So I went to the new Fairfield Tavern. This morning I had been no less miffed than I was last night - went for a brief walk to Richmond Park and remembered why I don't walk there (it's not a pleasant walk to get to the park, and on a bright Sunday morning there are going to be so many people there).
The Fairfield ... well, it's ok. The landlord gave me a pint (Deuchars IPA, excellent I must say). I met one of the other Marlborough regulars there - he probably brought down the average age of the people in there by ten years. It does not, shall we say, have the diversity of the old Marl, nor does it have Sam, who as my friend said does the traditional landlady bit very well. Then we went to the Tup and I tried both ales they had (Doom Bar and GK IPA), sent them both back. Sometimes I feel like I don't have a local.
I would like to see folk music at the new pub if only to be able to use the slogan 'A Fairfield full of Folk.' Still.

That's the Fairfield in the icon to this post. But back when it was the Marl.

Tonight I've been on the bike to Bushy Park, which was more like it. Deer, and sunset, and enticingly winding paths to myself.

Tags: pubs
Current Location: home
Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Music: Red Hot Chili Peppers: Under The Bridge

as I have been repeatedly informed over the last year.

However this may not inform my feeling while wandering through Bentalls Centre this morning that it was in essence no different from a seabird colony. I could imagine a helicopter zoom shot down over the cliffs to a squawking mass of terns or whatever squabbling and fighting over their nests; and the tiered and cliffed shininess of the Bentalls Centre with its loud and raucously breeding inhabitants is no different from that. I was too subdued to start saying "it's a breeding colony, nothing else" and contented myself with walking through the fountains in Market Place. Shot by both sides? More like wet on one side. Previously I'd been to the gym, and after that, had lunch and slept for an hour and a half until woken by a telemarketing call.

Tonight I have been up to Bayswater - to the Prince Edward - for the birthday celebrations of Olga, and its being Olga there was karaoke. Got talking to a young Polish woman whom everyone else seemed to be ignoring (due to almost everyone being in a couple). She is not even the first postgrad translation student I've met recently.

On the way home: the old Marlborough was full of people: the people who'd worked on it to turn it back into a pub. It opens its doors to the public tomorrow lunchtime, as the Fairfield Tavern. I'll be there.

The question is, can I live with this not-meshing with the rest of the world? Or is it just that some people make more of it than others?

Tags: kingston, pubs
Current Location: home
Current Mood: dissonant

So, it looks like the old Marlborough may be reopening after all, and this time it isn't just a rumour. The Kelly Arms are expanding up the road and have bought it off Gall and Woodlouse (as I call them).
I seem to have offered to do a website for them; but then, I saw the Marlborough dissolve into nothingness, and wondered what we could have done to stop that happening. Ironically the old Newt and Ferret (as it was before) had a site, but the Marlborough, no.
And the new pub will go back to the old name - the Fairfield Tavern. Before it was the Marlborough, before the Refectory (cursed place, lasted less time than the Marlborough and nobody cared so much) and before the Newt and Ferret.
Listening to Grey Horse gig footage on YouTube; I seem to have lost the going to local gigs that I had a couple of years ago. I'm sure it'll start again.

Tags: marlborough, pubs
Current Location: home
Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Music: Papa George & Ian Hunt, January 2009

I've been reading 'Ghostwritten' by David Mitchell and 'Jitterbug Perfume' by Tom Robbins. Years apart, both roam over a wide range of sets and both have an Irish scientist (not the same one) as a main character. Robbins picks up on the undemocratic nature of Hinduism which links with von Ungarn-Sternberg's distinctly un-touchy-feely approach to Buddhism - if your deeds in one life affect your next, then those born in high places must be better people by definition?

Apart from that, it is snowing, as everyone else based around London has said. I suspect the work to build the new summerhouse, which was due to start tomorrow morning, won't. As it is I have practically got the front bedroom in shape as a bedroom apart from the delivery of a new bed (scheduled for the 9th). These two projects are separate but after living here for three years and a bit I've moved on from the original confguration which was very much a first attempt.
Last night, went to the Fighting Cocks to hear a Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute band called imaginatively the Fred Hot Chili Peppers. Good music and a nice audience, even if one did apparently run off with my pullover as she was collecting her and her friends' bags. I asked her if she'd found it but although polite she was clearly the worse for wear. That's the difference, in some pubs she wouldn't have been polite either. The HC I hardly bother with as the locals seem to have an issue with people who aren't in clearly definable couples.

The FC is quite a gothy pub which makes it a find, and now that they have real ale (Hobgoblin) there is less excuse not to go in, not that I tend to except for gigs.
This morning, woke up at 1015, had a very quiet day, which would make one suspect I'd had too much of the Hobgoblin (I had one pint, which added to a half of Old Speckled Hen in another pub earlier in the day adds up to not very much). Took some clothes I hadn't worn for a while to the charity. Wrote my Pubs Officer's Report for the AGM, which is on Thursday. I am bound to get rechosen as Pubs Officer. The Pubs Officer can report that tomorrow the Marlborough will have been closed for a year, and is still boarded up.

Tags: house, pubs
Current Location: study
Current Music: The Hush Sound: Magnolia