18. Trip to Simon and Nova's house warming party in Richmond, Saturday 26 October 2002

Simon Gough and Nova Dudley had invited Mr Wacey and I to their house warming party on the outskirts of Richmond. We had decided that it might be a capital idea to slot in a selection of ales in various pubs before entering the throng.

Alighting from the Oxford Tube at Shepherd's Bush, we spurned a couple of rough looking pubs in order to go to the Mailcoach Inn. This was a surprisingly decent pub with a hint of the Irish about it, and we supped a couple of bargain pints of Greene King IPA, the only real beer on offer, at £1.50 each whilst watching the half time football scores. Much tube train paraphernalia festooned the walls. Upon purchasing our one day bus passes, we got on a 72 to Hammersmith and changed to a 33 for a couple of stops where we alighted on espying the Oxford and Cambridge. This was a vile pub with no real beer on, expensive Carling, elderly punters, no bar snacks and an unobservant bar man. We stayed for about 5 minutes, during which time a couple walked in and straight back out, and we resolved that it would get the lowest rating thus far, a paltry 7 out of 25.

Up the road, we found a slightly better pub, the very dark and alcove like Old City Arms where at least reasonable halves of Websters were on offer. Quite nice and, if the range of beers was increased, worth spending an evening in. On the embankment under Hammersmith Bridge, we ignored the poncey Rutland and instead went to the Blue Anchor. This pub signalled our first proper beer and bar-totty of the day. We went for Brakespeare special, but Courage Best and London Pride were also on though they were expensive. Not only giving splendid views over the Thames, this pub also has an excellent solid steel bar work top ('looks like something from a steam ship' said Wacey) which I imagine was put in by Victorians wearing stove pipe hats.

Another bus ride followed, to the Halfway House at Mortlake, where we decided to have a piss break. Whilst Dave was shown the 'khazi', I pondered whether to have Pedigree, London Pride, Brakespeare, Adnams or Flowers. All in all a reasonable pub if it were your local, though the toilets were not pleasant. After making our way to Richmond, we were advised to go to the Green, and found the Cricketers' which affords good views over the herbaceousness. The Cricketers was not a bad pub, having Old Speckled Hen, IPA and Abbot at reasonable prices and more importantly, pleasant surroundings. After bolting this pair, we popped round the corner to an alleyway where we found the Britannia, a bright looking though inoffensive pub. Even though Bombardier, Young’s Special, Courage and Pride were on [Bombardier was below standard], it seemed to lack something and was really quite mediocre, so we left.

By this time we were looking for chips so started to walk towards Simon’s where I thought we might find a chip shop on the way. The one I thought was there had actually gone, so we foolishly went into Molly Malone's proclaiming ale at £1.50 a pint. Foolish indeed as next door there was a Young's pub doing Winter Warmer which we shunned. Malone’s had a tap with a paper label on - how were we to know that in fact it was poor quality Brakespeare disguised as something else? Horse racing on TV made the experience worse, so we drunk what we could and left sharpish.

Our luck was certainly in as I spotted a parade of a single shop up the road - it was a chip shop, providing fine fried chicken, galvanising us for our final two pubs. After finishing our evening meal standing on a railway bridge we walked the short way to the Mitre, a fine back street boozer with excellent front windows and potted plants in the pisser. Although only Young’s Bitter and Special were on, they were of good quality. This pub makes an excellent quiet local, well worth a visit. Time was pressing, so we left and quickly slotted in the Bishop's Finger which served Spitfire and, of all things, Oranjeboom. We hustled on the pool table for a bit which was quite cheap and opined that this was actually quite a good pub for a session - it certainly had the best toilets of the evening [can't remember them], though the beer was a tad expensive.

Being 9.30, we made haste, via the awful beer aisle at Sainsburys, to the flat in Dancer Road where we encountered a Halloween party hosted by sober Nova and arseholed Simon, who had to be put to bed at half 10. After ploughing through about 8 of those 3% stubbies each and making sure the 80s were revisited again, the party wound up at the civil hour of 1am, allowing us to speed to Marble Arch by night bus to intercept the Oxford Tube which had a broken toliet, though I actually managed this trip quite comfortably despite initial feelings of dread. All in all an evening consisting mainly of piss poor beer and piss poor pissers ...


Home
Back

Dan Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com

Last updated 26th October 2002.