Rough Pub Country

The Landlords That Time Forgot

2009-06-14T09:36:00.000-07:00

From today's Observer, three of the UK's greatest landlords. Lots more Rough Pubesque stuff in their fantastic pub supplement today. Makes me want a bloody pint.

Sorry We've Been A While...

2009-06-13T05:08:00.000-07:00

Been working on new pub book (slowly, it must be said) and trying to get a new issue of Socialism finished (only taken two and a half years so far). Mag will be this autumn, book next autumn.

In the meantime have been...

Listening to - Bibio album on Warp / Manic Street Preachers "Journal For Plague Lovers" / Kasabian whatever that album is called / Pains Of Being Pure At Heart / Jimmy Cliff "The Harder They Come" soundtrack / Mastodon "Crack The Skye" / Empire Of The Sun

Reading - The Guardian pub supplement / Will Hodgkinson "Ballad Of Britain" / Caught By The River book (cough) / Jon Savage "England's Dreaming Tapes"

Watching - Flight Of The Conchords series 2 / "Sleep Furiously" / "Dirty Sanchez" the movie

Drinking - Milton Brewery's Sparta / Pitfield Brewery's Eco Warrior / Doom & Tribute / Cwrw Haf from Tomos Watkins / Meantime's Helles Beer / Brewer's Gold from Crouch Vale

The Vulcan - Three More Years...

2009-06-13T05:05:00.001-07:00

Looks like The Vulcan in Cardiff has been given a reprieve... click here to read the news story... like to think we helped it along a bit, feels pretty good to hear this news!

2009-01-30T01:17:00.001-08:00

Sorry we've been a bit quiet over the last week or two, just knuckling down to writing our next book which is due out (again via Orion) sometime next year. This one's a bit more melancholy than Rough Pubs, mainly because in the time it's taken us to get it together, the world appears to have started sliding into some kind of financial black hole. Seems pubs will be as much the victims as every other industry - pretty scary considering the parlous state they were in before the crash. So, time for a love letter to a dying tradition. Hankies at the ready. Normal service resumes next week.
Cheers!

2009-01-16T12:29:00.000-08:00

Great blog here who've given a thumbs up to Save Our Pubs - cheers!

Whatever Happened To My Rock'n'Roll?

2009-01-15T09:51:00.000-08:00

One of London’s most heavily frequented rock’n’roll bars silently called a final last orders this week. Although not afforded its own legendary status due to its position as second fiddle to the main event, The Keith Moon Bar (upstairs in the Astoria on Charing Cross Road) has been an unofficial club house for the great, the good and the grot of the music industry for the last 35 years. Tucked away on a mezzanine between the main room and the balcony, the Keith Moon was where people went to meet up at early doors; where they stuck around to avoid the support band; where they sloped off to quickly re-charge their glasses while the headliners hammered out those boring numbers that sag so badly in the middle of the set. Here was where you brushed shoulders with rock stars and with wannabes whose recorded output now escapes you.

The Keith Moon, like its host venue, is bowing down in front of the wrecking ball that is the long procrastinated Crossrail project. The best thing anyone seems to be able to say about Crossrail is that it will connect Heathrow to Canary Wharf within 45 minutes (although this may well come too late for any budding Nick Leeson’s trying to flee the country during this current crisis of tumultuous economics). On the corner of Charing Cross Road where the Astoria stood, a shining new Underground hub will rise from the rubble sometime in the next decade. It will be the midway point between Maidenhead and Shenfield, a convenient pit stop for anyone wanting a quick fix of the West End. A proposed last party by Ibizan dance-music-and-shagging club superstars Manumission had the plug pulled when Transport For London served early notice on the venue. 37,450 people signed a petition to save the venue. Sadly, they found out that you can protest all you want but, in the end, it’s all just hot air blown into the face of ‘progress’.

Soho changed beyond all recognition for gig-goers, club kids and bohemian barroom philosophers between December last and January this year as the West End has faced an unprecedented cull of music venues. London can’t have had such a run on buildings since WWII, the last time a veritable ballroom blitz changed the face of the city. The Westminster district has given up The Astoria and it’s sister venue The Mean Fiddler (aka the LA2 or Busbys), The Metro on Oxford Street, Sin on Charing Cross Road, The Ghetto in Falconberg Court, The End on West Central Street and Dean Street’s Colony Room. Over the year, these venues have collectively provided backdrops for everyone from Francis Bacon to Bono; Radiohead to Roni Size; Nag Nag Nag to Nirvana; Girl’s Aloud to Green Day; The Strokes to Shoom. They have gauged the moods of generations and soundtracked our sub-cultures. Acid house, indie rock, electroclash, speed metal, drum & bass, hi-energy, Northern Soul – all human life was here. There are now only two comparable spaces in the West End – the 100 Club and the Borderline. Neither of these venues has a capacities much bigger than the back rooms of your average high street boozer. Faced with this, one can’t help but quote the Thin White Duke - “This ain’t rock n roll… this is genocide!”

After starting a last minute utterly pointless attempt to Save The Keith Moon Bar with a series of badges and some fired out missives (why do I do these things just to end up like some patron saint of hopeless causes?) I found myself attempting to project ahead, trying to work out what visions folks will be met by when they emerge, blinking and startled from the Underground into another rainy night in Soho? What will be the smears of history left daubed on the walls of the alleyways and side streets of this dirty old town? And will there be anything left that we will recognize and acknowledge as being the beating heart of central London?

One can’t help feel that London is being ethically cleansed. It’s like The Daily Mail has taken control of town planning and the map of the area has been redrawn almost overnight. Just as streets rife with prostitution and drug dealing have been paved over to make the shimmering edifice of the new St Pancras station; just as Hackney is being newly landscaped, removing all traces of Parkesine and decommissioned white goods to make way for the Olympic village, it seems that Soho has quietly been getting it’s own makeover in time for 2012. The London that our Olympians will walk out into will have been swabbed clean of all of its dirty secrets, will have had all the rough edges carefully sanded down.

Whether by convienient accident or clever design, Soho now bears scant resemblance to the louche, bohemian underbelly of London it still was a mere 15 years ago. When I started working in Wardour Street in the early ‘90s, Soho’s red light still flickered from greasy windows like a sexual Bat Signal. The throb of bass could still be heard from unmarked basements, whatever the hour. Rarely did a day go past that you wouldn’t catch a glimpse of a foul mouthed Jeffrey Bernard with a thirst on being wheeled double-quick to The Coach and Horses by some unfortunate sod on work experience. Back then, every other doorway was a Narnia-like portal into a crazed shebeen, variously populated by hookers, dandies, winos, off duty cabdrivers and the occasional enviable soul who met all four of those criteria. In the times before progressive alcohol licensing, the vim and vigour of the area was provided by these unlicensed bars. In the times prior to New Labour and Britpop, these were Soho’s engine rooms, here was where it’s fires were stoked all through the night, fuelled on cans of Hofmeister and speed. Compulsory purchased at the turn of the decade, those drinking dens were leveled. It was as if the spirits that inhabited the brick work were too malevolent to be exorcised out, that those buildings could only ever be condemned. And so, the filth of Dickensian centuries past was wiped away, readying the streets for future generation of prudes, assuaged from a painful world where people still fall over after a few pints, where Ribaud humour might as well be Martian Braille.

So, where does it go from here? We’ve already witnessed a slow, muted march towards the outskirts of town, heralded by the success of the O2 complex in Greenwich. There, the O2 arena and Matter nightclub regularly get the names and crowds soon follow. Here, the rooms are clean, there are great sightlines and you never need queue for the bar. But… but… where’s the randomness factor? What could possibly go wrong here? Is anyone ever going to walk out, supported on the crowds upturned hands, ala Iggy Pop? Can you ever imagine the stage being destroyed in an orgy of destruction, ala the last Manics Astoria gig with Richey Edwards back in December 1994? That night, onstage feedback resulted in the band being crippled by tension headaches during the gig. The resulting carnage at the end was like a fuse being blown, a collective aneurysm rupturing in front of 2000 punters. Now your gig going experience is defined by your mobile phone contract – book early bird tickets by text! Fast track entry with the right handset! As I’m writing this, I notice that HMV have gone into partnership with the MAMA Group, branding 11 venues up and down the country. The plain old Forum now becomes the all-singing-all-dancing HMV Forum. Wonder where they’ll put the 7 inch racks.

On the up side, the members of the Colony are appealing to English Heritage to list the premises, a move that would hopefully see the return of the Dean Street club once christened the “capitol of Soho”.
And, phoenix like, the Astoria may return, albeit in radically altered form as plans are being hatched to build a new venue on rock’n’roll’s Ground Zero. Former Astoria boss Melvyn Benn has stated, “We can do no more than celebrate how good it was and look forward to its replacement being born when construction begins.” Personally, the dulled threat of a purpose built space standing on the grave of the old Astoria is about as interesting as a night spent alone in an All Bar One with only a week old London Lite for entertainment. No, those places are gone for good. Maybe they’ll keep the name, the shape, the awful logo even, but a gleaming new music hall - never having been subjected to years of bitter nicotine, acrid poppers and beer slops – could never be the same.

So what will we do, the denizens of the Keith Moon bar - My Generation? Zimmer frames parked outside, we’ll sit all misty eyed in one of the last few untapped outposts, somewhere like the French House or Bradley’s Spanish Bar - those ugly, lovely alcoholic museum pieces – staring into the foam on the top of our beers, wondering why everything any good is always forced to change.

Robin

Save The Keith Moon Bar!

2009-01-07T03:18:00.000-08:00

Classic Rock Dive due to be demolished next week

London's pubs go-ers will suffer another massive blow next week wit the closure of the Astoria and it's legendary Keith Moon Bar.

This massive act of cultural vandalism is taking place next week under the auspice of 'progress' - the Astoria is being demolished to make way for the much-procrastinated Crossrail Link (Canary Wharf to Heathrow in less than 45 minutes – yeah, cheers for that!). When the wrecking ball smashes through, it will take with it the Keith Moon Bar, arguably the capital’s most gonzo booze-hole, the scene of a million and one drunken rock'n'roll encounters while the headline band hammers away at something off their second album (you know, the crap one you never played all the way through). The proud home of the worst toilets in all of London, complete with armoured bog doors that wouldn’t be out of place in a Basra branch of Starbucks and a lagoon of piss that needed tightrope precision to navigate; the Keith Moon has been a vital rites of passage experience for anyone experiencing rock'n'roll for the first time. It is also the only place in London to see the truly psychedelic wall mural featuring a series of dead rockers re-imagined in plaster of Paris.

Think of the consequences of the Keith Moon Bar going.

Never again will you be able to stand beneath a gargoyle-esque rendering of Janis Joplin drinking a can of Red Stripe while trying to ignore Suede Anderson warbling through “Still Life” in the main room.

Never will you be able to brush shoulders with the great, the good and the grot – from Damon Albarn to the bloke out of Erasure; from Nicky Wire to the drummer of Airbourne.

If you don’t like the Keith Moon bar then you don’t like rock’n’roll – it's as simple as that.

Help us preserve it. It's what Keith would have wanted.

Ron Asheton R.I.P

Register your protest or tell us your favourite Keith Moon Bar story in the comments section here or over at the Rough Pub Guide Facebook group.

"Can't Pubs Have A Sale?"

2009-01-06T11:50:00.000-08:00

Interesting Guardian story here.

The Three Kings

2009-01-06T02:05:00.000-08:00

Post New Year blues well and truly obliterated the other day at Clerkenwell's psychedelic shack, The Three Kings - log fire burning in the corner, IPA on the handpump and "Forever Changes" played in full... what more could you ask for of an evening? Beautiful! Get down for one of the monthly Soft Focus nights run by Pete Fowler (the man behind Monsterism) and friends. (RT)

Happy New Year from The Montague

2009-01-05T03:04:00.000-08:00

New Year's Eve: for the seasoned boozer it's the worst night of the year. Too many maudlin drunks, dressy party-hearties and plain part-timers to ever go with a real bang, never mind all the forced jollity and clinking glasses getting in the way of a decent knees up.

But hey-ho, sometimes there is a silver lining. For the last three years, the pattern for my New Years Eve has remained the same. About six-thirty I ring the Montague. Every year a cheerful northern voice answers “We'll be open about seven thirty love, it's free to get in”, and suddenly this grimmest of nights takes on a new patina. The dark end of the Old Kent Road is never big on festive cheer, but walk through these tarmac-black doors-no bouncers here- and you get a glimpse of what New Year was once like, before TV and post-modernism; before the global fashion gestalt and irony blighted the age. It's busy this year, with more than a sprinkling of bright young things from nearby Goldsmiths, but, there's not a hint of an arched eyebrow or 'aren't-we-cool?' about proceedings. At the Monty that could just never happen. Put it down to the septagenarian bar-staff, the skeleton peering from within a Victorian toilet or the South London grit provided by the Two Pete's - blind organist Peter London and drummer Peter Coyle- but there's a 'Keep Calm And Carry On Drinking' feel.

There are Christmas crackers on the tables, a huge tree and even more fairy lights than usual, but you're never made to feel awkward on this most self-conscious of nights. Just order your drinks, grab a table and settle in for the show. When the inevitable sing-song starts-after rowdy versions of 'Life On Mars' and 'Don't Look Back In Anger', a girl gets on stage to sing The Bangles 'Eternal Flame'. It goes down so well, she sings it again. When the duo take a breather, a roll-call of classic rock tunes fills the void. 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart', 'More Than A Feeling', you know the drill. They may even have played Eddie Money's 'Two Tickets to Paradise' but I could have been dreaming. They did a piano assisted countdown at midnight, but hugging strangers was kept to a minimum, as it should be. It wasn't the greatest, the most amazing, the blah blah blah. People drank, talked and danced, raised a glass and we all said goodbye as we left. The next day, I still had a warm glow. It's that sort of place.

How was yours? (PM)

The Standard

2009-01-03T02:15:00.000-08:00

Short but sweet, just picked this up from before Christmas. Cheers fella!

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T11:25:00.000-08:00

Don't stop believin'... x

Local Distinctiveness

2008-12-31T01:12:00.000-08:00

“A pint of Sparta and a bag of Scampi Fries please.”

The last word is still thrumming on my tongue when I realize something monumental, something that stops me in my tracks. I’ve become a regular in my local. I’ve now got a specific round I order whenever I go in there for a quiet pint on my own (real ale and the kind of guilty pleasure snacks I’d never dare ask for if I was in polite company). These days it’s as if the barman possesses precognitive powers - he’s got his hand on the pump before I complete the sentence. With January looming into view like an unlicensed mini cab driver (ugly, unwelcome but somehow sadly inevitable), I'm having are confusing thoughts about this fact. What happens next? On one hand, it could be a lifetime of chronic alcoholism and ranting about the state of world from the bottom of a pint glass. On the other, it's the warming feeling that you get when you realize you belong to something. My very own Cheers bar, right here in the heart of sunny Hackney.

The idea of the local boozer and its loyal crowd of regulars seems almost ridiculously antiquated nowadays – quaint even. Every day the newspapers are fit to bursting with stories about how the recession will bring about the death of the public house as we know it. Supermarket booze; duty increases down the pub; the smoking ban; bad weather; good weather; Celeb Big Brother starting on the telly that night... the finger of blame can be pointed in any number of different directions, few of which any of us as individuals can really affect. Whichever way you look at it, the pub as centre of the community is under serious fire. The same could be said of post offices, of corner shops… heck, in a time when the high street is being radically rearranged from one news broadcast to the next, what hope is there for the humble boozer? This sad state of affairs has made me think back to Thatcher’s “There’s no such thing as society” statement of 1987. Here now in 2009, by some gruesome twist of fate and time, it almost seems like the old sow might have some kind of prophetic point. Society, community - whatever you want to call it – maybe is disappearing in front our eyes. Pubs and all these other places where people congregate and socialize are being smoked out and boarded up. What’s going to be left? Huge, county spanning megalithic Tesco Extras’, Vue cineplexes and the occasional footie game to keep the 'lads' in check. All the best rock'n'roll bands formed in pubs - what hope have we got when the best thing on offer is the local Wetherspoons and a branch of Starbucks that's open til 10pm?

With all this in mind, I started a seasonal re-watch of Craig Cash’s magical telly show Early Doors. The story of a small Manchester local, The Grapes, and its patrons, it ran over two series between 2003/04 on the heels of Cash’s hugely successful stint as co-writer on The Royle Family. Maybe it works so well because of the blissed out, Mogadon-like pacing; maybe it’s down to the characters, painted in such intricate and loving detail they could only have been dreamt up by a daytime drinker; maybe it’s the music on the jukebox or the improtu sing-alongs; maybe it’s the smoky, dust flecked ambiance captured so brilliantly on film – whatever it is, the show manages to portray the pub like a club house, somewhere were all walks of life converge, where sage advice is proffered by barroom philosophers whether invited or not, where silence is something to relish like that second swig of sweet, sweet beer. Here is where society is shown itself in the reflection of a dusty, nicotine stained mirror – warts, bald spots, bad breath an’ all.

Sadly, it's these pubs that are shutting down all across the country – the village pubs, the locals on the corners - the community boozer that supplies not only good cheer but also a localized networking system, i.e. a bunch of mates to talk to, all with one thing in common - they're in the pub. The pubs that will survive, like cockroaches in a nuclear winter, will be the unbreakable chains - stacking bottles of WKD high, selling punters short.

Your local is in danger. We need to save our pubs. Have a think about what you can do with the space on offer – start a darts team, a chess club, book bands to play… anything to bring back that warming sense of community to your local boozer.

Me, I’m off for another bag of those stinking crisps. (RT)

2008-12-30T07:53:00.000-08:00

Please sign up to save The Vulcan, our number 7 pub in the guide.

The Plough & Harrow proud to be in the book!

2008-12-29T04:00:00.000-08:00

Very proud moment on Boxing Day, seeing the certificate in prime position on the bar in the Plough & Harrow in Monknash. Supped a few pints in there to celebrate with my Dad (star of The Plough entry, page 88 in the book) and his mate Dewi, one of the all time great Welsh drinkers. Happy days! (RT)

NME back Rough Pub Guide

2008-12-19T09:44:00.000-08:00

Our friends over at NME towers have run a story on the Rough Pub Guide today... thanks massively, yr our guitar heroes!

Save Our Pubs volume 2

2008-12-16T11:02:00.001-08:00

And if you fancy supporting us, you can buy the book here

SAVE OUR PUBS!

2008-12-16T10:53:00.001-08:00

Stars rally round the Save Our Pubs campaign - remember, a pub is for life, not just for Christmas...

And if you fancy supporting us, you can buy the book here

Pub Signs voted top icons

2008-12-14T14:29:00.000-08:00

"At a time when 36 pubs per week nationally are closing their doors, it is heartening to hear of the value still placed on this heralded tradition. Only around 30 independent pub chains and breweries in Britain are still ordering individually painted signs, amazingly a few of these fine artists are still working and there are some notable examples such as The St Austell Brewery in Cornwall that still employ sign writers. But it is a shrinking market and the dominance of a few chains has contributed to the disappearance of traditional British pub names, and led to a profusion of bland corporate makeovers."

Bill Bryson on pub signs, which topped the list of Icons Of England at the CPRE site.

Last Orders

2008-12-12T01:15:00.000-08:00

That make's it three for three in the Guardian then.

In Praise of... Pubs

2008-12-11T04:43:00.000-08:00

From today's Guardian comment page... more like it!

2008-12-10T05:15:00.001-08:00

This seems to be constant now...

Drink Beer And Carry On

2008-12-08T09:45:00.001-08:00

Just got sent through this link to the perfect Christmas wear for any denizen of Rough Pub Country - surely the rallying call for all boozehounds, the whole year round. We're loving these, obviously what you want to be wearing on Christmas morning down the pub! Click here to buy. Thanks to Gabrielle and Pat.

Guardian Travel

2008-12-08T05:02:00.000-08:00

We wrote a piece for the Guardian website, it's gone up there today - click here to read.

Mail On Sunday

2008-12-08T04:55:00.001-08:00

With massive thanks to Tom Parker Bowles.

Brew Wales

2008-12-04T08:18:00.000-08:00

Great Welsh beer site , Brew Wales, reviews the book here - thanks loads!

Time Out - Christmas Book Selection

2008-12-03T04:38:00.000-08:00

Vice, No Photos issue

2008-11-25T07:48:00.000-08:00

From the latest issue of Vice- thanks massively to Andy Capper for this.

Caught By The Liver

2008-11-19T03:11:00.001-08:00

Wrote this for Caught By The River at the end of last year - thought it was worth archiving here.

"My Caught By The River moment of 2007 mainly came served in a pint sized glass. It was filled to the brim, gently foaming and always mildly intoxicating. It came in various hues, various strengths and was delivered in various locations up and down the country. It was drunk in lounge bars and living rooms; in gardens and fields; at weddings and funerals. At times, it was calming, relaxing and meditative. And other times, was the 28 Days Later rage virus in a glass. Yep, this year I was truly Caught By The Liver (copyright Andrew Walsh - genius). It was the year I finally made the transition from lager drinking gig going teenager to card carrying CAMRA member facing down rapidly approaching 5th decade; from nightclub goer to snug bar sitter - pipe, slippers, Guardian crossword and all.

It helped that I ended up spending pretty much the whole of 2007 landlocked due to a crippling fear of flying (no amount of valium can stun me these days, though I still give it a damn good go). This year, I got the chance to explore the British Isles for the first time since I was a kid. Family holidays in the 1970s saw myself, my brother and my Dad touring Wales in a tent. Usually we’d be joined by a few of my Dad’s mates (the most notorious of which being ‘Uncle Klaus’, 6 foot 6 high and wide, an Estonian refugee in World War 2, a man who had actually taken the time to work out how much his beer belly had cost him – over one hundred thousand quid - in old money). Those holidays were memorable for the fact that each time we moved on the tent would be pitched in the beer garden of a pub (note – familial theme emerging here). Me and my brother would be stuck under canvas as it inevitably pissed down outside. Dad, ‘Uncle Klaus’ and their mates would be inside, getting demented on ale in front of a roaring log fire. If we were lucky, Dad would remember we were there and bring us a bag of crisps every few hours. These were the days before kids were allowed to run free in public houses, also the days before these kinds of parental acts were labeled ‘child abuse’. Let’s call them the Good Old Days.

Anyway, back to the present, where 2007 saw me traipsing around the UK one beer at a time. Thankfully the tent in the beer garden had been traded in for train, hotel, holiday rent and guest house. By the middle of the year, outside the windows our green and pleasant land had become a rotten bog. Shit, even the Cotswolds flooded – The Daily Mail’s very own Hurricane Katrina proved that God wasn’t just on an anti-Glastonbury tip last Summer. Inside the various Lambs and Flags and Coaches and Horses and Dogs and Ducks and Queens and Kings, the weather was just fine.

So, this year, after deciding to swap the Med for the Medway towns, I travelled the UK in a pint glass. A trip to Adnams country in March took in Southwold and meant Broadside, Regatta, Explorer and their exemplary Bitter. Three separate jaunts to Cornwall meant Doom Bar, Tribute, Eden, Tinners and HSD. Hay On Wye? Hereford Pale Ale and Dorthy Goodbody’s. Glamorgan? Cwrw Haf, The Reverend James and the legendary Brains Skull Attack. Back home in the Smoke and the country seemed to come to town like a pissed up farmers market – London Pride sits alongside Summer Lightning, Exmoor Gold, Deuchars IPA, Caledonian XPA, Milton’s Sparta and Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. To a booze hound who these days is less Fear & Loathing and more Last Of The Summer Wine, this reads like a roll call of the greats. And the list grows yearly as breweries try out new combinations of water, yeast, hops and sugar. In a way it’s like something like stamp collecting – you’re constantly on the look out to try new things, trying to tick all the boxes and try everything but the breweries just keep on making new ones. It’s what keeps you interested. And also drunk.

Anyways, without trying to get too Whittingstall about the whole thing, there is a vaguely important point somewhere in this beery blur. These days, people in the know talk about seasonal foods and becoming more aware of and sensitive to your environment via the food it produces, about food miles and local distinctiveness. Real ale is one of Britain’s finest homegrown products – seasonality and locality are key factors in production. It’s also unique to this country – it doesn’t get exported, it stays at home and waits patiently for you. People say beers don’t travel very well from their place of origin – where I’m from in Wales they say that the beers that Brains brew don’t really taste any good outside of Cardiff. Perhaps in a way they are intrinsically linked to where they are brewed, the ingredients they comprise of make sense when you’re breathing the air they grew in. This means that real ale can take a unique high and mighty pedestal in the boozer alongside Scottish and Irish whiskeys, like mud caked organic box next to the mange tout flown in from Kenya. The rest of the bar, from the keg lagers to the optics - well, it’s pretty much the same the world over.

I know I sound like a horrific alcoholic here. Probably I am one and possibly I’ll be writing a blog from The Priory in a year or two, evangelical about my newfound clarity after a healthy period smashed up, living the Snort By The River dream, all the while seething with boredom and milk eyed nostalgia at my former life. Until then, there’s a book to write (The Rough Pub Guide, something myself and Paul Moody have been working on for a few years, due out through Orion in the Autumn of 2008) and whole lot of beer to be drunk. If by any chance you do catch me by the river bank, make sure I don’t fall in – I’m bound to be somewhere well past half cut.

By the way, I’m not joking about being in CAMRA - my Dad got me membership for Christmas. Their monthly newsletter is called Beer, a name so brilliant it’s almost Gonzo in its simplicity. Check it out, it makes for a far better read than the NME these days." Robin Turner

Carl Barat likes pubs

2008-11-11T05:01:00.000-08:00

Great attitude...

Blackpool Tower Suite

2008-11-11T02:57:00.000-08:00

Great story in the Blackpool Gazette about two of the more 'lively' pubs in the book - click here to read.

City Life

2008-10-31T06:39:00.000-07:00

Great article from Manchester's City Life magazine on the Rough Pub Guide here.

Rough Pub Guide "Save Our Pubs" campaign

2008-10-27T12:18:00.001-07:00

For the first time since the Domesday Book was written over a thousand years ago, more than half of the villages in the UK are without pubs. 57 pubs close for good every month. Britain’s remaining publicans are pulling almost a fifth fewer pints than they were three years ago. Whether it’s due to the smoking ban or high street supermarkets selling dirt cheap booze, more and more people are choosing to stay home and get sozzled, so much so that one thing is certain - the British pub trade is in crisis. Instead of demonising drink we should celebrate the pub as a central part of British heritage.

After all:

Every huge rock’n’roll band in Britain has started off touring pubs;
All of our major TV soap operas revolve around the workings of the pub;
Some of the most iconic British films -from Withnail And I to Shaun Of The Dead, focus on the pub (both pubs involved in filming these movies have been gastro-ed);
And, you can't get a decent pint anywhere else.
We need to stop taking these places for granted before it’s too late. We need to support traditional locals and stand defiant against General Gastro (Gordon Ramsay) and the refit brigade. With that in mind, The Rough Pub Guide is launching a ‘Save Our Pubs!’ campaign to highlight the alarming state of the nation’s pubs.

1. Save Your Pub – if your local is under threat from re-development, organize a petition to tell the government how you feel about it - you’ll miss it when it’s gone!

2. We’d like the government to rethink recent legislation to allow smokers a designated room in which to smoke and drink (currently in practice in France, Spain and Italy). Live music venues should also be allowed to re-introduce smoking to prevent gigs smelling of farts and Domestos. It is killing live rock’n’roll. Yes, we know smoking is bad for you, but so is loud music. That's why we like it. (Health freaks please note: Hitler was vehemently anti-smoking).

3. Alistair Darling’s recently budgeted alcohol taxation plans will give us a £6.50 pint just in time for the Olympics – is that how we want our country to be perceived by visitors? Write to your MP to register disgust!

4. We’d like to see an Honours system set up for long serving landlords who have provided communities with more than thirty years service. Our Olympic athletes return home from one Games heralded as national heroes, yet landlords and ladies who have tirelessly poured pints for decades don’t even warrant a mention - It’s time to celebrate the landlords that time forgot!

5. And, finally, we’d like to instate a National Pub Day – a good old, all-bets-are-off piss up that celebrates the public house as an essential cornerstone of British culture. We’re suggesting a new bank holiday held in the bleak midwinter, on the date of Oliver Reed’s birthday, February 13th. It’s what he would have wanted…

Remember, a pub is for life, not just for Christmas!

George Orwell "The Moon Under Water"

2008-10-27T12:03:00.000-07:00

There's a printable online version here. Click here to read Ian Jack on the Moon Under Water in the Guardian from earlier in the year.

2008-10-27T09:10:00.000-07:00

Click here for some serious pub talk from the man from CAMRA, Roger Protz.

The Horror Of The Family Room

2008-10-20T01:57:00.001-07:00

Great piece in The Guardian on Saturday weirdly echoing some words from the Rough Pub Guide - why do people still take kids to pubs? i grew up in the carpark outside and it never did me any harm, etc etc.

Also in The Guardian on Saturday, a feature on the Rough Pub Guide, focusing on pubs in films and on the telly.

2008-10-16T01:51:00.001-07:00

There's a really great pub site here

Western Mail feature

2008-10-15T06:42:00.000-07:00

Rough Pub press, Weds October 15th

2008-10-15T06:29:00.000-07:00

Rough Pub - Wilkins Cider Farm

2008-10-15T04:23:00.000-07:00

One of the all time greats, Roger Wilkins, interviewed about his magical cider farm in Mudgely, Somerset.

Ollie Reed still doing it at the CAMRA fest...

2008-08-14T10:19:00.000-07:00

Death Of The Working Men's Club

2008-08-11T01:59:00.000-07:00

"Working men's clubs have been a bastion of the British entertainment scene for 150 years, blooding young comedians and crooners before unforgiving audiences and setting them on the long hard road to stardom or the short cut to obscurity. But now there are fears the clubs themselves are facing an even tougher audience – their creditors." From yesterday's Independent which follows up on this story from last year.

Unique Pub To Shut...

2008-08-08T03:37:00.000-07:00

Another one bites the dust

The Boot, Rough Pub Guide/Socialite 10/06

2008-04-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

The Foundry, Jan '08

2008-04-27T05:55:00.000-07:00

14 Years Livin' In The Bottle

2008-04-25T04:41:00.000-07:00

I first started drinking in the Cock & Bottle 14 years ago. At the time I was living in the next street, somehow lucking out with a cheap flat in the Ladbroke Grove area. The pub, although as down to Earth as you could get, attracted local bo-ho heroes. On any given night you’d see Suede Anderson, Elastica, 3-D from Massive Attack, Damon Albarn, Goldie, The Chemical Brothers – it seemed to be like a Brit Pop era Stella Street. The place was understated and encouraged our particular brand of lazy all day drinking. The same vertically challenged man has been sat at the same stool at the bar for as long as I can remember. This place was never trendy, more an antidote to what was going on around it – mellow, welcoming, warm, friendly.

Nothing has really changed in the ensuing years. Yesterday, sat with my friend Ed, I found myself scratching my chin and wondering on whether the place had been retouched in the decade and a half since we started drinking there. He remembered it had, and, quite fantastically, they’d done it up just the same as before. It didn’t need a refit, an open kitchen, a jar of olives on the counter, it just needed more of the same. The surrealist picture of the landlord had always taken pride of place in the fireside bar (he appears to floating suspended in a sea of Guinness glasses, twinkling like stars in a boozy firmament – it really is worth seeing for yourself). The beers and the snacks, as far as I can remember, have always been the same (the only variation being market forces and marketing gimmicks – ‘Extra Cold’ this or ‘Ice’ that). Tavern Snacks, always the saltiest potatoes in packs, are the only food I’ve ever eaten in there, and I kind of like it that way.

It’s remarkable and heartening to know that the Cock remains just so after all these years. The surrounding area was razed like a blast zone at the end of the ‘90s and rebuilt entirely for ladies who lunch – pubs like The Duke Of Norfolk have gone the way of dodo, replaced by another shop selling overpriced fashion wear to people with more money than sense. Westbourne Grove doesn’t seem able to support great, old fashioned pubs – the sole exception of the Cock. Everywhere else constantly shifts and reinvents, even the giant Sam Smiths booze palace The Lonsdale, formerly a hangout for Goths and people in bands who could have been contenders. Elsewhere, in the knock on effect areas like Kensal Rise and even Harlesden, where locals have shifted to due to sky rocketing house prices, pubs have undergone a fundamental shift – locals out, gastropub prices in. the square mile where I used to live (the corner of Ladbroke Grove, Chamberlaine Road and Harrow Road) now has six gastropubs to one ‘Last Bastion’ style spit and sawdust boozer (The Flora). That’s six pubs playing the same music, six pubs where food is pushed round the plate while someone nips off to the bogs to hoover up a load of gak before coming back to loudly bray about how tough things are in the world of music videos. Nothing against that kind of behaviour, but does London really need more ‘hang outs’ like this rather than good old-fashioned palaces of reflection like the Cock?