Some hurdles are too high even for the most fearless drinkers.
We assembled at Russell Square Station in excellent time, being all present by 10:55am, excellent showing to be sure. Six, we numbered: myself, Mike, Julian, Koki, James B., and Mike's friend Bernie. This was Bernie's first pub uber-crawl with us, but more importantly it was also Koki's. I would say a good proportion of my readers know Koki in person - the guy has been home in Japan for the four (is it really four? Wow!) previous Summer Pub Crawls.
For the sake of militarily precise timing I insisted - despite everybody being in attendance - that we held our departure until 11:00am, just for the sake of timing. You may recall that on the February recon our first pub, the Marquis of Cornwallis, had been closed when we arrived there at 11:01, though the next, the Norfolk Arms, was open. Well, on this trip the Marquis had been removed in favour of the Mad Bishop And Bear later in the route, so the Norfolk Arms was our first port of call, but when we arrived there at 11:05am it was closed.
What gives! Can these people not understand that people need beer at eleven in the morning? My goodness.
The most disturbing part of this part of the crawl was not that the pub was closed, but that my cohorts elected to try to locate another N on the route in advance, in order to fulfill the complete alphabet regardless. The name "Nag's Head" was plucked out of the air at random, and one was pinpointed for future reference. The whole idea sounded dicey to me and proved to be our undoing. Read on.
Reluctantly we continued on to the Euston Flyer which was not only open but already serving people. The Flyer is near a few major railway stations and, as we all know, travellers need booze. A tally chart had been set up for the purposes of recording who won (finished their half-pint first) and lost (last) at each round. I made sure to aim for the win in the early stages because I knew I would begin flagging later and it's important to play to one's strengths. James R. caught up with us at this point, having arranged to arrive slightly later than the rest of us.
We toddled onwards towards the Exmouth Arms, which, with its sprays of pink flowers, is arguably the prettiest pub in London. But it was closed! We were ahead of schedule and it was closed, a deeply disappointing development. It was at this point that Bernie proved his indispensable value to the team by:
- observing that lights were on indoors
- locating the Exmouth Arms' phone number
- phoning the person inside
- persuading her to open the pub early.
Magical work, Bernie ("What else can he open? A horse?"); and I must give due credit to the bartender as well for letting us in. The Exmouth Arms is probably the best pub beginning with X in London by a sizeable margin. (I have visited the other Exmouth Arms once. It's not worth speaking of. Had we not entered, we were seriously considering diverting to visit it, which could have been catastrophic.)
We hopped on the Tube to Paddington and I meticulously documented the route to the Union, a (justifiably) favourite choice of Mike's. It was here that Mike demonstrated some minor engineering magic, creating a siphon out of two drinking straws and using it to refill Julian's water bottle from a glass of ice water. Fully aware of the scientific principles behind the process as we all were, there was still some childlike amazement around the table every time Mike did this over the rest of the crawl.
We returned to Paddington Station and sampled both of the pubs therein. The Isembard had looked fairly pokey and fast-food-ish from the exterior on the recon, but inside it proved to be a microcosm of British pubishness and an ideal perch for people-watching. The Mad Bishop And Bear, on the top floor, proved equally agreeable, if somewhat opulent. Both pubs come recommended, those of you playing at home. Lunch was consumed at Burger King at this point.
We slipped a quick half at another Paddington favourite the Victoria on the way to Edgeware Road for the bus.
The next part of the crawl was one which I intend to try to excise from future iterations of the route. It's the part where we got on the bus for about 25 minutes spent pootling around the edge of Hyde Park, got off for one pub, and then got on the Tube for almost as long. I am referring to the Paddington-South Kensington-London Bridge hop.
South Kensington is a fixed and necessary location on the ABC because it hosts the Zetland Arms which is the only decent pub beginning with Z anywhere in London (indeed, perhaps the UK). The Zetland Arms itself, being a crowded and noisy sports pub, is probably towards the bottom of our list of good pubs, but the alternatives are either in entirely different counties or are mangy late-opening dives full of undesirables. However, it is also a shocking distance from the entire rest of the crawl. Route Two Point Oh required a trip all the way out and all the way back. Future crawls will almost certainly begin from that spot just to reduce travel time. (I believe Z.A. opens at 11. It'll also up our odds that pub #2 will be open when we get to it. I mean, for reals, y'all.) Still, to make up for that, Elliot, who is also known as "Bells" for reasons unknown, met us there. I think he'd intended to turn up at the start, but you know, Saturday does that to a man.
I was still winning at this point. In fact I'd won every round, with the exception of one (I forget which) which was declared a tie with Koki due to uncertainty. Playing to my strengths, I said. Little did I know.
We gleamed the Tube back to London Bridge and tried the King's Arms, which, like last year, was perfectly accessible and in perfectly good nick, but closed. I guess it just doesn't open until later. Or it's closed down. Either way we summarily struck it from our list and instead put the Knights Templar on the route.
We hit the Wheatsheaf, and then the Old Thameside Inn, where Elliot swiftly toppled my unbeaten record. It had drizzled earlier in the day but it was now becoming properly sunny, which was good because all previous Monopoly Crawls had been uniformly sunny affairs and I was feeling hard done-by, weather-wise. The Anchor was next and the sun was glorious enough to make it worth sitting outside here (in fact I never set foot inside the pub).
What I didn't realise at this point was how we were being subtly delayed. The South Bank is busy on summer Saturday and it takes an age to get served at the best of times. Come the Founder's Arms, which is an unutterably crowded glass box outside the Tate Modern, we were lagging seriously.
We crossed the Millennium Bridge, wandered confusedly around St. Paul's Cathedral and eventually located both the Paternoster and Ye Olde London (no pictures below), both solid pubs. The merits of the "tactical" were discussed.
What happened next is what scuppered us. The route I had drawn up called for a bus from Ye Olde London to the Lyceum in the Strand, but in our wisdom we had decided to visit the Knights Templar which is situated roughly halfway between the two. So we walked to the Knights Templar. Which was closed. And then we walked to the Lyceum.
The Lyceum was open and good thing too, no problem there, but that was more walking than I (or anyone) had intended.
The next stop was the Nag's Head which we had located by Google Maps earlier in the day, which we did successfully locate, but the disruption to the route had slowed us down. We were hungry but had one pub to go, the Harp, before we reached dinner at Leicester Square.
Koki was flagging. James R. bravely volunteered to escort him home. A brave move indeed, since "home" was Mike's house in Zone 6, while James R's home is (I'm told) a roughly equal distance in another direction entirely. The bravery of JR's sacrifice was driven home all the harder when, after the Harp and dinner we elected to abandon the run. I returned to Julian's flat (temporarily loaded with two people's furniture), got lost on my way back to St. Pancras the following morning and ended up using my Oyster Card on the Tube when I didn't want to.
Debrief
The first major lesson is that the route isn't ready yet, but the second and arguably the more important one is to never change the route on-the-fly. It's important to have aims and goals and important not to lose sight of them.
Another thing in need of tweaking is the balance of food and drink. We were almost all feeling tired after the Harp (pub number 17 of 26) and the rough consensus Julian and I came to, the morning after, while watching Scrapheap Challenge (which is basically the only good show at that time on a Sunday), was that there should have been more food around.
Version three of the route will arise soon and another recon will occur in, perhaps, six months?
