DO THE STRAND

Panic ye not, I’m not doing a Ferry-esque dance over the Thames, merely a retiredmartin rush as the impact of that Volcano coffee suddenly means I need the loo.

Like Newcastle, London’s bridges are its real treasure.

If you look very closely you can probably see BRAPA and Colin about to upset someone in Southend.

I left Embankment to a very rare new Guide pub at Charing Cross, the technical (if not spiritual) heart of London.

As experienced pubgoers will know, 3 pints in 2 hours is about the time in a day when your head starts to wander, and wonder whether you ought to divert to the Ship & Shovell, to see whether the Badger is drinking well. But it’s recently lost it’s longstanding Guide place, so probably not.

Discipline ! Straight in the Princess of Wales.

Ain’t it lovely ? Rather understated for a Nicholsons joint, too.

The sign screams “£2 ALL PINTS !” but even that can’t tempt in the tourists, and the dozen or so drinkers are all lads in their 20s filling up on £2 Doom Bar before the pubs shut forever again.

What a terrible year for pubs 2020 has been. That we’ve been left with pubs serving a reduced range of Doom Bar, London Pride and a house beer from St Austell is small consolation, I guess. But it’s certainly seen quality maintained in these dark times.

My notes say I had a “small prude“, which is probably good description of me, and indicates I was only making one typo per word by then.

Anyway, for £2 you won’t get a much better pint of cool, foamy Pride (NBSS 3+), though to be honest that’s often damning with faint praise these days.

Polite young staff, obedient customers, a smaller Nicks making good use of space. Hard to fault. But of course it’s all the fault of pubs that Covid cases shot up when the students went back

Pint drained, lacings captured, I set off on the next stretch.

Grief, had it really got so hazy so quickly ?

Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

16 thoughts on “DO THE STRAND”

  3. I first drank Charringtons IPA in the Princess of Wales on Wednesday 22nd March 1972, and also in the Royal Victoria, Waterloo Road that day.
    Walking down Villiers street last year I had a look in but the pub has been knocked about that much over the past 48½ years that I passed it by.

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  4. “If you look very closely you can probably see BRAPA and Colin about to upset someone in Southend.”

    *squints* Yep, I see ’em!

    “the technical (if not spiritual) heart of London.”

    London has a heart?

    “Straight in the Princess of Wales.”

    How do cars pass each other in such narrow streets?

    “My notes say I had a “small prude“, which is probably good description of me”

    (slow golf clap)

    ” But of course it’s all the fault of pubs that Covid cases shot up when the students went back”

    You have seen Mudgie’s pie graph of Week 44 of the Weekly Covid-19 Surveillance Report, yes? 😉

    “Grief, had it really got so hazy so quickly ?”

    Heh. 🙂

    Cheers

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  6. Used to often see the late Richard Harris in the Ship and Shovel. He used to sip a pint of Guinness, though officially teetotal. With his son I think usually. Always quite liked the pub. Used to drink the Badger brewed King and Barnes in there.

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  7. Also, thinking on, that whole area is still an area I got to a fair bit, but also I had colleagues in the Adelphi then before I retired and we stopped a fair few going sour around Villiers and John Adam Sts

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    1. Unquestionably the pubs round there are appealing. It’s surprising how few new pubs enter the Beer Guide in such a well-pubbed area (only central pub in GBG20 was that Craft Beer Co place near the Gherkin I met you in).

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