retiredmartin

November 2023. Stoke Newington. London.

A snatched night out in London in between caring responsibilities. Mum locks the door at 6pm and I have to creep in using the spare key on the way home, all the time knowing she’ll be listening out for me as 11pm ticks past. It’s like being 17 again, except I wasn’t a dirty stop out at 17.

Stoke Newington isn’t high on my list of London suburbs, and you have to be very careful you don’t accidentally turn left at end up at the Arsenal stadium, home to the newly laundered scarf-wearing Gooners.

My church gig had an almost perfect line-up;

Haley Blais, my current all-American Canadian hero, being on first at 7:30 meant no chance of any GBG ticks (Old Ship, Hackney was calling), and I was going to be confined to some nearby revisits and pre-emptive between sets. That’s OK; I’m a (retired) completist.

St Mathias Church shared toilets with the adjacent primary school, an unusual experience. It’s an NCSS 3+, getting that + for the acoustics rather than any particular architectural gems.

A solo set from Haley, who delivered better swearing in a church than John Grant at Halifax Minster,

and finished at 20:07 which gave me 23 minutes to nip through tower blocks to the Lady Mildmay.

You might remember the Mildmay (you won’t) from my BIG, BIG, London Day Out in June. I wrote then; “perhaps the embodiment of N1 gastropub. I was running on empty by Pub 7, and may have been a bit harsh on the Mildmay“.

And I won’t have it said I’m a bit harsh. Even on a London gastro.

At 4pm in June it was near empty; at 8.15pm in November it was rammed. I reckoned 150 twenty-somethings, most of them eating, packed in like the (sauteed) sardines they were eating.

None of them were drinking the cask, an extraordinary line-up including a 2.5% and 2.3% ale, either to save beer duty or livers.

The only space to stand was along the wall, always a great place as long as it’s not raining.

I’d loved to tell you the 360 degrees Pale was a redemptive NBSS 4, in truth a 3 but this is Islington, not Sheffield, and the relentless chat of the young made it a £5.50 worth spending.

Some folk will tell you the young don’t go to pubs or chat to each other. They’ve never been more wrong.

But I wasn’t attempting a return visit to those Mildmay loos, just about holding it in till the tiny toilets of St Mathias Primary School. How I envy the bladders of youth.