de Nottingham, hay que recomendar la visita a un pequeño pub muy cerca del “Bell Inn”, salimos y cogemos la primera calle a mano izquierda y llegamos a “The Dragon”, un pub alargado y estrecho con un patio al fondo, con buena cerveza y muy buena música, pinchada en vinilo por las noches y fines de semana. Si echas de menos O'Grifón y estás por estas tierras, este es tu sitio. 

Los otros dos contendientes se encuentran en las cercanías del Castillo de Nottingham. Hay que aclarar primero que no busqueis un castillo porque no lo hay, en su sitio se construyó una mansión y sus jardines y es lo que hoy se puede visitar, pero esa zona de la ciudad se sigue conociendo como The Castle, pues así son los ingleses

Casi llegando al Castle el primer pub al que llegamos es “Ye Olde Salutation Inn”, en medio de unos feos edificios de hace 40 o 50 años vemos una edificación pseudomedieval, de estilo mock-tudor (ya que es de principios del siglo XX) y que nos promete ser el pub más antiguo de Inglaterra, WTF! En su interior y en los sótanos sí que tiene partes de construcción medieval, del siglo XIII, y a eso es lo que se agarran para mantener su candidatura a pub más antiguo. Además está construido sobre unas cuevas datadas en el siglo noveno que ya se usaban como graneros cuando los vikingos pasaron por aquí para clavar el estandarte del Cuervo. El pub presenta la típica y tradicional decoración inglesa y es conocido también por pinchar rock clásico y ser punto de encuentro de moteros. Saliendo del “Salutation” casi de frente nos tropezamos con la consabida estatua de Robin Hood (otro asunto polémico) rodeada de turistas haciéndose selfis, y un poco más abajo, el más famoso de los 3 pubs en discordia: “Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem”.

Se sitúa encima de la roca sobre la que se alzaba el castillo normando y encima también de una serie de cuevas (cellars) que forman parte del pub. Consta de una serie de estancias, pasadizos y cuevas donde se van situando las mesas y las barras del pub. A pesar de ser también de la cadena de Greene King suele contar con varios tiradores de cask ale locales, alguno con cerveza hecha expresamente para ellos. El ambiente suele ser la peor parte del pub, de nuevo mucho puto turista haciendo fotos, revolviendo y molestando por todas partes y esa decoración que no te acaba de convencer que sea todo un fake atrapa-pardillos. La mejor opción suele ser pedir tu pinta y salirte con ella a las mesas de fuera si el tiempo te lo permite. Ellos establecen su fundación en tiempos de la tercera Cruzada, con Ricardo Corazón de León, allá por 1189, pero tampoco hay documentación que lo avale, ni siquiera minimamente. No es cuestión de cruzarse con el tema de cual es el pub más antiguo de Inglaterra. Sólo el giste de los siglos, los cuervos de la Torre y los anillos de Saturno conocen la verdad. Lo nuestro es ir y beber.

A veces no nos dan a escoger entre la risa y las lágrimas, sino sólo entre las risas, y entonces hay que saberse decidir por las más hermosas y las más sinceras.

Middlesbroughnacht. Die Porcos Bravos Reiten Schnell

Living For The City

Welcome back gentle reader. In the last episode I had just moved to London to work in Westminster with the Overseas Labour Service, the Government Department responsible for issuing Work Permits to foreign nations to work in UK. My team was the Sports and Entertainment Unit considering applications for any sportsperson or entertainer, that is every musician, band with a gig in the UK or actor playing in the theatre or shooting a movie. As you can imagine is was an amazing job for me with my keen interest in all sport, music, theatre and movies. I knew my stay in London would be limited as the Department intended to relocate to Sheffield in the near future. I was determined to make the most of this opportunity. I quickly settled into my lodgings, a Hotel just 20 minutes walk to the office in Tothill Street Just next to Westminster Abbey. As a regular visitor to the smoke I knew the area well so was surprised that the vast majority of my colleagues knew nest to nothing about the history of the area and none of them had actually visited the Abbey even though it was something they saw every day. I have to say most of them lived on the outskirts of London as our poor salary didn’t allow them to afford accommodation anywhere closer. Most of their money went on travelling into work. As I was deemed to be on “detached duty” I was given a significant allowance which meant I had more spare cash than at any other time. The landlords of Old London Town were delighted. I had been used to being skint after the first week of the month and struggling on for the next 3 weeks until payday. For the first month I did not even touch my salary being able to live comfortably on the allowance. It got to the point where my Bank, in Redcar phoned me at work to check if I was still alive as I had not emptied my bank account in the first few days after payday, So I took to showing my new friends the sights of London, especially the boozers, naturally. It was my civic duty.

I settled into a weekly routine of going to the pub or a gig after work and exploring more widely at the weekend usually with my mate Putney Jim. If Jim was not available I would usually wander to the end of the road and visit the Orange pub. Which has its own brewery. The SW5 bitter was particularly fine then walk on to Sloane Square and the Kings Road, Chelsea with the occasional pint in the Chelsea Potter. I was in my element. Doing a great job, getting paid a reasonable salary and living in my favourite city. It was Boroman, the Golden Years. I have literally hundreds of stories about going to gigs, and the wonderful pubs of London and meetings with famous sportspeople, actors and musicians as a normal part of my job. To give a flavour I will relate a couple of examples.

I had just approved a Work Permit for BB King to perform at the Royal Albert Hall. The promoter knew I was a fan and asked if I would like to go to the gig with a friend as guest. Oh go on then. After a couple of pints in the Feathers we got a cab to Kensington High Street for a couple in the Goat. A boozer I had first encountered in the late 70s. The beer had improved from the war London fog served up on my first visit. It was a short walk to the gig from there. I had been to the Albert previously to see one of Eric Claptons Blues Nights with Robert Cray and Buddie Guy. Tickets were very expensive and I was sat way back in the depths of the Hall. I expected something similar for tonights affair. I picked up the tickets from the Box Office and they were in a presentation wallet. That’s odd I thought. We entered and it was to my surprise/shock that it appeared we were in one of the executive boxes on the first floor. The box seated about 15 but was empty. A table at the back held various items of food plus wine/beer. Result. We got stuck into the freebies like it was the Last Supper as we were joined by two of the promoters. After the support band finished their set we were ushered into a small conference room for cajun food and more free drinks. On returning to the box the goodies had been restocked. Nice. It was more noticeable. However. That the box next door was occupied by none other than the erstwhile guitar god of Led Zeppelin, Mr James Page. “Oy Pagey keep it down, some of us are trying to listen to the music” I suspect his table of goodies include a few white lines, some pills and a groupie or three. Good on yer Jimmy. Anyway listening to BB King with a full orchestra is heaven to me and he did not disappoint. As the last blue notes floated into the rafters of the Albert we were invited to a reception in a large room at the top of the building. There were about 100 people there and we were offered more excellent food, drinks and copies of BB Kings latest cd. The room then went silent as the Blues Master entered the room and proceeded to glad hand the crowd then set up to sign the cds. I stood in line and faced with one of my musical heroes was dumbstruck when he signed the album. When I recovered my equilibrium I thought this is too good an opportunity to miss so I rejoined the queue. As I presented BB my programme for signing he said haven’t I seen you somewhere before, with a massive smile. What a legend.

As well as the Entertainment field we considered applications for Sportspersons to play in the UK. We would meet with each sports Governing bodies to agree the level of player to be allowed to play here. This was often quite contentious as different bodies had different ideas of the appropriate level to allow the best internationals to play whilst still allowing development of home grown talent. A meeting at Twickenham proved to be particularly tricky. At the time to English Rugby Football Union were determined to prepare for a serious tilt at the upcoming World Cup so didn’t want any foreign players in the English League. The Irish, Scots and Welsh were keen to develop their own leagues so wanted foreign internationals to help achieve that. There was a Mexican standoff and things got a bit heated. These were all ex players an some of them were big lads. I genuinely thought it would kick off. Thankfully, after a time out they agreed to compromise and the rules were set. Phew. One of the first permits we issued was to an All Black to play for a London Club. He actually came to the office to pick up his permit and when I handed it to him he was so huge he blocked out the light. What a unit. Anyway 10 minutes into his debut he punched the opposition Number 8, was sent off and never played in UK again.

We were invited to a matinee performance of the Elixir of Love at the Royal Opera House. It was a pre tour show which allowed the press to post reviews before the run started so no paying customers just press and invited guests. So I turned up for work in a rented tux and bow tie. Me and colleagues Remi and Marcus took full advantage of the free drinks and canapes before watching the performance. I’m not a massive fan of Opera but it was impressive to hear the female lead, a tiny Korean lady blast out her songs with a voice that could strip wallpaper from 300 yards. On the way back from the Opera Hose we stopped at a few pubs on the Mall, the Old Shades, the Admiralty and the Red Lion amongst them. We got back to work in our finery just in time to go to the works bar over the road. Not a bad day at work.

After more than two years in London a date was agreed for the Department to move permanently to Sheffield (cradle of the Anglogalician) and leave the smoke. Very few of the Londoners wanted to relocate to the grim North (none of them had actually been North of Watford of course) so we started recruiting Sheffielders for sort terms to allow for a smoother transition. A couple of the lads asked if I wanted to share a flat with them for the couple of months before the move, to save costs on accommodation. Typical Yorkies. I agreed somewhat reluctantly leaving the uptown Sloane Square area for Penge. Yes Penge, full of porcos bravos. Situated next to Crystal Palace on the edge of deepest South London it was, to be honest, a shit hole. The locals didn’t like anyone North of the river Thames so you can imagine what they though of someone from the North East. It was like being an alien so after trying out the local pubs, all warm beer and knuckle scraping neanderthal locals I tended to continue to go into the City for a pint. I could write a book on the pubs I have visited in London but some of them are ones I still visit today like the Museum Tavern, opposite the British Museum, the Princess Lousie, Holburn, the Citte of Yorke and the Porcupine on Charing Cross Road being a few.

On the last day in London one of our friends, a major music promoter, wanted to thank us for our work so brought three boxes of fine wines to the office. Of course our management said we couldn’t accept the gift as Civil Servants were not allowed to do so. That seemed a bit rich being three hundred yards from the House of Parliament Where of course no one accepts any handouts!?! Anyway we simply took the boxes of wine to the bar opposite the office and broke them open. We then moved to a friends flat in North London and I ended the night/morning smashed and playing air guitar to Otis Rush. I prepared to leave then next day nursing an almighty hangover but feeling great which just about summed up my time there. So me my friends Juremi and Marcus wedged into his Citroen tin Lizzy and set off North to the Steel City. More of that in the next instalment.

A Northern In King Lud's Court. Dead Hamlets And Burning Pubs.

In 1989 I made the decision to leave my home town and head for the smoke. The Boro was dead. All of the local industries were being closed or run down. Shipbuilding all but dissapeared and Steel, Chemicals and local government decimated. Working in a government Job Centre was really depressing. There were no jobs to be had. A local supermarket advertised for a part time trolley attendant and we got 3,000 applications. Time for a change. I applied for a transfer to Dept of Employment Overseas Labour Service in London. They did Work permits for overseas workers. I always loved London so it was a no brainer. The advertisement also said the Dept was relocating to Sheffield (cradle of The Anglogalician in the not too distant future but in a galaxy far, far away) in a few years with the clincher being they would pay all expenses to live in London and for the move to Sheffield. I had a little house in Boro bought from my sister for £19,000. As it happened my sister had moved to Sheffield to do Teacher training and she recommended the City to me. I had only been to Sheffield twice, to see Eric Clapton at City Hall and Bruce Springsteen at Bramall Lane but a few Boro lads had moved there. More of that later. 

 

I had always loved London and had been a regular visitor for as long as I can remember. In my first job with Ministry of Defence I spent two weeks on a training course in Holburn and was introduced to one of my favourite pubs, the Museum Tavern opposite the British Museum. I also went in the Princess Louise which is still pretty much unchanged apart from a brief disastrous period when the were taken over by Vaux Brewery. I had been to the Vaux brewery tap in Sunderland and the Beer didn't travel well more than a few hundred yards! They now sell Sam Smiths so as well as being a great historical boozer, it's cheap. Anyway I went for the job interview to the office in Tothill Street, close to Westminster Cathedral and Parliament Square. They told me next day that I should start work the following Monday. I let a friend of mine stay in my house rent free until I decided to sell and with a suitcase and a bag full of C90 music tapes I headed South. For the first month I stayed with my mate Jim and his wife who was an old friend too in Putney. For that month I went to the pub every night and at weekends. It was exhausting but great fun. Our main drinking hole was the Half Moon at Putney, a famous music pub with bands on most nights. You could regularly see, or hear practicing from the bar to the music room, Steve Marriot and the Packet of Three, Dr Feelgood, Roy Harper plus many touring US blues and Country bands. You could also get a canny pint of Fullers with the Brewery being nearby in Chiswick. 

 

After a month of terrible hangovers and standing on a crowded tube from Putney to St James Park I decided in the interests of my liver to move closer to the office in Westminster. I settled on a Bed n Breakfast Hotel in a street round the corner from Victoria Coach Station. I got a good deal 9n rent as I was staying long term and it was 15/20 minutes walk to the office. Even with a Hang over that was possible, hurrah. The next couple of months were spent getting to know the area around Westminster. Every day we would finish work at 5 then cross the road to another Government building Steel House then up to the 5th floor where there was.... a bar! Yes a proper bar looking like the snug of your local but subsidised by Government so cheap ale too. Fantastic. Problem was the building closed at 7.30 when you were kicked out onto the street. No problem though as there were several excellent pubs in close proximity. The nearest were the Feathers and Two Chairmen, then the Buckingham Arms, which was and still is a Youngs brewery pub so served excellent beer. With the Palace of Westminster being close it was a regular occurance to see the occasional Govt Minister or MP boozing away instead of running the country. Bastards. The closest pub to Parliament is the Red Lion and it's always full of MPs pissing it up while watching the Parliament channel on TV and running across the road the The Houses of Parliament when the Division Bell rang for a vote. They soon came back to the pub. Bastards. Anyway we soon expanded our pub radat to Victoria and Pimlico. London is weird in that in amongst the properties owned by millionaires and Russian Oligarchs their are "council estates" where the ordinary people live. Pimlico was one, which meant it could get rough. Like Boro full of Cockneys. 

 

In one incident we made the mistake of beating the locals at darts and pool on thier own Manor so it got a bit minty and we were surrounded by a gand of knuckle scraping neanderthals intent on harm. We were saved when the Police arrived to escorts us safely from the pub as we sang Yorkshire, Yorkshire triumphantly. We never went back to that pub. One great pub we discovered was the Grafton on Sutton Ground, off Victoria Street. It had been a regular for British comedy legends The Goons, Peter Sellars, Spike Milliga, Harry Seacombe and Micheal Benteen who practised thier way out routines in an upstairs room. They were a great inspiration to Monty Python and they liked a pint. I found drinking in London was very different to up North, apart from the price! In Boro you always went home after work, had your tea, then went back out to the pub. In London as most people couldn't afford to live in the City they lived miles out of town. So they went to the pub after work until around 9.00pm when they got the tube home. So the pubs were packed from 5 to 9 when they would empty out. I of course could stay out until closing time it was only about 20 minutes walk to my Hotel. Even so one night I stopped for a piss climbing the fence into St James Park where I fell asleep on a park bench. Good job it was summer. So that went on Monday to Friday but on Saturday I would meet up with Putney Jim (he was actually from Huddersfield and a rabid Terriers fan) and we would explore the lengths and depths of the capital. We always ended up in a pub for the footie results at 5 though. We also went to a few games at Arsenal, Chelsea and Fulham and ad Huddersfield Town were struggling at the time we visited Barnet, Brentford, Aldershot and Watford too. On one of our first jaunts we followed the river from the North side from St Paul's to Greenwich stopping at a few famous boozers along the way including the Ship inn and the Prospect of Whitby which is viable from the river and on its Dock they used to hang pirates. Given the prices in the pub they should have hung the landlord. This was the start of my two year stay in Capital City. For more shenanigans wait for the next instalment coming soon. 

 

A Giant Red Dragonfly Across The Boro Booze. We Built The Pubs, Wind Swept Marshland,Teeming With Wild Fowl.

Middlesbrough shall never be a ghost town,

The founding father's motto remembered,

Erimus - We shall be!

This will be a suitability rambling article on the History of drinking in Middlesbrough and my own experiences growing up in a beer drinking culture. The History of the English love of ale goes back to the Bronze age, with hairy neanderthals getting pissed and dragging the missus by the hair to their Cave for a quick shag. Not much has changed. I recently read a History of the City of Paris when in medieval times much of France was in English control. The Parisiens complained that the English soldiers garrisoned there spent all of their days drinking in the local taverns, fighting and vomiting in the street. Bringing culture to the French.

We will start with a brief history of the town of Middlesbrough. A Priory was established in the area as early as 686ad but by 1801 Middlesbrough was a small farm with a population of 25. By the mid 1800's it had boomed to 7,600 due mainly to the establishment of the the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world first allowing for a development of a Port on the river Tees. This expansion exploded following discovery of ironstone in the Cleveland Hills allowing for iron and steel production. By 1870s Middlesbrough produced one third of the nations Pig Iron output earning the name Ironopolis.

Clearly all these good people wanted to indulge in Britain's favourite past time, getting pissed. The name of Boros first pub is debated but many believe it was in 1830, the Ship Inn, on Stockton Street which later became the Middlehaven. There are plans to reopen the pub in the next year or so. This was quickly followed by the Captain Cook, the Steam Packet, the Stables and Coach House, the Queen's Head, the Navigation and the Gladstone. By 1870 the population had grown to 32,000 with 69 public houses and 127 beer houses, a ratio of one for every 150 residents. One of these pubs is the Green Tree, near the bus station in town. It is still there and about 4 years ago me n Cath went in. I had last been in there in the 70's but it was exactly the same. Even the juke box didn't have anything on older than 1979. By the late 1800's the town had also gained a reputation for "bad behaviour" which was not looked kindly upon in Victorian England. To quote "I have never seen sin so rampant than in the streets of Middlesbrough wherein are gathered the vilest of the vile." He must have been a Geordie. Even by the 1960's someone wrote "Middlesbrough was delightfully untouched by the sophistication prevelent in the rest of the country." Cheeky bastard. In the early days all of the pubs brewed their own beer even though Theakstons Brewery was established around 1840 and John Smiths in 1882/3. More of them later.

So Boro was clearly established as a drinkers paradise from early on. I started drinking when I was 17, sneaking into the Rudds Arms, in Marton, for a pint of Sam Smiths Old Brewery Bitter. It was bloody awful. A promising career as an aleologist was very nearly nipped in the bud but I persevered. So at age 18 and legally allowed I set out to give the ball a real kick, as they say. For most of the 70's and early 80's pubs didn't brew their own beer and would only serve one or two different ales along with a lager and bottles of stout, cider and maybe Newcastle Brown (terrible stuff known as electric soup and Vaux Magnet a Ruby red yeast fest which guaranteed regurgitation). The ale on tap was usually John Smiths, Bass or Cameron, a Hartlepool brewery and now owners of the Head of Steam Real Ale Emporium in Sheffield. Sam Smiths was served exclusively in their own pubs and was and indeed still is an aquired taste though very cheap. The pubs I frequented most in town were the Corporation, near to work and usually packed and the Albert a small three level boozer where my mum worked. I had my 21st party in there and still have the tankard I was presented with, now more valuable than the holy grail. 3 mates I worked with in those days now live in Sheffield and we still talk about the days we used to go to the Albert every lunchtime have 3 or 4 pints then go back to work at the Jobcentre ready for a fight with the customers. Great days.

The main obstacle for the committed drinker was the opening hours for pubs. In 1921 the Licencing Act set pub opening hours to 11.30am to 3.00pm and 5.30 to 10.30pm Mon to Saturday and 12.30 to 2.30 and 7.00 to 10pm Sunday. These went unchanged until late 80's when pubs could open from 11am to 11pm though it took many a few years to do so. The 2005 Act then allowed pubs to apply for 24 hour licence though the Stags think that's not enough. Anyway during 70's and most of the 80s the opening hours were very strictly enforced. Last orders were called 15mintes before closing but at the call of "Time Gentlemen Please" you were literally kicked out even if you had a full pint so you learnt very quickly to slug a pint back in one go. That's why Brits still drink as many as possible in the shortest time. That fear of Time geing called is real. I remember playing for a Stockton pub team in a competition in Ghent, Belgium, a lovely place by the way. Most of the lads had never been out of Teesside and had no idea of the drinking culture in Europe. So, fearing last orders they hit the bars and started fast and hard. Of course the superb Belgian beer was very strong and soon the streets of Ghent were filled with vomiting and unconscious Teessiders. Great days. Back home you spent most of you waking hours trying to find some way of extending your drinking times. Say hello to the legendary "Stoppy Back" allowing you to continue drinking when the pub was officially closed. This was usually only available if you were a regular or knew the landlord. Many's the time you were bundled out of a pub at closing time whilst being laughed at by locals cradling a full pint. Bastards. To chase the lock in we took to visiting the many villages surrounding Boro where a lock in was more possible as the police rarely ventured out of town. Even then the locals were usually unfriendly "whooly back sheep shaggers" who turned their noses up at long haired hippie types like us. I tried living and working in Yarm a tiny one highstreet village just outside Stockton. Yarm was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. In 1890 it boasted 12 inns on the High Street, Inc the Black Bull, Cross Keys, Crown Inn, Ketton Ox, Lord Nelson, Red Lion, 3 Tuns, Tom Brown and Union Inn. All of these apart from the Tom Brown were still there when I lived there for two years. It was great. I never left the high street with so many pubs my office and flat were there too. Still Hever got a lock in. Bastards. This changed significantly when in mis 80's I moved to Saltburn by Sea whilst working in Redcar. Saltburn is a ting Victoria seaside town with surrounding cliffs, Valley gardens and a pier. Trouble was it was founded by Methodists who frowned on Boozing so the only pub was right on the seafront at the bottom of the cliffs. However the town had plenty of Hotels each with their own bars. Even when the Hotels ceased trading their bars remained open. It was like something out of The Shining. One such was the bar of the old Alexander Hotel, which had been converted to flats and was where I lived. The bar was behind the hotel in an alley so was known as the Back Alex. Me and my flatmate, now a Sheffield resident also and a rugby playing beer machine, got to know the landlord really well spending all of our non working time in the bar. Every night was a lock in and we often drank until dawn even taking a crate onto the end of the pier to watch the sun rise over Huntcliffe. Great days though working with a hangover every day was a pain in the arse and head.

So it was with great celebration that we greeted the change to 11am to 11pm. Indeed the American Football Team was playing with at the time (that's another story) decided on the first day we would do the whole 12 hour session" for Charity" the 3 day hangover was worth it and it Brough in a slightly less pressured drinking culture. Actually it simply gave us more time to get hammered. The rest of the 80s and 90s were spent in the same pubs drinking the same beer you had done 20 years earlier. But things were changing. A real ale revolution was happening. I had had enough and decided to leave Middlesbrough and take a job on the big city. I had always loved London visiting there many times over the years usually for Football and Cricket matches or gigs so had no qualms about the move. I got a job with Overseas Labour Service doing work permits for Sports people and Entertainers which turned into a dream job. I would be based in Westminster and having visited so many times knew the are quite well. The Part II will details my boozing exploits in the capital and subsequent move to Sheffield, the home of real ale. Stay tuned where alchemists were born.

Anacos De Sheffield. Up The Line To Fuck

Hay una pintada en Pontevedra que dice algo así como "Pontevedra no es una ciudad, es un estado de ánimo" y con Sheffield pasa algo parecido aunque no igual.

Sheffield. Los lobos han vuelto a la ciudad para matar las reses que reservábamos para conservar la vida. Esperando la XIV, pateo la ciudad y a continuación os la cuento.

A modo de presentación os diré que la acerada ciudad de Sheffield tiene 400 km2 desparramados por siete colinas y varados en la confluencia de cinco ríos. Cuenta con unos 600.000 habitantes, 500 pubs y dos millones de árboles donde los búhos cansados cierran los ojos, fatigados de vigilar la noche, y han dejado la belleza de la caza a un lado, y han dejado el equilibrio de la rama para que crezcan otros bulbos y otras alas en el Peak District.

Más que por otra cosa, Sheffield es famosa por ser la cuna de la AngloGalician Cup y del fútbol moderno. El orden no importa. Porque ustedes han de saber que en esta ciudad podemos encontrar al equipo más antiguo del mundo, que es el Sheffield FC (The Ancients) fundado en 1857 y el campo más antiguo del mundo que es el Sandygate Road, hogar del Hallam FC (The Countrymen). El por qué el club más antiguo no juega en el campo más antiguo da para otra entrada.

Luego tenemos al Sheffield United (que son los Blades) del que este autor es ferviente seguidor y al Sheffield Wednesday (que son los Pigs... perdón, los Owls). El glorioso Sheffield United juega en Bramall Lane y en sus aledaños es tradición para los más clásicos tomarse un Fish and Chips en el Salt and Battered y tomarse una pinta en el Barrell Inn.
Obviamente no tengo ni idea de qué hacen los del Wednesday, pero creo que quedan en el New Barrack's Tavern y retozan allí hasta que les llega la hora de ir a Hillsborough.
Una piara de cerdos ha conquistado el aparcamiento.
Os sigo contando.

Hay vida más allá del fútbol? Pues claro que sí. Uno de los lemas de la Causa escupe la gran verdad de "Inglaterra es lo que hay entre Pub y Pub" y aquí podrías casi saltar de uno a otro sin pisar la calle.

Hay leyendas escritas sobre el asfalto y las aceras y firmadas con la orina de nuestra alegría.

Vamos a lo práctico: una guía básica de mis pubs en Sheffield dividida en dos.

1) Para quedar con colegas para unas pintas o ir en plan Llanero Solitario. 

Brother's Arms: Situado en lo alto de Heeley, cerca de Meersbrook Park, este pub tiene una de las mejores panorámicas de todo Sheffield además de una selección de cervezas espectacular. Un buen momento para disfrutar de su terraza es ir cuando atardece, pues la puesta de sol merece la pena.

The White Lion: Se podrá decir que es el pub más antiguo de Sheffield pues lleva desde 1781 abierto como tal. Además de eso cuenta con más de 10 cask ales y una gran programación de conciertos. Si todo ésto no es suficiente sus parroquianos son gente agradable y de bien. Personalmente me gusta ir los miércoles al Quiz Night a pasar un buen rato e intentar no quedar como el peor equipo.

Broadfield: Este es el sueño húmedo de todo Beer Hunter o amante del whisky: 15 cask ales que se cambian cada dos por tres, 6 taps siempre interesantes -que también rotan-  y unos 8 fijos. Además de todo ésto, súmale una variedad de más de 100 whiskys de malta. Hasta tienen camareros profesionales! La única pega es que es un poco pijo, pero merece la pena.

Cremorne: Es posiblemente el pub mas atípico de todo Sheffield y eso no es moco de pavo. Es un caos, cada día que vas es una sorpresa y con una clientela que va desde los típicos Barflies pasando por estudiantes e incluso alguna gente de bien.  Como decían en Blade Runner: ''he visto cosas que nunca creerías''. Pero todo ésto solo lo hace más único. En cuanto a las cervezas está bien surtido con 8 cask, entre ellas mi favorita, la Kelhan Best; por otra parte, merece la pena probar las pizzas, de las mejores de la ciudad y muy baratas.

Tap and Tankard: Este céntrico pub, aunque un poco escondido, es un oasis para los amantes del blues y de la cerveza. Pertenece a la Kelhan Island Brew. Esto siempre significa buen precio y calidad. Además, la selección musical es perfecta si te gusta el blues o el soul.

The Devonshire Cat: Seguimos por el centro, este pub es parada obligatoria. Tiene alrededor de 20 cask ales y una buena carta de whiskys. He visto algunos revolotear con su batir de alas anárquico y ebrio en otras noches de mayor entusiasmo.

2) Para salir en serio, ahora que empiezo a odiar las noches en cubierta por la misma razón que antes odiaba las noches en el camarote:

The Green Room: Grandes éxitos de los 80 y 90 del pop rock Británico. Ideal para empezar, pintas a buen precio y buen ambiente, aunque la media de edad es alta, eso sí.

The Washington: Un clásico en la Anglogalician y uno de los favoritos de servidor para liarla. Abre hasta las 3, la música es buena, y las pintas y las copas baratas. Más no se puede pedir.

The Yorkshireman: El Pub Heavy de Sheffield con mayúsculas, lo mejor de la New Wave of British Heavy Metal sonando y gente con melenas al viento y bebiendo en cuernos vikingos. Por Odin que no hay bar mejor y, por encima, es el pub que cierra más tarde, a las 4.

The Leadmill: Si ya has aguantado más allá de las 4, poco te queda. Puedes probar suerte en el Dempsey's (sede de los Stags) aunque mejor vete al Leadmill y disfruta de sus dos pistas y sus huérfanas turgentes y sus esposas en los baños.

Y no desprecies la joya roja entre las ramas solo porque es la luz del semáforo. No sé de luces rojas en Sheffield. No pierdan su tiempo en preguntar.

Tenemos todo para coger el futuro entre las manos y poder decir, con el poeta y el loco y el sabio y el guerrero: vamos a protagonizar una época en Sheffield. Y lo haremos.