Nothing exciting to say, just a sad fact. This coming week according to Midge.
Oh yes, that's what it is. A valuable pub-based resource.
“In Moseley and Digbeth, very small numbers of people who happen to live near centers of musical activity might be in real danger of closing down venues which are of benefit to thousands. Its an absurd situation, but all too real for those involved.” From Rich Batsford.
And detailed reviewing of the "ladies loos" of Brum's public houses. Anyone up for doing a male equivalent (suggested title: "Trough Talk" )?
My old Dad refused to go in to Ansells pubs, they served Castlemaine XXXX for lager and he wasn’t happy (generally, but with XXXX in particular). This isn’t the sort of thing they cover in Good Pub Guides and the like — they’re either obsessed with specific gravity and naked flames that might set off an aran jumper (CAMRA), or the qualtity of service. Me, I like a nice pint, not too many students or drunks, a jukebox, and barstaff who are good at their job without being obsequious. And if the pub has got something odd about it, so much the better. So with the news that there’s only one pub in Brum in the latest Good Pub Guide (the Old Joint Stock), here’s a call for your fave drinking haunts, propper boozers with something about them. We’ve mentioned the ‘Swinging Sporran‘ (oddest pub name in Brum?) and had a review of sorts — “great pub great staff ask for dolly the gaffa’s gaffa live music mark the dj on the wkends just for the ladys”. The Bull near Lancaster Circus has got some fantastic ladies bogs: So, odd pub tales please — fill up the comments —...
I spend a nice evening this week at the pub quiz at The Pavilion pub in Kings Heath. It was a good quiz, not too literary, not to celebrity or news obsessed, not to easy. The pub even has a website, which iI’ll direct you to in a second after this warning — like a MySpace profile of a goth band there’s a video which autoplays the minute it loads. Wait for it… go. For those of you not into visiting pub websites, the video still has a wonderful 70s cinema-ad-for-local-carpet-shop vibe, you know the type “…only two minutes from this cinema”. It’s embeded below. You’ll have to right-click and select “play” (the only way I could stop it playing was to set it to pause in the HTML): I’ll be back, we might even come better than last in the quiz next time (note to self, revise Fleetwood Mac).
Southern Driver has been trawling round town taking photos of closed and abandoned places. There’s a whole set of them in his flickr stream. There are a few pubs, like Moby Dicks here and the Eagle and Tun which must have shut up shop fairly recently as I’d only just noticed the boarding up. Moby Dicks – Birmingham, originally uploaded by Southern Driver.
