Reply to: What makes a good pub - "Moon Under Water"

[Drewster]

Really! It was like finding a precious gemstone in an oily cesspit.

How philosophical..... personally I never rummage in Cesspits....
To be fair as long as you stay outside about a 7mile radius of Corby and avoid the Corridior of Hell between Corby and Kettering there are (still) a fair few decent pubs in the surrounding villages.... but not once the Townies discover them!

[zara_backdog]

It didn't last because they moved The Gaiety to a side street in Birmingham (just behind the Grand Hotel) in the early 80s.... exactly as you describe. They sold "M&B Springfield" - one of the worst gnats piss keg beers (OK I know thats tautology) ever invented and your feet stuck to the floor anywhere within a 10ft radius of the bar....

Its only redeeming features were (to be honest fairly compelling features at the time) its proximity to the Student Nurses Home (or more accurately the fact that the Student Nurses went there)

Ah - I remember The Gaiety - hic!

[Mich the Tester]

Mich - I find it very hard to believe you found anything matching that description ANYWHERE NEAR Corby......

Although I guess the definition of "near" might account for it.....

Really! It was like finding a precious gemstone in an oily cesspit.

[Drewster]

....really good pub....near Corby.....impressed at the friendliness, good food and generally homely feeling......

Mich - I find it very hard to believe you found anything matching that description ANYWHERE NEAR Corby......

Although I guess the definition of "near" might account for it.....

[Mich the Tester]

Were I to find such a haven of a place, only a very few fine fellows of my acquaintance would ever hear of it.

Occasionally when I visit the UK I stumble upon a really good pub. We went to one somewhere near Corby several years ago while driving from Harwich to Birmingham. Trouble is I’ve never found it again and I can’t remember the name; if I could remember, I still don’t know whether I’d tell anyone. However, it was Mrs Tester’s first visit to a real English pub and she was very impressed at the friendliness, good food and generally homely feeling to the place. After a few more UK visits she asked ‘why don’t they have more places like that one near Corby. Surely they’d do a roaring trade?’ I tried to explain that there used to be lots of them, but somehow they seem to have died out’.

[Drewster]

In the 1970s I did frequent a pub called the Gaiety, just off Kensington High Street, which I most liked because it was the opposite of its name: with a high dark ceiling, long dark red curtains, and leather seats, it had no jukebox, no piped music, no TV, no fruit machines, and none of this damned new Space Invaders stuff.

It didn't last because they moved The Gaiety to a side street in Birmingham (just behind the Grand Hotel) in the early 80s.... exactly as you describe. They sold "M&B Springfield" - one of the worst gnats piss keg beers (OK I know thats tautology) ever invented and your feet stuck to the floor anywhere within a 10ft radius of the bar....

Its only redeeming features were (to be honest fairly compelling features at the time) its proximity to the Student Nurses Home (or more accurately the fact that the Student Nurses went there)

[Gold Dalek]

no fruit machines, and none of this damned new Space Invaders stuff.

Space Invaders... pah!

[scotspine]

Shocked nobody picked up on my post two pint spelling misaykes in the OP.

I think the Moulin Inn gets at least 8 out 10.

whs. a very fine place indeed. and of course so is the tigh an truish.

[TykeMerc]

Excluding the garden, china mugs and it being up a side street there's a pub in Preston that's damn close to what he described including the victorian design features. Beer in there is excellent too.

I'm buggered if I can remember the name, I'll have to check with a friend that drinks there most weeks.

[minestrone]

You've had a shocker with the punctuation too but I am not in a pedantic mood today.

Stella. what can, I say?

[Spacecadet]

get out of the sh*te hole cities and into the country side and you can find some very nice pubs

[Gonzo]

Shocked nobody picked up on my post two pint spelling misaykes in the OP.

You've had a shocker with the punctuation too but I am not in a pedantic mood today.

[minestrone]

Shocked nobody picked up on my post two pint spelling misaykes in the OP.

I think the Moulin Inn gets at least 8 out 10.

[Moscow Mule]

Do we know where that is?

Were I to find such a haven of a place, only a very few fine fellows of my acquaintance would ever hear of it.

[Gonzo]

Where I live, and for a few miles around where traditional dry areas, there are no real pubs, just hotel bars. So I have the choice of the wine bar hotel pub or walk 15 minutes to the crossroads type motel and it's ye old England type place. So I buy the times, head of to plastic England for a couple of pints and start reading the following essay...

Moon under water

I never noticed for a couple of minutes that it was written 60 years ago, I never noticed at first it was an Orwell essay, 99% of it is still true.

So, did he ever find a pub that

has draught stout, open fires, cheap meals, a garden, motherly barmaids and no radio

Do we know where that is?