February 2025. Emsworth.
Leaving Emsworth in Hampshire 7 years ago I wrote;
But now I’m back, showing US Dave what a Top 100 pub looks like.
I couldn’t actually remember if it was just that tiling I loved a decade or more back,
but one step into this single roomer with proper fire, low key lunch trade and no music suggests it no one-trick pony.
Dave is either deep in conversation with Mrs RM or contemplating pints of Pride that looked disappointingly flat compared to those in the Kings Arms,
but magically overcame that presentational quirk, like flat Bass often does.
But the real magic was happening around us, a succession of local gentlefolk taking their anointed position around the bar to chat.
One chap had ordered two pints of foamy HSB leaving one, we guessed, for his drinking companion.
Nope. She had wine, it was his pint settling for later.
I had to have that pint of HSB (not his, I’m no thief), and we shared a fresh one between us.
It was marvellous, as close to perfection as I’ll get in February (NBSS 4+).
And that background rumble of chat about daily life ? You can’t score that, or put a symbol for it in the GBG.
retiredmartin 
Pubs in the South need to keep their old GBGs locked in a cabinet whereas pubs in ……….
LikeLiked by 2 people
😃 Brilliant!
They had on open display in that Coeur du Lion (?) in Bath, but Bath is a law unto itself, as Joan and Dave will know.
LikeLike
As our cab driver said, “Bath’s a really safe town.” No locks on the Bible needed here.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Unless you underfill the 4 pint pitcher of Bass in the Star. THEN you’re in trouble.
LikeLiked by 1 person
But Bath is an honorary Midlands town on account of all the Bass drunk there.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Neither Bath nor Bristol are in the South (psychologically speaking anyway).
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a great pub experience. Wish I had taken the two Pauls there. Nice pub town.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I sometimes mention “magic moments” in pubs and that time with the folk around the bar was just that. Glad we stayed to share a second pint.
LikeLike
Maybe next year Dave, or the autumn if you can’t wait.
LikeLike
Coal Exchange is more appropriate in the (former) industrial Midlands and North.
It was probably the Corn Exchange until the signwriter had a few too many HSBs in his lunch break.
LikeLike
The feller at the bar looks like he’s re-enacting the last known sighting of Gene Hackman.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The feller at the bar looks like he’s suffering from curvature of the spine just as I am in old age.
LikeLike
Reminds me of the time Quasimodo came home to find Esmerelda with a wok in her hand.
” Are we having stir-fry for tea “, he says ?
” No ” says she ” I’m just ironing your shirt.
LikeLike
So maybe sarcasm isn’t the lowest form of wit after all, then…
LikeLike
It’s not sarcasm. It’s ironying.
LikeLike
I haven’t done any ironying for 20 years. Even of the shirt I bought for the funeral.
LikeLike
Wasn’t ironing rather twentieth century, a bit like chicken in the basket ?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mumsnet mums still iron their socks.
LikeLike
But no longer their knickers ?
LikeLike
What knickers?
LikeLike