retiredmartin

November 2023. King’s Cross. London.

A night out in London; a very old rare Friday night, too, as most of my trips to the capital post-Covid have been mid-afternoon, mid-week.

No sign of the carnage outside as I returned to St Mathias Church for the last leg of my confessional singer-songwriter night.

Mrs RM was rather taken by Joanna Sternberg’s astonishing vocals in the car the other month, so I felt privileged to catch them on their first ever UK gig,

But with a 22:39 train back to Waterbeach and unreliable buses I left early, only to then find myself with 15 minutes to spare standing outside Scala.

Oh, it’ll be the Scottish Stores then.

One of my very early blog posts in 2016 welcomed the Stores as a cosy place with great cask and blokes in sheepskin;

It never made the GBG, despite being tipped by BRAPA and on a return visit with the Southworth twins in 2018 I turned against it as rapidly as my pint slipped off the table and I was refused a free replacement (Small Claims Court action pending).

But it “Guided” for the first time in GBG24, and I braved the bouncers and packed humanity of a King’s Cross Friday,

to be a bit disappointed by the beer range tucked away in the corner.

But not that disappointed, as that’s Vocation Milk Stout, isn’t it ?

It wasn’t great, tasty but a tad warm and indistinct (2.5), but even if it had been undrinkable it wouldn’t have been me taking it back at 10:20pm on a Friday.

An odd year to debut in the Guide, but then GBG24 is an odd year, and if anything I thought the Stores a top pub more tonight than when the beer was better, IYSWIM (see Mumsnet for acronyms).

A soundtrack for folk who go out to the Smoke for a big night out; “Rolling In The Deep” by Adele, and that one by a bloke who could be Peter Andre that goes “a heart attack…Jamaica !“. If you can identify that (I couldn’t from the Gents) you can finish off my pint of Milk Stout.

A platoon of bikers whizzed past the Scala,

I nipped in McDonalds for a (very good) chilli chicken wrap of the day, noting that the staff here actually checked my receipt number rather than believing I was No. 41. London operates to different rules.