Gin Palace
Perhaps not quite Orwell's Ideal (scroll down for yesterday's post) but with no sport on TV and no piped music, The Salisbury punches well above its weight for a pub on the main drag in the West End of London.
Posts
The Moon Under Water
In his essay The Moon Under Water (1946, published in the Evening Standard ) George Orwell provided a detailed description of his ideal pub, which he would name the Moon Under Water. The ideal pub, he wrote, must meet ten key criteria: • The architecture and fittings must be uncompromisingly Victorian. • Games, such as darts, are only played in the public part of the bar. • The pub is quiet enough to talk, with the house possessing neither a radio nor a piano. • The barmaids know the customers by name and take an interest in everyone. • It sells tobacco and cigarettes, aspirins and stamps, and lets you use the phone. • There is a snack counter where you can get liver-sausage sandwiches, mussels (a specialty of the house), cheese, pickles and large biscuits with caraway seeds. • Upstairs, six days a week, you can get a good, solid lunch for about three shillings. • It should serve a creamy sort of draught stout, “and it goes better in a pewter pot”. • They are particular about their dr...
Way Up North
“Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?” (William Shakespeare, Hamlet III/i 1599) “Shoot that poison arrow to my ha-ha-heart” (ABC, Poison Arrow 1982) “‘arrow on the ‘ill” (Posh bit o’ London, innit) The East Finchley Archer (above) fires his bolt down the world's 5th longest tunnel (the Northern Line). Back in the day (1940s) it used to be the longest.
