“When will that be?” say St Dunstan’s, Stepney

Oooooo, it’s getting all so close now! I can smell the finishing line and almost feel the weight of the gold medal being hung around my neck. This is the penultimate tour of the Oranges and Lemons extravaganza and that means we might just get the job finished before we hit the 18 month mark.
So this “next from last” outing took us further into the East End than we’ve ever been so far as the church in question was St Dunstan’s in Stepney and it was asking that all important question of just when we might see the colour of the money owed to us.

Stepney, for those whose London geography mean they get their Whitechapels mixed up with their Blackfriars, is sort of a bit further east than Whitechapel and a bit more north than Limehouse. And it was on a DLR train bound for Limehouse station that the excursion started on a cold wintery Thursday night.

Due to the delights of a bit of an afternoon off, it should have been the whole day but eventually ended up being about 2 hours only, I has spent some of the afternoon puzzling my way around the Tate Modern gallery in Southwark. Now I quite like art and I quite like modern art and I’ve no objections to some of the stranger things we’ve been told are “inspirational” and “awesome” but I’ve got to say quite a lot of the stuff there just past me right by.

Yes JBG, I really could have done that.

Firstly there was nothing in the Turbine Hall apart from some bits of cloth hanging from some bits of wood and the majority of the other compositions seemed to be composted of balls of string and scraps of metal. Half an hour saw me done and I then spent the next 40 minutes wandering around trying to find a pub in a rather comedic hail storm.

With no pub found I eventually made my way to the old offices and blagged my way inside using the excuse that I had a meeting with Spiky Haired Ed. He, along with several others I then learned had just left to make their way to the Minories (which was mentioned when we did Vine Street (yes, I know it’s still the wrong Vine Street) as part of the Monopoly Tour) to await the boarding of the DLR at Tower Gateway.

So that left me kicking my heels in the company of Lucie, Adele, Nicole and mad pissed up Phil as they filed their files and put away their pencil cases after a hard day of messing up everyone’s pay.
Over in the Minories we met up with the majority contingent of Mags, Buddy Rob, James James, Lisa, Gemma and Mo and then even managed to all get on the same DLR and all get off again at Limehouse without losing anyone of the way.

After the lengthiest crossing of the road ever we finally made our way into York Square where you’ve got facing pubs with the Old Ship on the south-west corner and the Queens Head on the north-east one.

The lights are those of the Old Ship, viewed from the Queens Head.

The Old Ship is a gay friendly location which does a big line in drag cabaret (according to the web site) but on this quiet Thursday evening it was disguised as a 1970s timber and horse brass local with a pleasant smattering of likely workmen types in day-glo and hard hats. Unless this was a sort of reverse drag night of course? Anyway we were made very welcome by the bar staff and I selfishly obtained my bottle of Guinness West Indies Porter whilst the rest of them were still fighting about kitties and whips and how cheap it was because we were in before 7.

One half of the tour by the pool table. Look at Ed posing!

The back of the pub opened out in a sizeable games room and people of different generations will remember this sort of room differently. For me it brought back memories of caravanning trips where the only entertainment laid on for the under 18s was a damp port-a-cabin into which was installed a dodgy 20 inch black and white TV which was then grandly called the Television Room. At least in the Old Ship’s version there was a full sized pool table which several of the tourists took immediate advantage of.

The other half of the tour. Ed still posing.

This allowed for a couple of latecomers to slip into proceedings without too much disturbance as we saw New Guy Mickey make his usual “working from home” entrance, Charmer Palmer put in a rare appearance and lovely Brenda turn up again looking extremely fit and well on a diet of leisure and retirement. We were also graced with the presence of Charlie who according to my records hasn’t been on a tour of any kind since Aldgate in May last year.

Brenda and BGC steer the Old Ship into port.

Due to the attraction of the pool table and the offer of cheap before 7 drinks, we were persuaded to stay on for another in the Old Ship before making our way around the square to the previously mentioned Queens Head. The head of the queen in question here was that of the Queen Mother as not only did she appear on the hanging sign outside the pub but also in various photos dotted around the place.

If the Old Ship had pool to offer, then this place had darts, and once Charlie and I had got our orders of Young’s Special sorted (let the others sort themselves out) it was into the back room for a few round of arrows (or in Ed’s case, a few rounds of Pointless) to while away the time.

The Queens Head.

Lisa and James James made their excuses at this point (yeah, don’t tell me there ain’t nothing going on) but the rest of us were eventually rounded up and we made a very brisk way to the church of St Dunstan’s who, as the clocks struck 9, played a special peal of the bells (all cast in the Whitechapel bell foundry no less) in honour of the visit of the BGC.

We stopped, very briefly as it was still bloody parky, just long enough to take on board that the dinging bells had been cast in the previously mentioned Whitechapel foundry (that got a cheer) that the church and the graveyard was home to many sailors and seamen (that got a completely inappropriate giggle) and that it was also the final resting place to one Roger Crab, who may or may not have been the inspiration for the Mad Hatter (that got a round of applause.)

To get the full effect, you need to imagine the sounds of binging and bonging.

It was a very quick dash up White Horse Lane to the junction with Mile End Road and the final pub of the evening. But this dash wasn’t quick enough to avoid the carelessly deposited dildo that was laying the middle of the road. Perhaps this is a common occurrence in Stepney and it’s one I wish I’d had the thought to take a photo of (well it was still very cold) but the poor thing looked quite pathetic and lonely all abandoned like this and I think I may have heard one of the girls offer to give it a good home……or maybe I didn’t.

The final pub of the night was a Wetherspoons by the name of the Half Moon, which apparently was a former theatre and is now home to a whole host of students from the nearby University of London just yards further up Mile End Road. At first I thought it was one of the smallest Wetherspoons I’ve ever been in until we stumbled into the cavernous rear bar which was just as full with students taking advantage of the cheap curry night as the front bar.

Charlie and I had pints of Whale Ale’s Ruby Moby and just generally felt old and knackered as the young and beautiful around us tried to decide how exactly to wear their baseball caps to see if they could get served without being asked for ID.

By half 9 I was well and truly done in and luckily it was only a quick scoot next door to Stepney Green tube station to run back to Reading via Paddington only to find out that it was Rail Replacement Bus night. And just to really fuck my luck that little bit more, the bus driver insisted on playing the Organist Entertains with Nigel Ogden.

Hey ho! One to go!

Pokers and Tongs say The Chapel of St John’s

The last episode, as regular readers and those with nothing better to do will know, didn’t actually take place in or by a church. This week’s missive almost headed down the same route as my nursery rhyme based research revealed that the St John’s as mentioned in this part of the song was The Chapel of St John’s which forms part of the White Tower located right in the centre of the Tower of London.

Chapel of St John's in the middle.

This was good news as on one level as it meant another extremely local tour with only yards to cover from our place of work and also James James had insisted on not walking more than 10 feet before he’d ever set foot on the tour again. But on the downside, this meant we would get no nearer to the “church” than the Beefeater guarded drawbridges of the Tower itself.

For those who don’t know much about the Tower of London, the White Tower is the square keep building right in the centre and as one might have guessed from this description, it’s the oldest part of the Tower and as such, this is another place which claims to be the oldest church in London. Luckily although we wouldn’t be able to get very close to the chapel, the White Tower is so prominent it’s easily visible from the path that runs by the Thames and it’s very simple to make out the arched windows on the second floor which is where the chapel is located.

Obviously the Tower abounds with interesting historical facts and the most interesting of these that I could connect with The Chapel of St John’s was that Elizabeth of York was laid in state here after her death in 1503. Now, who on earth is Elizabeth of York I hear you all cry out loud, well she was a woman who was daughter of a king, wife of a king, sister of a king, niece of a king, mother of a king and grandmother of a king (and queens). And to make matters even more incredible most of these facts she achieved in her lifetime.

I was quite impressed that I managed to recall all of these various kings and their numbers (Edward IV, Henry VII, Edward V, Richard III, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I respectively) and even managed to weave my story into the claim that the two children’s skeletons found under the stairs leading up to the Chapel are supposedly those of Elizabeth’s brothers, the princes in the tower Edward V and Richard. That however didn’t seem to be enough for all female audience of hecklers. We were getting suggestions and questions of “isn’t this where Lionel the XIV was beheaded?” or “oh, I remember that this is when Shane the VIII hung his 12 wives, one after another.”

Idiot women got the wrong Tower in the background.

So leaving aside the finer points of British History we made our way to the first pub of the evening still at this point an all-female grouping. This had come about because the usual headache of gathering everyone together had multiplied into a right old mess and resulted in the girls getting squiffy on 2-for-1 cocktails in the appalling Slug and Lettuce and the boys refusing to drink in such a naff place going on ahead, a solution which it’s hard to fathom why we hadn't come to this sometime previously. I, like a poor man’s version of Dan Snow, had to hang around to do the church talk which judging by the claims that Arnold the II had burnt the cakes at the top of the Bloody Tower I needn't have bothered.

The 10 for 1 cocktail offer.

The first pub tonight was one we had passed on many occasions when on our collective ways to other tour locations, which is a shame because it’s a damn fine one, as we’ve come to expect from the Fuller’s stable. The Hung Drawn and Quartered might play on its name and take liberties with exact history but it’s still a fine pub and being a Fuller’s pub, one where we could once again produce copious amounts of free drink vouchers.

One element of the Hung, Drawn & Quartered.

I must say here that although we've never been refused a Fuller’s voucher, the blank look on the bar-people’s faces has shown that the message about what these are hasn’t quite filtered down to the shop floor. The chap that was serving me declared that my voucher was only good for limited ales, i.e. London Pride and even after I pointed out that in fact it was good for any drink I still ended up with the Pride instead of the Brit Hop which is what I wanted. Mind you, by this point I would have sucked the water out of a soggy flannel so thirsty was I that I quite happily accepted the Pride.

Ah well, next time maybe.

We did have a few new faces on the tour who need welcoming, the first being the replacement for Charlie. (Remember him? No hair? Couldn't hold his drink?) A much improved version of Charlie called Kambiz. We also had Shirley and Jade from Payroll, both making their first appearances even though both had been doing their best to avoid the tour for as long as possible. Jade admitted as much by answering my innocent remark of “nice to see you out finally” with “well, I was running out of excuses.” Mmmm, this might be one to watch. We were also joined by Monika who we haven’t seen for some weeks but who had dragged along her better half to endure an evening of beer drinking in the fine spring sunshine.

Endure was certainly the right word as we moved to the 2nd pub of the night, one which everyone was asking me why I’d picked it, and I have to wonder myself why I had. The pub, or bar, in question was the All Bar One on Byward Street which you just knew was going to be a disappointment when upon enquiring what ales were on offer the answer I received was “Doombar in bottles.” Ah.

All Bar None.

I settled for an icy cold Meantime Pilsner which gained me an Untappd badge but precious little else. Clever Brenda I noted had gone for a pint of Guinness and even cleverer Lucie had managed to coerce the management into fulfilling the free wine tasting that the signs littered around the place were advertising. That’s certainly one way of getting a free drink and much better than taking your own stuff from place to place. (Hint to Lisa and the miniature bottles of vodka!)

Ah yes, we're massive wine fans us. Phil leads the way.

Luckily the next stop was much better prepared in terms of beers as it’s the specialist beer bar The Draft House and their Seething branch which is located just behind Seething Lane Gardens. This is where we had Charlie’s leaving do (how has he managed to get two mentions this time?) and the range of beers on offer is substantial to say the least. I went for a Titanic Stout, (from Titanic Brewery) needing something rich and warming to take away the sting of the pilsner.

Titanic Stout.

Unfortunately although we managed to secure a large long table at the back of the bar we were split into two groups and in a rather role-reversed fashion the ladies remained propped up at the bar whilst the men sipped drinks sedately sat the table. I did enquire to see whether they wanted to join us but all I received for my efforts was a clove of garlic which I think Lucie eats in preference to chewing gum. Well she is French after all.

Beautiful people of The Draft House.

The final stop of the night was back across the road and into the Wetherspoon’s emporium called the Liberty Bounds which whilst doing nothing more than your normal Wetherspoon’s does, it has a competent range of beers including White Out from Brains which was my 1st pint, followed by a Märzenfest from Inveralmond Brewery which Brenda forced on me much to my jelly-spined resistance.

The group was now whittled down to the hardened most alcohol dependant tourists and there seemed to be much in the way of shared bowls of chips and shared gurning #selfies. None of which probably did us any favours. I think the evidence is conclusive.

Pancakes and Fritters say St Peter upon Cornhill

This week’s episode begins with a question……When is a paper clip not a paper clip? When it’s a tie clip of course, which as a joke doesn’t work at all but it seems to be a subject that Lisa, (aka Payroll’s version of Diana Dors) wouldn’t let go of and found immeasurably and quite unreasonably funny.

You can almost smell the swarveness.

The tie clip in question is this beautiful piece of male jewellery which my darling, and long suffering wife bought for my birthday the other week. I think it adds a certain “man about town” swarveness to my appearance which only one as finely moustachioed and I can carry off. Lisa on the other hand seems to think that I’d nicked a paper clip from work and was using it in a vain attempt to keep my tie from flying away, but there again this is a woman who actually wants to get rid of her “thigh gap” so what can she possibly know about looking good.

What she does know though is that the appalling Slug & Lettuce downstairs serves two-for-one cocktails at half five of an evening which is a much better place to wait for Spikey Haired Ed to finally finish work than hanging around the office’s cash machine like a load of delinquent teenagers.

Mickey seems to find Lisa's paper-clip jokes quite funny.....

So after the two-for-one cocktails were finished, or in the case of Natasha and Kevin, the four-for-two cocktails were finished, (and my insipid pint of Amstel) we wandered back to the offices to pick up Ed only to find his time keeping was as good as ever and he was nowhere to be seen. The rest of the tour set off for the short walk to Leadenhall Market, although by the way some of them were whinging about the less than 1 mile walk you’d think I’d asked them to hike the length of Hadrian’s Wall. I hung around like the world’s most unattractive rent boy and then gave up on the king of hair wax and marched off myself.

The bright lights of Leadenhall Market.

So as I make the 15 minute trip to Leadenhall Market I’d better explain what this week’s tour was all about and who had made it out for the evening. This week’s church was St Peter upon Cornhill which is located in the middle of a concrete jungle of office blocks and is only approachable through a rabbit warren of narrow alleyways. The church is just over the road from the well-known and previously mentioned Leadenhall Market which seems to crop up in nearly every film that features a scene in London. What Leadenhall Market does have, apart from filmability, is a few pubs dotted around its interior and it was to two of these that we planned to kick our evening off with.

Young's Lamb Tavern.

The first was Young’s Lamb Tavern and it was there that I met back up with Mickey, Munchkin Steve and the rest of the Payroll reprobates; Natasha, Kevin, Lisa and Pissed-Up Phil. Also meeting us there was Gemma fresh back from the arse-end of the world and accompanied by her non-boyfriend, a fine figure of a man called Sam. The final pieces of the jigsaw were Mr Clark, bravely coming back to the tour without Mr Cheeseman and only moments behind my arrival a flustered looking Spikey Haired Ed.

The Lamb Tavern is a lovely “ye olde world pub” which is well worth a visit especially as Young’s are also giving away free drink vouchers, many thanks to the eagle eyed Munchkin Steve for spotting these. The vouchers aren’t as good as the Fuller’s ones because the drinks range is limited but a free pint of Young’s Bitter should never be rejected. The pub is well known for the wrought iron spiral staircase, etched glass and the tiled mural of Sir Christopher Wren presenting his plans for the Monument to the Great Fire of London (hidden behind the door) is so good I forced everyone to take a look.

Lisa's paper-clip jokes as viewed through a pint of Young's Bitter.

It was here that Lisa launched here attack on my tie clip much to her own amusement. Admittedly my defence wasn’t too great; I tried to liken my tie-clip looking like a paper-clip to her bag looking like a bag and of course attacking a woman’s bag is tantamount to violent incest so this didn’t win me any points or favours. Luckily for the rest of the tour Lisa is more or less completely off her noggin on prescription drugs at the moment so mixing these with alcohol isn’t the best idea in the world. Showing a very old head on very young shoulders she decided to leave for home after the Lamb and so the tour was much quieter but all the more duller for her departure.

Morland Original. Exactly what it says on the clip.

As previously mentioned the next pub was at the other end of the market, this time a Greene King pub called The New Moon. Here we didn’t have any vouchers but we did get a very nice pint of Morland’s Original, well for me and Mr Clarke at least. We escaped the crush of the bar and the hordes of people who had decided to watch the Clegg vs Farage debate in the pub (Really?) and it was here that the final tourist of the night arrived and heralded a huge turning point in the life of the housewives answer to George Clooney. Spikey Haired Ed has, and this will come as a huge surprise to regular readers of the blog and a huge disappointment to the legion of teenage Jackie readers, been in a relationship for the past 18 months in one of the worst kept secrets ever. In an attempt to “go public” he brought along the delightful and minute Reena to savour the pleasures of the tour.

So once this shock was gotten over and once Gemma and Natasha had gagged down their delightful halves of Greene King Yardbird we moved on, which was just a case of crossing of Gracechurch Street and into what I understand to be the largest Wetherspoons in the country, The Crosse Keys. Many of us have been in this monstrous place before but we’ve never covered it on one of our tours and it’s well worth a visit just to take in the impressive size and extremely well done conversion that Wetherspoon’s did to turn this former bank into a very nice pub.

The beer range is extensive and the downside to this is that it’s difficult to see exactly what is on offer with the handpumps circled around the central bar. The flat screens which are used during beer festivals were all off so it was a bit of a case of ordering what could be seen directly in front of you. In an attempt to go for something different I plumped for pints of Köstritzer Black Lager which although extremely nice, at £4.75 a pint must be one of the most expensive pints in a Wetherspoon’s ever.

For some reason we clustered around the stairs to the toilets to shoot the breeze. Unfortunately between myself and Spikey Haired Ed the most interesting thing we can remember from this time was an umbrella falling on the floor. Hey, that’s the crazy life we lead!

When I had researched the pubs I’d discovered a “short cut” leading from the church to the back door of the Crosse Keys so led the troops out of the this exit for the short spin around the corner directly into the church yard. Of course I’d forgotten how like herding cats it is to try to get this unruly mob into any sort of order and needless to say by the time we’d covered the 10 yards or so, we’d lost half the people somewhere on route.

St Peter keeps a look out for the missing tourists.

Not wanting to make them all hang around like spare chimps at a tea party I did the church talk once only to have the lost souls finally appear at the end of the speech and so had to do the whole thing again. Luckily the talk was one of the shorter ones. St Peter upon Cornhill was a return to a Christopher Wren built church (see there was a reason I wanted you to see the tiles!) being another one which was destroyed in the Great Fire of London and then rebuilt shortly afterwards. It is currently not used for regular services but is an addition to nearby St Helens (to be covered in a later episode) and is used for study groups and youth clubs. It is, apparently, built on the highest point within the City of London and is mentioned by Dickens in his novel “Our Mutual Friend”……..is that enough? Right let’s get a drink.

Rumours that St Peter is the patron saint of basketball are get to be confirmed.

One of the nicest things about St Peter’s is that not only does it back onto the Crosse Keys but it also backs onto the final pub, another Fuller’s emporium (vouchers at the ready everyone) called The Counting House. This gorgeous place of glass and brass had many confused between this place and the Old Bank of England (covered in the Monopoly visit to Fleet Street) and seeing as they were both built in former banks.

The ceiling in The Counting House.

I got the vouchered round in for Mr Clark, Ed, the future Mrs Ed and a couple of others and although the effeminate Latino barman was all smiles and winks I’m sure he miscalculated one of the vouchers and we still ended up paying a tenner for one drink and some crisps. Still a pint of Fuller’s ESB for next to nothing is still a delight.

Mr Clark looking impressed at Phil's conversation techniques.

The final episodes of the evening before the tube journey with Mr Clark, apart from watching Pissed-Up Phil descend into a blathering mess of double gins and inappropriate sexual innuendoes were spotting Stretch Arm-Max, former colleague and one time Monopoly Tourist last seen somewhere around the environs of Liverpool Street Station. I was then subjected to thousands of Gemma’s holiday photos which were only broken up by snaps of her nephew and the most beautiful fringe in the southern hemisphere.

And on that dreamy note…………we’ll sign off. Cheers!

The dangers of the selfie.

Brickbats and Tiles say St Giles in the Fields

So after much cajoling, nagging and a Christmas break, we finally got the tour organised again. Those following the rhyme will of course know that the next stop was St Giles’ because, and please feel free to join in if you know the words, Brickbats and Tiles say the bells of St Giles’ (I’m sure this is all made up.)

St Giles’ in the Field to give the place its full name is in Soho and is also known as the poets’ church. The Poetry Society holds their AGM at the church and various poets had their children buried there (Milton, Shelley, Byron to name but three). And it was with this bombshell of an interesting fact that I began the church talk. Determined not to be accused of missing this out again we went directly to the church from Tottenham Court Road station.

This area is all a bit of a mess at the moment. Not only have you got some massive Crossrail development underway directly outside Tottenham Court Road station but that end of Oxford Street and around the brightly coloured Central St Giles buildings is not exactly salubrious to say the least. New-Guy Micky who used to work in the area had already warned us to watch out for the “smack heads”.

It was also a pretty wet and miserable evening when the majority of the tour stepped off the Central line at the afore mentioned Tottenham Court Road station. It’s always the most difficult tube line to get onto from our corner of the Circle Line at Tower Hill as the routes to get the famous red line throw up many questions. Do you wait the 10-15 intervals between Circle Line trains to get round to Liverpool Street? Or do you take the much more frequent District Line service down to Embankment and walk from there? Or do you do what we did, which is one stop on the District down to Monument and then walk through seemingly endless miles of tube station corridors to Bank and get the Central Line from there? Luckily we managed to stay together and lost no-one on route even though Young Phil (a New-New-Guy) and myself had to pause whilst the geriatric others finally caught us up.
The long walk through the station must have took its toll on George and “Smash-a-Glass” Lisa as they took advantage of the pause outside Tottenham Court Road to dash into the McDonalds across the road and line stomachs with various meaty treats. The pause was to locate New Guy Micky, who turned out to be waiting for us at the church and the double-act of Mr Cheese and Mr Clarke, who turned up finally in the 1st pub.

Burgers eaten and New Guy Micky located we took stock outside the Church, which again is not benefitting from overgrown shrubbery and boarding panels. Built between 1730 and 1734 this was the first church on the tour which didn’t leap from the mind of Christopher Wren but is instead a Henry Flitcroft creation in the Palladian style (oooo get her). It replaced an earlier church where victims of the Great Plague had been buried and became a landmark on the journey of condemned prisoners from Newgate Prison (see Go to Jail) to the Tyburn Gallows (see Park Lane) where the soon to be hung would stop for a drink in a local pub.

Talking about drinking in a local pub, this seems like an ideal point to move on to Monmouth Street and The Crown which is a triangular end of terrace pub from the Taylor Walker stable. There was no sign of the Cask Marque certificate (Remember that? Collecting those scans?) but there was sign of Mr Cheese and Mr Clarke who were instantly recognisable because of the Dorset Knobs.

Look at the smiles on seeing the Dorset Knobs.

The beer was ok, although the selection of Pride, Doombar and Old Golden Hen are never going to set the world on fire, which was a bit of a shame because the pub is actually quite nice in a strange shapely, horse-brassy, Victorian picture sort of way.

The Cambridge

The tour was soon on its way again, skirting around the Seven Dials before crossing Shaftsbury Avenue and onto Charing Cross Road which was to be our route for the rest of the evening. The Cambridge is an imposing looking place which belies a quite small interior into which we just about managed to squeeze amongst the early evening theatre goers. Again the beer offerings were actually quite slim, disappointing for another national chain (Nicholson’s this time) with the only more unusual brew being Ultra Pale Ale from the Bristol Beer Factory. This satisfied the ale drinkers, limited this excursion to just Mr Cheese, Mr Clarke, Brenda and yours truly. The rest were on a variety of fizzy yellow stuff (Bud still for Buddy Rob you’ll be pleased to know), vodka fun drinks and in the case of Isabelle and Lucie a surprising diversion to red wine.

Inside The Cambridge - Red Wine not in view.

The pub filtered out slightly as curtain up must have been called in the surrounding theatres but we didn’t spend that long enjoying the extra room. In fact we were so quick Lucie took her glass of wine with her.

The next pub was quite literally a stone’s throw away being the gaudily green looking Molly Moggs. Look at any website about this pub, (not the pub’s own one, that seems to be down) and you’ll see a variety of brightly drag acts camping it up like Baden Powell’s back garden. Sadly it must have been a quiet night tonight as although there was a smattering of all male clientele in the pub there wasn’t a hint of a sequin or a feather boa.

Molly Moggs - Feather Boas not in view.

Obviously not a pub that builds its living on beer there was but a single lonely ale pump but the pint of London Glory it served wasn’t too bad and more than drinkable. Lucie managed to sneak her half glass of red inside without any challenges, I guess I only wonder if the owners of Molly Moggs wonder where the extra glass came from?

It’s a good job the tour wasn’t feeling too exhausted tonight as the next pub was literally next door meaning one of the shortest crawls between pubs on any of the tours ever. The next place was a narrow fronted but hugely interiored Wetherspoons called the Montagu Pyke (aka The Cinema King – look it up).

Montagu Pyke - Good Service not in view.

As previously mentioned the inside of the pub spread out to the back of the pub with a vast number of tables as well as a small balcony, it was also doing a roaring trade as it was almost full with drinkers and diners. Managing eventually to get to the bar, I ordered 4 pints of something which has slipped my mind. The first two, which went to Mr Cheese & Mr Clarke looked ok but the 3rd which was destined for Brenda had the look and consistency of a swampy pool.

“Don’t think I’ll be able to get the fourth out of this” shrugged the non-plussed barman who was wearing a name-tag that said “manager”. “Yes, not so sure I want that cloudy third one” I commented. “Up to you” shrugged the shruggy “manager” who was managing to take disinterest to a whole new level. And without going too CAMRA on you all, it’s experiences like this which is why the Real Ale crowd will never fully endorse the Wetherspoons chain.

Anyway, the pint of Oxford Gold from Brakspear that I finally choose from the vast range of ale pumps where far too many of the pump clips were turned round was OK but to be honest, you get some good Wetherspoons, in fact you get some great ones, but you also get some bloody awful ones and this one was one where no matter how cheap the drink is it was always going to fall into the latter category.

The one redeeming feature was that the Cask Marque certificate was proudly hung on the wall by the bar which meant the first scan of the night from the third accredited pub.

The final pub of the night was not quite so little a distance away as the previous two, but it was still only a short hop to the top of Charing Cross Road and a left hand turn into the Crossrail building site and the Royal George, whose bright pink neon sign can just about been seen around the cranes and cement mixers.

The Royal George - Mr Cheese just in view.

The first thing I noticed was the Cask Marque certificate just by the door which meant the second scan of the night. It was a good job that the certificate was by the door because it was hard to make anything else out in the gloom of the pub’s interior. I can’t remember the whole beer range but I do remember that I was drinking Hopback’s Winter Lightning which the ale drinkers amongst us persisted with.

I can’t remember what caused the exodus but it seemed that one moment the place was full and then in a blink of an eye there was only Mr Cheese, Mr Clarke, New Guy Micky and Spiky Haired Ed in the place. Oh and me of course. It seemed somehow fitting that we finished the evening by ordering a lovely bottle of Delirium Tremens which was only spoilt by a veritable mixture of mixed glassware. I mean, come on pubs, if you’re going to invest in a range of interesting bottles, invest in some decent glasses as well yeah?

Well I said “we finished the evening” because for me there was only the attraction of a double Upper Crust baguette and the last train home whilst Mr Cheese, Mr Clarke and Micky ended the evening with a slap-up Chinese meal in Soho. What Ed did is anyone’s guess.