Feelings were mixed in this camp about Live 8. Cynicism rules, and irritation with Bob Geldof was running high. On the other hand it was a big cultural event and we should watch it, even if it was sniping from afar. And luckily, Alan came to the rescue: the weekend before he was bemoaning that all the time he lived in Ladbroke Grove he had meant to do a Ladbroke Grove pub crawl, and was sad he had failed. I pointed out he had one weekend left, and a bit of maths conspired to bring together some of the publog great and good for our answer to Live 8.
Pub 8.
So named because there were 8 pubs. Actually we noticed this near the end, when we were drunk and made sure there were eight pubs for this purpose. We did it to raise awareness, mainly alcohol awareness admittedly. However it was interesting to see how the various pubs were dealing with Dave Gandalf’s big spectacle, and how the very different punters reacted. From gentrified bouzers to rough-as-arseholes locals, they were all watching this historic day (well, with one notable exception). As we got drunker our own reactions changed too. So over the next few days I’ll be running through some of these pubs and how we felt that we were in our own way being as revolutionary as all the artists at Live 8 (ie, potentially not at all).