Wot, no TPD?

[NickFitz]

This cold really is a bugger

I'm not one to do the "man flu" thing (being single there really isn't any point) but I wouldn't be overly surprised to learn that I do, indeed, have flu - presumably that new-fangled one there's been so much fuss about but which is apparently quite mild (for flu).

The general symptoms, particularly the aching of the joints and temperature increase, would tend to support such a conjecture

Ah well, in a hundred years we'll all be dead and none of it will matter

[NickFitz]

What a depressing weekend

Driving back up the A14 I was (of course) stuck in a traffic jam. "Never mind," I thought from time to time, "Soon you'll be home; have dinner (tea?), have a shower, get down the pub " - and then remembered (each time) that there is no pub now

Having made it home, and all the needful having been taken care of, I ventured forth: it really is disconcerting when you leave your home with no clear idea of where you actually intend to go. I decided to try a place that quite a few people have spoken well of: excellent ale, no aggro, and so forth.

I used to live down the road from this place, about thirty seconds walk away, and would pop in there occasionally. It was OK, slightly dingy (+1) and had a decent atmosphere. Since then (then being eighteen years ago) it's changed breweries from the big local one to a smaller independent one known for the quality of its ale. Unfortunately the end result is a bit like going for a pint in a supermarket. No aggro, and the ale is indeed well-kept; but honestly, the place is utterly bereft of character. It could be a good pub, if only it had something about it. I had one pint, drank it quite quickly, and left

Onwards to the good but rather dull pub near the old place. It's a great pub in many ways, but it's small and although it has character in bucketloads, it's always been the kind of place I only pop into now and then: you know that if something happens that will change the world forever, it won't happen there, unlike the P&T where such a thing would seem natural, inevitable, and right.

There I found one of the other lost souls, who happens to be a journalist on the local rag. He told me that he'd stayed in the office until nearly half-ten, polishing a story, and kept finding himself thinking "Once I'm done, I can get down the P&T" - before realising that no, he couldn't

He asked if I'd been encountering the same thing, and I told him about my A14 experience.

He too had tried the place-lacking-in-character; in fact he was under orders to do so. He told me that his partner hasn't really bothered coming out since The Closing. She prefers to just go home and mope, for she doesn't really like any of the known options very much, and so he is trying all the alternatives in the hope of finding a place that she might like.

I know how she feels

Ah well, that was last night (Friday); I'm going to have some supper and watch The Thick Of It now. I may post later about tonight's search (Saturday), or I may leave it until tomorrow. Hint: I feel even more fed up tonight than I did after last night

[RichardCranium]

The Closing

May I make so bold as to suggest you rewrite that without smilies then send it to the editor of the local paper. I should have thought it warrants half a page.

And/or get it up on your blog, if you haven't already.

And while you're at it, blog your experiences of each of the boozers while they are fresh in your mind.

Keep that up for a few weeks and there will be a very small Plan B available to you: making £10 a month from local shops selling your guide to the town's pubs.

WTF is RC on about? Back when I was working for an on-demand digitial publishing house, we had a few people doing such things: writing about local history, buildings or families and selling small books or booklets that we printed. It was only pin money but they were doing it either as a hobby or to get theselves established enough to launch their other book, the one they wanted on the national market.



end of random thunks.

[BrilloPad]

Only 1 call in the support bucket today. The user asked me to do it so I will leave it until someone else does it. Its the only way to show the users their place.

[NickFitz]

So, Saturday night...

This time I headed to a pub on the edge of the City Centre - dangerous territory (DMU is in the way, and the wonderful improvements they've made to their campus have turned it into a Seventies-style haven for muggers), but it's run by the brother of the (now-ex-)manager of the P&T, the ale is very good, and some people from a pub I worked in in the Nineties go there.

Got there; the ale is indeed very good.

The manager wasn't there, and neither were any of the other crowd

The girlfriend of the (now-ex-)assistant manager of the P&T works there. "Hello!" she said on seeing me standing at the bar. "What are you doing here?" Then she suddenly remembered.

"Oh God, of course... All night I've kept thinking of going down there for a drink after work as usual [this place closes at eleven], and then remembering "

Ho hum. The place isn't really my style (it's OK when Attila the Stockbroker does a gig down there, but that's not exactly often given that he lives in Brighton) so I drank my pint and left for the rather dull place.

To get there, I had to go past the P&T. Although the lease only ended on Friday, it was already surrounded by scaffolding, razor wire, signs advertising scaffolding firms, and was boarded up

"By the waters of the River Soar, I sat down and wept" - with apologies to T S Eliot

More of the now-usual lamentation in the nice-but-dull pub (along with some interesting conversation about things like Sue Townsend's first draft of Adrian Mole - I seem to be the only person left apart from her who remembers that he was originally a year younger and called Nigel).

On Sunday, I simply resorted to the nice-but-dull pub, on the grounds that I would at least be able to find somewhere to sit and read Private Eye. On the way however I went round the block to get some photos of the P&T in its death throes.

It was even more boarded up, and they'd already started tearing it down. That means that DMU is actually paying overtime rates to have people working Saturday and Sunday to eradicate the place as rapidly as possible.

Six weeks ago, DMU were still saying that they hadn't made any decision and that there might be no need to get rid of the pub. Five weeks ago they announced that it had to shut down last week.

I think they've realised just what a massive PR disaster this whole thing has turned into for them, and believe that the sooner they knock everything down, the sooner it will go away.

But it won't. They don't get rid of twenty-one years of thousands of people's lives that easily

[NickFitz]

Oh, FFS

As if I didn't already have enough unwished-for changes in my life, Mr J Sainsbury has just mutated the local branch of his grocery into something bigger and (I am constantly assured) better. Of course, this means that one no longer knows where everything is

I've just noticed that, during my brief sojourn there on the way back from London, I bought toilet roll when I wanted kitchen roll

Looking at this from a usability perspective, why do they put toilet roll and kitchen roll in identical packaging, such that you have to actually read the packaging or examine the contents to be sure which one you're getting? Fine, they're both from the "recycled" range (whose name I can't even remember, so their branding of that range is irrelevant or at least ineffective) but couldn't they at least make them with different designs or something? Obviously different colours would be too much to ask, as it has to be green if it's recycled; but maybe just different shades of green, so customers can distinguish them at a glance?

In case anybody thinks I'm making too much of this, consider the implications if Windows Update shoved some stuff on your machine that quietly changed the button in the lower left so that it no longer said "Start" but instead said "Format C:". When you sat down at your machine the next day, would you notice before you clicked on it?

Ah well, with Christmas coming up maybe I'll find a use for the bog roll

[NickFitz]

...and that's my last night at The Castle Inn

I ended up, once again, having a long chat with John after everybody had gone, which resulted in me missing the Shipping Forecast; but that's OK. It's quite an honour when the man who was drummer in The Rutles, and on Lou Reed's Transformer, says that for the past few months he's looked forward to having a chat with one, and will miss one now one's gone

[Churchill]

...and that's my last night at The Castle Inn

I ended up, once again, having a long chat with John after everybody had gone, which resulted in me missing the Shipping Forecast; but that's OK. It's quite an honour when the man who was drummer in The Rutles, and on Lou Reed's Transformer, says that for the past few months he's looked forward to having a chat with one, and will miss one now one's gone

How can I miss you if you won't leave?