The
arrangements for this square however seemed to show a positive effort to avoid
the tour at any costs and I have to say that some of the excuses that were made
showed a huge amount of ingenuity if not a large slice of imagination. If these
people put as much effort into arranging their lives around the tour, everyone
would be much happier. But on no, these folk seem to think they can have a life
outside of the Monopoly Board! The cheek of it!
That said
though I do have to give credit to Big-J who not only put in a welcome return
to the fold, actually made up excuses to attend and pulled off some marvellous
bargaining with his nearest and dearest to wangle a night out. The only other
attendee was my ever faithful Tonto otherwise known as Spikey Haired
Ed......perhaps he just has a worse social diary than me!
And whilst
we're on the subject of Ed, I must give much kudos for his idea of where to go
for the evening in the first place. The actual square was the third and final
Chance square and when I asked if he had any good ideas for it, quick as greasy
flash of lightening he replied, "How about Chancery Lane?" - I couldn't
have put it better myself!
Ed caused a massive pile up stopping commuters entering the station to take this photo. And was it worth it..............?
So like a
very boring version of the Three Stooges (Doh, Gary & Shirley perhaps?) we
made the convoluted tube journey to Chancery Lane which seemed to involve more
walking around the endless corridors of the train stations themselves than
actually travelling any meaningful distance toward our destination.
The first
pub was the Melton Mowbray which is on the main road of Holborn itself. It's a
very smart Fuller Pie & Ale house (normal pies I think, not special pork
ones) and seeing as it was probably the first tour we've done this year in the
recent good weather, nicely full with no problems to get to the bar.
And not a pie in sight.
The cheeky
eastern European barmaid asked what I wanted and using my usual skill of
picking an ale at random I went for the Spring Sprinter, Fuller's seasonal beer
for the season. Big-J followed suit and when Ed started umming and arring the
barmaid pinged an imaginary bell and told him he'd ran out of time and that she
wouldn't serve him. But she did, especially when he made it easy for her and
went with the Spring Sprinter as well.
We retired
to a nice seat in the bay window and finally puzzled out the latest series of
adverts that have started to appear on the tube. Dara O'Briain, in the way that
Brian Cox has made science sexy, seems set to become the prime time
entertainment voice of maths and has started posing some arithmetic questions
which presumably help people while away their tube journey whilst also
promoting his UKTV show School Of Hard Sums. Well good on you Dara, better
looking than Carol Vorderman and an improvement on the version I had as a kid,
Magnus Pyke. The puzzle we'd spent most of the time chewing over whilst traipsing
around Bank Station went something like this. If you have five mice and the
first one weighs 16grames and the average weight of the mice goes up by 1g each
time you add a mouse (i.e. when you weigh the first two the average increases
to 17g) what's the weight of the fifth and final mouse?
If you can
work out the answer before you've read the rest of the blog there's a prize!
If left the
two brainiacs to their puzzling and went to find the certificate. The pub, in
the same way as The Chamberlain, had put an outdoors plaque on the inside of
the pub but of the actual certificate there was no sign. Risking another run in
wit the the barmaid I asked and in what is a rare occurrence she knew exactly
what I wanted, and pulled a rather crumply looking certificate from a stack of
papers behind the bar. Still a scan is a scan.
No dancing here for Chris
One final
point about the Melton Mowbray if you ever go there; check out the brass
ashtrays screwed to the sides of the bar. Obviously not used now but somewhere
to plonk your loose change I guess.
It was a
quick dice with death as we crossed back over Holborn (remember how Ed is with buses) and popped down Leather Lane to the next pub, the Sir ChristopherHatton, a rather scruffy looking Nicholsons where the drinking crowd had
definitely heard about the good weather as they were sprawled all in front of
the pub. The inside was much less crowed so we had no problem getting served,
three pints of Sticklebract from Itchen Valley Brewery my good man, and finding
a table inside.
A huge area of the pub had been cordoned off with signs reading "Reserved, Alex, 5PM) but it was a rather stroppy annoyed looking barmaid who was tearing the signs down a little past 7 o clock, which means I guess that Alex wasn't coming.Well Alex may not have been there, but the certificate was, stuck on the underside of the bar hatch, which meant that Ed and I were two up for the night.
The entrance in Hatton Garden
The final
Cask Marque pub of the night was just around the corner in Hatton Garden. Well
when I say the pub is in Hatton Garden what I really mean is that the entrance
to the pub is in Hatton Garden as the pub itself is down a little alley making
it one of London's hidden gems. Almost any pub book that features the capital's
pubs will mention Ye Olde Mitre and well they might because it's an absolute
gem. Built in 1546 and with stories of Queen Elizabeth I dancing round with SirChristopher Hatton (remember him?) it is like stepping back in time. All the
guide books say how hard it is to find but obviously the information is
filtering through to some people as there was a healthy crowd teaming both
inside and outside the pub. But that said there was a team of eager to serve
bar-people and we got served in double quick time, 2 pints of Dragon Slayer
from York Brewery and 1 pint of Honey Dew (2 packets of nuts), and still
managed to get a free upturned barrel table outside.
If you do
decide to visit this place don't leave without visiting the toilets. For a
start its one of the few remaining gents where the actual loos are outside (a
wee in the evening air is somehow much more satisfying don't you think?) and
the positioning of the hand basin must make for the friendliest toilets in the
land. "Oh, excuse me. Did I spray on you?" (That could be the washer
or the wee-er talking)
Oops, excuse me sir.
Both Ed and
I located the certificate, hanging on the wall by the Snug. Alas even after
moving the rather arrogant Rodney bloke out of the way we still couldn't get a
scan as the pub was too dark.
Can you see the certificate? No, neither could the app.
So we'd
completed our three Cask Marque pubs for the night but if you're in this part
of town another classic pub you must visit is the Cittie of York. Part of the
Sam Smith's stable, who seem to shun any sort of publicity or PR focus, its not
Cask Marque accredited but still well worth a visit, and like Ye Olde Mitre
seems to feature in each and every London pub guide worth its salt.
Big-J, with
an hour's worth of bike riding still ahead of him switched to coke and Ed in an
amazing show of self discipline chose just a half of the Taddy Lager. Idiot BGC
went with a pint of Sam's Wheat Beer, which proved to be a struggle as perhaps
the last remaining vestiges of his latest illness were still around and had
decided to show themselves during the 4th pint.
Still a
good solid tour night and to all those who missed it, I hope the sock drawer
tidying and hair washing was worth it! But, like that horrible cheesy old advert used to say, like the Murphy’s, I'm bitter.
Number of
Cask Marque Pubs visited = 188
Did you get
the answer = Well it’s 24g.Your prize? Take the weekend off
You want
more quizzes? = Name the 30 teams of the NBA in under 6 minutes? Ed got 29.
Next Stop =
Park Lane
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