It’s back! Back!! BACK!!! (Pub-A-Go-Round Special)

Well sort of.

Although the pub on Wardour Street remains boarded up, on the other side of soho, THE INTREPID FOX IS BACK!! (warning: link may contain Rob Zombie) in what was formerly The Conservatory across from the bottom of Centrepoint, opposite the Angel in St Giles. My jaw literally dropped when I saw the banner outside it yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately as I was on my way to a meeting I couldn’t pop in…

James? James? Anybody?

Someone at football focus is clearly a great big John Hughes geek (like me). Meg was watching it earlier today and i heard the strains of “please please please let me get what i want” starting a piece about David James. Given that James is well known for being an art fan it wasn’t too surprising to see that the interview was taking place in a gallery, but the intro pretty much matched shot for shot the scene in ferris bueller’s day off (except the crocodile of children bit). Unfortunately it’s not on the focus website (or youtube yet), only the boring interview itself, rights issues i assume…

We Always Knew Beth Ditto Was Cool!

Good to see the NME catching up with us, it’s over four years since Tom and I saw The Gossip in Oxford, but the main reason for Beth’s coolness was her performance at the late lamented King of Corsica karaoke night, at the end of that tour, so here for your delectation and delight is her storming version of Son of a Preacher Man (with various FT staffers shouting the odds in the background!)

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It’s a Mystery, Part 3

Having been cruelly treated by the traffic gods on Sunday evening, we stumbled into the Arcola in Dalston a little hot and botherd, afraid we would miss the start of the film. But, as I pointed out to meg as we yomped through Stoke Newington, “it’s an art centre, of course it won’t go up on time” and, fortunately they didn’t let us down, the film not actually starting ’til about 8.15 after various faffing about. To be honest, we were on the verge of giving up and just going back home, at which point meg said “I bet it’s some iranian rom-com”, which she wasn’t quite right about, but when the titles started, I honestly only thought we’d last five minutes and then go home in a huff, having not got to see the new James Bond. … read on …

Q here to get gong…

In a shocking attempt to pander to every cover star’s ego, the Q awards seems to be in even more danger than the Intertoto “Cup” of turning into the modern equivalent of school sports day where EVERYBODY gets a prize, lets look at that list of “special” awards in full: … read on …

Old Pub, New Pub October 2: the Doric Arch

Bah, despite going to the old Head of Steam (see publog, passim), the night after it re-opened, we have still be beaten to the first write-up by fancyapint. As Jack says, it’s a very benign make over, but i think it works well. They’ve taken four or five tables out which means you are no longer fighting to get out of the raised carpeted bit and they’ve still got quite a lot of non-fullers ale on (Darkstar Hophead, Batemans Dark Mild and Cottage Champflower all on on opening). We thought they had cut down quite a lot on the railway tat, but judging by some pics on flickr they have put most of it back since we went, including the CARMYLE sign!!!

Old Pub, New Pub October 1: Camden Rock Cafe

So last night I had one of my strangest pub-going experiences in a very long time. A friend of mine had been booked into a last minute slot at an acoustical night at Camden Rock Café. “Where?” said I. I was sent a link which informed me that it was formerly The Caernarvon Castle, formerly the Fusilier & Firkin, as you can see on fancyapint, who might not want to bother updating their picture as I’m not sure it’ll stay like it currently is for long… … read on …

Food Science Day Two: 3 - The Big Taste Test

I had noticed over the last few months that there had been an increase in both the amount and the variety of non-english (or “Uxbridge” [0]) Diet Coke that was making its way into the sandwich shops I frequent around the Covent Garden area. Not only that but there were real differences between the different nationalities. The time had come to gather as many varieties as possible, a small group of tasters, and find out WHICH WAS BEST! … read on …

HELL IN A HANDCART, or the decline of the London Pub part 89734362346

Further to Pete’s post about the Intrepid Fox, the deal Mitchell and Butler have done, according to this story, effects more than then just a few metallers:

It has been sold along with 20 other central London pubs as part of a £53 million deal. [...] A Mitchells & Butlers spokeswoman said: “The Intrepid Fox has been sold as part of a package to investment companies and pub operators. “The 21 pubs were all prime locations but quite small, with average weekly sales of £7,000. The rest of our pubs have average weekly sales of £16,000.”

This, I can only assume, includes the Cambridge Circus All Bar One, which has been closed for a few weeks, and our old favourite The Polar Bear, which was closed when publoggers tried to go for a beer there last night (in fact, was the Lyric the first casualty in this?). Can it really be the case that boozers taking a grand over the bar every day are not profitable?

Actually there seems to be horrendous maths at work here, as according to the M&B Strategy the average at all pubs is 17k a week, don’t tell me someone has just subtracted one from the other???

The problem here I think is how M&B segment their market. There’s no room in this rigid format for the unusual (unless it’s The Bear in Oxford with it’s c0cking tie collection…), the friendly, the personal, the human-sized, the EFFING PROPER BRITISH PUB, because, as they put it:

Our on-going focus is on growing returns, first by capturing drinks market share and raising our food sales mix and secondly by driving down the cost of the construction templates for converting pubs to these brands and formats through the innovation and creativity of our property teams.

Anyway, if you can think of some good questions to ask them they have a page for that too…

THE FT TOP 100 TRACKS OF ALL TIME No.69: Anthrax and Public Enemy - Bring The Noise

YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH BOOOOOOOIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!

As soon as Flav appears after 6 seconds of, even for Anthrax, ridiculously fast heavy drumming, you knew something was up. This track takes the idea that Aerosmith and Run DMC (quite literally, in the case of the video, of course) had broken down the walls between Rock and Rap five years earlier and shows them up for the chancers they were. In barely three minutes of actual songy bit (excluding the pissing about at the end) Anthrax and PE Changed Metal Forever. OK, so admittedly this eventually led to Fred Durst, but it wasn’t their fault, there’s more ENERGY and EXCITEMENT in this one song than pretty much everything we would come to call nu-metal.