July 2024. Finchley Road. London.
New Beer Guide pubs are a rarity in the weird looking blob of North-West London. It starts OK in Euston, Camden and Hampstead, then loses the plot in featureless Brent, Harrow and Hillingdon.
To be fair, the curry and dosas round here aren’t bad, and as I leave the underground at Finchley Road, one of a handful of stops on the fast tube back from Northwood Hills to Baker Street, I rejoice in the knowledge of how little I know about this bit of “town”.
The Freud museum to the east, Hampstead Heath with Bass at the Magdala to the north, and unknown pleasures out west. And Gnosis.
Of all those topics, …and much More (with capital M) appeals most.
My second pub is in a notably less salubrious suburb, but as always in London one only 15 minutes walk from Finchley Road, about which I still know nothing.
Neither smart nor scruffy,
with some angry art,
a certain carelessness with cats,
and a place in musical history.
That’s the set-up. Our classic pub will be up shortly.
retiredmartin 
“Long Gonnie” Donnegan these days, rest him.
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