The Moon Under Water

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Following on from CarsmileSteve's comment on the Oxford thread about not yet finding the perfect local, what for you makes the perfect pub?

― MarkH, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Cosy corners, lock-ins, bar staff who between cover at least two of 'beautiful', 'friendly' and 'bonkers', a jukebox and low lighting. This is why the Golden Heart is the best pub.

― N., Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

add a dartboard and proper beer and a Landlord who knows how to look after it and you've got mine, unfortunately I have yet to find it, it used to be in Chesterfield, but then it changed.

― chris, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Good ales (real ale guest beers compulsory). Either a pool table or preferably a darts board. Triv machine. Not too many yuppies.

And it's got to be in Twickenham or it wouldn't be local!

I tend to go to different pubs for different reasons - The Eel Pie for the Quiz and Tanglefoot. The Prince Blucher or the Prince Albert with neighbours/locals. The White Swan or the Barmy Arms in the summer for the view over the river.

― Dr. C, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

We have most definitely done this before, it came up in Trig Brother. Tim took us to a great pub on Saturday, The Ring by Southwark station. It was fab. Also see PUMPKIN PUBLOG for more pub escapades including what is good / bad about pubs. (I don't do links).

― Emma, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Pictures of boxers. Lots of pictures of boxers.

― Tim, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Plus! Great pub dog Plus! underage girlies in toilet shenanigans Plus! brilliant barman who remembered our rounds better than us.

― Emma, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

istr that this turned into a Sam Smiths - c/d fite last time

― Alan Trewartha, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

brilliant barman who remembered our rounds better than us.

Not difficult by that stage. It was really ace though. BOXERS!

― Tom, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My little baby, recently live and kicking again (though the rest of the contributors need to start chipping in too to stop it being all bad grammar & my pub prejudices)

Pumpkin Publog

― Pete, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've got it bookmarked! I haven't lived in London since I was eighteen, so my knowledge of London pubs isn't as great as those of Bristol and Oxford. WE have a Sam Smiths pub here called the Three Goats Heads and yes, they serve Ayingerbrau (or whatever its called). I'm not a lager drinker myslelf, so Ayingerbrau is notable only for the plastic stereotypical Bavarian guy on the pump. Nah, when I'm in a Sam Smiths pub I always drink the Extra Stout, which is wuvly.

― MarkH, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But have you had the Taddy Porter? Engine oil!

― Dr. C, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

hey:

as a Yank living in the USA and going to England quite often, could you email the address of some of these pubs? Seems like all the ones I've been in lately everyone is drinking Budwiser. Yeck.

― my name is here--->, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

b-but it is the king of beers!!

― mark s, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

* dark

* good jukebox

* cheap beer

* close-by

* open at 10am

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

On tue night when The Ring was mentioned I made top joke that only katie heard...

― mark s, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I like Nick's requirements, only it's a good thing there isn't one of those by me or I'd never go home. Closest thing I have to a local: former-gay-bar-new-management-but-still-utterly-queeny dive bar. Jukebox suXors.

― Pyth, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

b-but it is the king of beers!!

If the choice is that or motor oil, then you might have a point.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Golden Heart of which Dastoor speaks (Commercial Street E1) is full of artworld lushes (Tracey Emin etc.) and does wine for £9. Landlady good, ambience good, lock-in potential always present. I don't really do the pub thing but when I do, I do it there.

― suzy, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Great Lakes on 5th Ave. in Brooklyn has no bottles of Budweiser, which is the thin end of the wedge about why that place is ass, uh

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I would just like to point out that the Golden Heart does not only have art world lushes. In fact, they're in a minority. But it's all one big happy family, anyway. Also has open fire, which is a good requirement in winter. The cast of 'Bugs' used to drink there, but this amusing sideshow has ended.

― N., Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nick, you clearly don't get into the PRIVATE ROOM much. There are also Fashion Lushes, Photographer Lushes, Journalist Lushes, Esther (unclassifiable) and a few pickled wrinklies at the GH who are not necessarily Gilbert and George. Even my HAIRDRESSER drinks there when she's not drinking in Brixton.

― suzy, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If the cast of 'It's a Bugs Life' drank there, THEN I would be impressed.

― Sarah, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

remind me *never* to go in that private room.

― chris, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You're right, suzy. I never go in that private room. Because it's private.

― N., Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

First of all, it must look like a pub, not an ikea barn or a ye olde goods storage depot. Friendly barstaff a must, round memorizing capabilities a bonus. For beer I need at least two nice bitters and preferably a rotating guest beer that isn't Wadworth's 6X (yes, I am looking at you, Mr Youngs Breweries). Whisky that is drinkable. Good jukebox (ie lots of Now compilations, no Oasis, Doors, Pink Floyd or Stone Roses albums). On the games front: darts, bar billiards and possibly a good quiz machine. Fire in winter, garden in summer.

― RickyT, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ooh yes, good whisky, good call even that generic sampler that lots of pubs seem to have will do the trick seeing as it's got some corkers on it, you know, the one that looks like an elongated Olympic winners rostrum.

― chris, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'll agree with suzy there, and add that they know how to treat beer , which about 95% of the pubs in britain don't seem to be able to do, (They also seem to classify old wife beater as beer, but that is a matter of semantics), and the beer they serve is Adnams SSB which is a fine brew.

My ideal pub woukd first off have a wide selection of draught beers, (handpull, including Timothy Taylor's Landlord PA), a selection of belgian bottled beers and lagers), good scotches, iced vodka, (stolychnaya, finlandia or wybrowka) with proper iced russian 100g glasses. The bar staff would be friendly and know that 1 ice cube does not a gin and tonic make and offer a choice of lemon, lime or both in said drink. They'd know a wide variety of cocktails too. Guiness would come in druaght, and bottle original and export forms to suit my guinness drinking moods.

Food would be exceptional pub standards, steak and kidney pies, sausage and mash, sunday roasts, ploughman's. Bar snack woul include fresh pork scratchings, freshly made crisps and a selction of nuts.

A pub exuding these qualities apart from the vodka gin and cocktail ones exists in sheffield and is called the fatcat. Of particular note are its tiny bar replete with eleven handpull and 5 taps, curated belgian beers and a ploughmans featuring five delicious cheeses homemade, pickle and tasty wholemeal bread.

― Ed, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

How could I forget pork scratchings? I must be going mad.

― RickyT, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The freshness or otherwise of pork scratchings is fairly immaterial, they are still chunks of pig skin.

― Emma, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oh god the fatcat! I love that pub. and it is as good as Ed says.

― chris, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yes indeed! I went there once and had Thomas Hardy Ale, brewed by Eldridge Pope, which was only served in half-pint glasses and with good reason, seeing as it was (and possibly is) the strongest ale in Britain, at 12% abv.

― MarkH, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

*two* pub-oid experiences this week, from mr no-pubs-evah:

i. the purple turtle in essex road. EXCUSE ME IT IS ENTIRELY PAINTED PURPLE! Yes gothly punklish bargirl = rowr in a bleached- locks and vpl'ed-combat-keks type manner, and yes it serves bud, but WHO WOULD CHOOSE SUCH A ROOM TO SPEND TIME IN? Even if you were meeting yr favourite person in the world you wd say, "Hi! Let's go somewhere else!"
ii. the trinity = quite friendly, and yes it serves bud, tho why oh why the pitiless overhead lighting? the robertson's jam golliwog model of a jazzband over the bar also confused me

― mark s, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(the ikea thing sounds good to me btw)

― mark s, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tracer - I'm saddened that you don't like the Great Lakes. Granted I've only been there twice as I live far from the Lyn of Brook, but still... It's named after the world's best bodies of water and has Big Star on the juke, also their vodka gimlets taste much like any other. So: not outstanding but not that bad, surely?

― Pyth, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i LIKE Great Lakes (they have live jazz sometimes) hence my undying enmity over the lack of bud in bottle. it seems incongruous for such a grad-center type of hangout.

(England appears to me now very EXOTIC with its private rooms that even the regs. don't know of!)

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh, I know of it. I mean it's just sitting there. But I've never been invited in and I don't really feel like I'm missing out.

― N., Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well its benefits haven't been pointed out yet, that I can see.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Unless this unclassifiable Esther counts.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(and suzy of course, chiz)

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"what for you makes the perfect pub?"
It being empty.

― DG, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

New requirement: wff'n'proof. Test yr beer addled brain in a game of luck, skill and predicate logic!

― RickyT, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am never setting foot inside a pub with Ricky T again. Unless I can bring my copy of A Brief History Of Time with the corner of page 11 prominently folded down.

― Tom, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You're only saying that because you're jealous that my mastery of logic via the stupendous games of wff'n'proof ltd has made me the leader of a multinational corporation.

― RickyT, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The private room of the GH is in fact its LEFT VENTRICLE, most stay in the right side. I prefer the left because it is quieter and less full of the Nathan Barley element. But then I seem only to go there for people's birthdays (when you can reserve the LV and drink £9 wine with a very few people, and cherrypick your friends who've just happened to wander in fron the RV) and post-art openings.

In fact I only ever seem to visit pubs after art openings anyway; if there's not a DINNER or ahhhrt party held in a warehouse space the local working men's BOOZER is hijacked by people in funny haircuts, as last night's takeover of The Owl and Pussycat on Redchurch Street proved.

Many of you have met the Unclassifiable Esther anyway - she came to my picnic and hung out on the side of the roof with the weird Czech artist invasion, Mark Sinker, and Kate.

― suzy, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'wff'n'proof'? WOT? WOT? EH?

― Sarah, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

local working men's BOOZER is hijacked by people in funny haircuts

CHIZ CHIZ.

― Sarah, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh. Read the message board, Sarah. I ph34r no maths AS YOU HAF SEEN my mastery of calculus! Bring it on Tunnicliffe you LAMER.

― Sarah, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ten months pass...

Sandra, the Golden Heart landlady has been voted 80th most influential person in the art world by all those private room ponces suzy refers to above.

You can hear Mark Lawson interview her about it here if you have Real Player.

She souunds much posher than normal. I think she just affects a cockney accent for the punters.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 4 December 2002 13:14 (twenty-three years ago)

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