Please somebody stop me
Please somebody stop me eating these delicious crisps thx.
Tom in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
Pumpkin Publog
31 March 2004
May I point you
May I point you to this lovely story about a man finding a packet of 82 year old Smith’s crisps? The packet apparently reads:
“Eat Smith’s Crisps with your morning bacon, chops and steak, fish, poultry or game, cocktails etc.”
And I didn’t even have a cup of TEA this morning! Things WERE better in the old days, weren’t they now?
24 March 2004
My boyfriend and I have been obsessing over Luomo.
My boyfriend and I have been obsessing over Luomo. A glorious mixture of deep house and microhouse that in a way reminds me of The Culture Club and, uh, Indian food. What I love best about music and food is when the different elements seem to blend and you, the eater/listener, can’t really pinpoint what the ingredients are. Luomo seems to achieve that: there’s a way Vladislav Delay manages to blend beats and vocals, he basically controls me. This is something I also experience when eating Indian food: all the spices just wirls around my palate. However when the Isabella Rossilini voice suddenly drops the mixture of coffee and feta cheese in between succulent Luomo beats, I can only say “Worst food combination EVAH!”
21 March 2004
Biscuit Report – McVities Lemon and Ginger digestives
Biscuit Report – McVities Lemon and Ginger digestives
Ever thought ginger biscuits too hard? Like the refreshing tang of lemon? Maybe think digestives too…samey? Give these a whirl. Very nice indeed. Very moreish. I like plain digestives, but wanted to try these, and am glad I did. Really, really good dunked in tea. Recommended.
Table service in pubs…
Table service in pubs.
Reserved tables in pubs.
Pubs whose doors blow open constantly on a windy day.
Pubs which only have tables with knives and forks on it.
Punter with blonde dyed mullets and stupid hats.
That’ll just be annother day bouzing in West London then. More on all these appalling observations later.
16 March 2004
Completely fantastic
Completely fantastic (if somewhat old-skool in design) site devoted to collecting rum labels from around the world. Hours of happy browsing await as you try and find the roughest-looking rotgut on the planet. I am posting this because I am in a celebratory mood, having got a new job. The drink on the left is not endorsed by all Publog contributors, however.
Tom in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
15 March 2004
Yay! I mentioned some months back that I couldn’t find my favourite noodles anymore.
I made an error which might have hampered my search; they weren’t made Amoy – they were a Blue Dragon product. I’ve emailed them to find out where has them. My struggle draws to a conclusion*!
* on the offchance they don’t get back to me, if you see these noodles in a shop near you, be a love and drop me a line.
Hog’s Wash
Hog’s Wash: Rebranding outside the pub sphere is something I’m quite sanguine about. If the criticism is that it’s a cosmetic and meaningless change then why get worked up about it? Within the world of booze though rebranding goes hand in hand with refitting, and also implies a fixed set of rules to guide the refitter’s hand. The Laurel Pub Company seems to be particularly keen on branding, committing the basic marketing error on its website of listing its different brand umbrellas (‘Champion’, ‘Town Tavern’, ‘Traditional’ etc.) while offering no definitions of same. One of the brand umbrellas is “Hog’s Head”, and here we come to an example of rebranding which seems asinine even to me.
The “Hog’s Head” pubs used to be called Hogshead pubs, you see, and Laurel Pubs is proud to announce that it is rolling out its ‘new concept’ for them. The new concept being its discovery of the apostrophe, presumably on the grounds that it gives a more ‘traditional’ pub name air to proceedings. Unfortunately hogshead is itself an old, traditional, beer-related word and a perfectly sensible pub name.
What does the rebranding amount to inside the pub? Less ales, according to Pete who knows about these things. In fact, no ales, just a few lagers. I’m no great friend of CAMRA but this does seem a bit much. The other novelty is Pub TV. Not, I stress, TV in a pub.
The concept of Pub TV is simple. People like watching TV in a pub, but if you have the actual TV on in a pub then your punters could see all sorts of horrid and brand-negative things, like people being blown up or G-Unit videos. So the Hog’s Head has a TV which shows its very own channel. What this means in practise is:
- one advert for the Italian Job DVD.
- some old pop videos (nothing after 1988)
- a graphic showing the words “HOG’S HEAD” splitting up and spinning around.
Over the course of a few hours in the pub we had seen the advert and the spinny graphic perhaps 80 times each. The experience was very similar to being stuck at the front of a London bus and having to watch Travel Eyes non-stop but with even less variety. The videos were fine and sparked conversation a little but the obvious thing for the chain to do is buy a Video Jukebox, not waste its money and our time with the illusion of content represented by Pub TV. Although as it stands the Pub TV service is entirely in keeping with the vanity and lack of marketing and financial suss represented by a rebranding which changes only the punctuation.
Tom in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
11 March 2004
I Crave Salad.
I Crave Salad.
Not a publog regular shout but I’ll let you know how it went tomorrow. Will it be Caesar, Waldorf, tomato? Will it be lime juice and coriander, will there be meat, fish, potato salad or croutons? I can guarantee however, there will definately be cucumber.
10 March 2004
All Bar One Rox ur all etc
All Bar One Rox ur all etc
I was about to post this when Tom’s original Firkin comment appeared and then cz I’d got so bolshy defending Pret against the ruralpolitans sane universe I hung fire, at least to read properly where the argument went.
Anyway last Tuesday I had a busy businesslike day in town, half a dozen important meetings all lined up in a row requiring precision and discipline to blah blah – unfortunately the human element intervened (ie it wasn’t MY fault) and I ended up with hours to kill before meeting up with Dr Vick and no way to get in touch with her (I didn’t know how many – it turned out to be !!four!! as she was delayed also). So coffee shop or bar or pub or what? I did have am industrial-strength baggaboox, but they were all like actual hardcore research-style tomes. I hate newspapers, and anyway they don’t last that long. Whatever I chose I was going to have to nurse a drink or at most two for a LONG TIME. My eventual choice was an hour-and-a-half or so in the All Bar One on Cambridge Circus, then wandering around “sightseeing” a part of London I know really quite well thank you, then the rest of time in Amalfi in Old Compton Street. Where we often meet, and I assume they recognise me.
Well the Amalfi bit stretched out, and I really did feel they were beginning to look at me a bit askance (a coffee and a red wine taken VERY SLOWLY: I didn’t really want either). The All Bar One bit was way WAY more comfy for my specific needs: its corporate anonymity totally suited me there and then, and I could spread my books out and work with pen and paper and a pint on their big unwobbly tables, and everyone kept out of my way (it was semi-empty anyway) (haha it wz a bit like drinking in a library really).
Also the sun was particularly gorgeous and wintry going down over the pub on the corner where Romilly Street and Moor Street meet (it was the second venue for the second Trig Brother but I can never remember its name). So ABO’s big clear windows worked for it as well, and I spent a good deal of the time just looking out at the world going by – even though I guess the OTHER pub was the hero here, for its bizarre crenellations!
(OK they’re not crenellations but they are pretty and it is the SPICE OF LIFE hurrah)
(I think the top of the actual building I was in is where Smiley and Bill Hayden and Control and that all worked in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy viz “The Circus”))
