phantom pubs I have known

The commonest alcohol related displacement would be house parties I reckon. You leave a club at whatever time, blindly following a pack of people through the night before finally arriving at some poor idiot's flat, who would invariably have a) no booze and b) no patience at being woken in the middle of the night. From there, someone will persuade you that a far better idea would be to follow them, and so the chain continues until you wake up the next day miles from home, with no idea where you are, to find you're being jabbed in the arm by some guy called Simon, who would quite like to get to work if it's not too much fucking trouble, and could he have his coat back? On one memorable occasion we were invited back to a couple's house we'd met in the pub - we couldn't work out if they were genuinely nice, lonely or absolutely barmy - only for Jem to set fire to their couch before loudly proclaiming that they were both weirdos and walking out, leaving me to make our excuses.

I suppose to tie this in with the thread, i should say that in my experience you are 99.9% likely to NEVER meet anybody you encounter on one of these exursions ever again, even in a small city like Edinburgh. They truly are creatures of the night.

Plenty of pubs assume phantom qualities if you visit them once and have a marvellous time. That mahogany-laden boozer on the Strand we went to before the Retro quiz (we = Tim, Pete, Emma...can anyone help out with a name? The one we found the phone no.s of the canadian government in) I had long cherished as a marvellous haven of civility and good cheer on the basis of a drunken afternoon there with a friend. Alas on returning it was a ghastly businessman jostle-hole.

YES. It’s very funny to read about your exploits Andrew, because I was often an uncast extra in your lapsed evenings, a table or two away. I avoided the house parties though*: I always ended up in that crossroads for night wanderers, that mecca of drunken unreality that was the Istanbul kebab house. And I often got beaten up there too. And I always deserved it.

A related Q: have you ever felt a phantom alter ego sliding over you with troubling naturalness while heavily under the influence? Kevin Donelly, who you mention above, used to 100% become “The Rambling Don Donnelly” a viciously bigoted and violent old time C&W picker whose brightest fame was a long way down the road, back somewhere in ’75 before Waylon Jennings stole his thunder. I was often crying tears of laughter at the same time as wondering nervously if he was gonna attack me. Eventually, he did, but that was my own fault, cos I confessed an admiration for Glen Campbell, who had stolen country music and GODDAMN RAPED IT in the late 60s….

*apart from once when I complimented the host on his amazing sharp Yardbirds-style striped suit, and he said he was glad I liked his pyjamas, but could I please fuck off home.

Alasdair, as you may have sussed from this the Don is in town for one night only. Drop me a line if you fancy a pint later.

Cool as they are, I really wanted Poe: “and as I turned back and gazed over the vast moor, the Bishop’s Scrote had all but disappeared beneath the black and moonlit waters of the tarn, which rose and bubbled evilly over its accursed parapets, burying forever my companions and their steeds”

I do have phantom pub experiences, but I'm not talking about them in an effort to not dwell on alcohol or drinking or not drinking.

There are many phantom records stores I dimly remember -- or rather I can't seem to tease out whether they were even real or not. As they recede further in my memory I stop recalling which cities they were in! I can already anticipate a time, my old age or maybe just 10 years from you, when they will be part of so much vague effluvia of some "old world" i keep telling my kids about. sad.

i really wish i had people around here to go on boozing trawls with. i could stand to drink a lot more.

That first pub mentioned at the start of this thread is probably the Fiddler's Elbow.

we were soon lost in a labyrinth of backstreets

I've always called that area between Chalk Farm and Kentish Town 'The Labyrinth'. You never seem to be walking in the direction that you think you are. You think you can make it across to Kentish Town in ten minutes, but half an hour later you find yourself bewildered at Gospel Oak.

Unsuprisingly, the original post sounds like some spoken word Clientele song.

there actually is a spoken-word clientele song, the second-to-last track on STRANGE GEOMETRY. it's good and yes it sounds like that post!

Part two of the original post also puts me in mind of what Slint's "Good Morning Captain" could have been like if Slint had come from London rather than Louisville. I can just hear Brian McMahan's whispered:

an Irish girl led me by the hand through narrow, cobbled backstreets to a Casino entrance

and a bellowed final refrain of I LOST IT re the missing casino membership card.

You think you can make it across to Kentish Town in ten minutes, but half an hour later you find yourself bewildered at Gospel Oak.

I did this yesterday! and I grew up round there, so should have no excuse. For me it's the Kentish Town City Farm rule: I can never find KTCF if I'm looking for it, but will always find it if I'm ambling about trying to get from Chalk Farm to Archway without going through Camden.

*apart from once when I complimented the host on his amazing sharp Yardbirds-style striped suit, and he said he was glad I liked his pyjamas, but could I please fuck off home.

this is quite brilliant.