78.
Tooting and Colliers Wood yet again with Richard Bradshaw,
Richard Bradshaw joined me where Dave Wacey had left off the previous day for our now traditional
Colliers Wood crawl, which was a little different this year, though we did
visit some of the old favourites. I met Rich in
Sutton and we journeyed to Tooting via the 280, a very convenient means of
travel. Alighting a stop before the cross roads, we made the Tramshed our first half. This is a cavernous dump of a
Scream pub and there is no real beer available. However, they do have some sort
of loyalty card offer and there is a good array of lagers, eg
Cobra, Coors and San Miguel, so all is not lost. A foreign bird greeted us at
the Gordon Bennett, a kind of Wetherspoon’s
clone which isn't as good, though is cheap. I had a truly awful half of some Marston’s Creamflow (FC
perhaps) keg beer or other before we decided to push on.
A quick visit to the Castle revealed that
the same barmaid as the previous day was on, and then it was time to visit JJ
Moons, a decent Wetherspoon’s at Tooting
Broadway. It's very relaxing and I enjoyed our stay. The beer selection was
perhaps even better than expected, for there was De Koninck
available on draught as well as Abbot, Spitfire, Santa's Little Helper, Marston's Pedigree, Marston's
Burton, Banks and Taylor Santa's Slayer, and Festive Feasant.
Our halves both tasted excellent, so it was a bit of a pity that we had to move
on. Towards Colliers Wood and down a back street is the Little House (which may
formerly have been known as the Queen Victoria). It is a small pub with two
bars. It appears that revellers had drunk the place
dry on New Year's Eve, so I had to opt for Stones Bitter on pissflow.
We wisely chose the side of the bar where they weren't doing karaoke, and it
was quite cosy, even though there were only old women
in there drinking with us.
Back on the main road was the almost
trendy Hardy's at the Trafalgar Arms. There wear a
few girls drinking there, but as Rich and I discussed at length, it wasn't
really a true trendy pub containing the beautiful people of Tooting. London
Pride, Greene King IPA and Spitfire were available. Much of the seating was
wooden chairs at wooden tables which is evidently the
trendy thing to do. I wasn't overly impressed. Nor was I very impressed with
the George, a big empty boozer. For such a large place (South London Boozer) it
is quite devoid of furniture and we had to make do with some scattered sticks
on one side. The London Pride was however well kept which was a bonus, as were
the two nice girls who walked in at the end of our stay.
We briefly popped our heads in GJ's another wannabe trendy pub with no beer that we have
been to before, before going into the lively Royal Standard. Despite the
cigarette smog reminiscent of the London Pea Soupers
of 1953 that greeted us on entry, it is a pleasant pub if a little cramped. There
wasn't any real beer either. Across the road is Venus, a wine bar type
establishment which serves thick walled glasses of lager which look bigger than
they really are. A nice barmaid, the same one as last year
who we referred to as Whigfield's daughter, served
us, and all in all it was a moderately pleasant place though they could really
do with some more comfortable seating and bigger toilets. And possibly some real ale.
Back across the road was the disappointing
Victory, where two years ago we had witnessed some drunken domestic abuse. No
sign of it this year, mainly because, apart from a table of dodgy looking chavs, Rich and I were the only people drinking in there
until right at the end when a few rough girls walked in. I can find no
redeeming features of this pub - no beer, no girls behind bar. Oh, hold on, it
might be quite cheap. Last year we visited the
Postscript: we quite quickly managed to
get a 93 back to North Cheam and elected to journey all the way to the terminus
at Priory Road. In an effort to sober up, I walked towards the Gander with Rich
to get him on a 413. As luck would have it, we also then started to venture Northwestwards along Gander Green Lane as this took me
towards home. At a particular point, we found ourselves opposite Chris Robbie's
house where things are set up so that the casual observer can see right in as
there are no net curtains. Chris was sitting at a computer screen, post Sunday
Prince of Wales trip. Rich started dancing along the road making V gestures at
the unaware Chris. This was a moment of high comedic value.
Dan
Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com
Last updated 17th January 2005.