London pubs

[IdleRich]

Nah, it can just be lots of things from a real working boozer to a posh gastropub with expensive food. Although problem is that tax on alcohol is so high now that even cheap pubs aren't that cheap any more. And again they can be totally different vibe if they are in a city or in a country village or whatever.
Wetherspoons is a big chain of cheapish pubs that is owned by this big Brexit supporting wanker who is a massive cunt who tried to fuck over all his staff during the lockdown despite being a billionaire or something. They tend to be in abandoned posh buildings for some reason.
This is the one they are talking about in Stokey - it kinda looks posh from the outside arguably... but it isn't

I miss pubs here. They have nice friendly local cafes where you can buy beer and they have bars but they don't have the same feel. I was chatting to this German guy I play squash with about this and kniepers (is that right?) like they have in Germany which are kinda like pubs and we were both lamenting that none of the Portuguese drinking places reproduce that experience.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Pubs vary enormously. Some are rough as fuck, some are quite posh (meaning middle class - the seriously wealthy don't really do pubs), some are in between.

Wetherspoons is a huge chain and is known mainly for being extremely cheap. It often takes over attractive historic buildings and, to be fair to them, does a good job of preserving them. But as drinking venues go, they are decidedly un-posh.

 

[IdleRich]

Also have some real ales and a no music policy - or at least they used to. And do cheap curry nights and steak and kidney pudding for about two quid. Which is quite rare to find in London these days so I have indulged in that a few times.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Edit: also what Rich said about the Wetherspoons guy. He's a total prick who looks like a scarecrow with a severe meth habit. I had decided not to mention him in order to avoid going off on one. He recently got a cheap loan of £48,000,000 from the government due to the pandemic, after telling his staff they should just get a job in a supermarket, which will help him continue to sell food and drink dirt cheap and contribute to other, much nicer pubs going under, which they were doing at a rapid rate even before the virus.

 

[IdleRich]

In Lisbon you do have The George Pub and the originally named British Bar which both sort of approximate pubs. I have been to the latter a few times to watch football I'll admit. It's ok I guess, expensive. The other one is a nice enough bar and if you look at the pictures you could imagine it is like a pub inside but really it's not.

 

[IdleRich]

Edit: also what Rich said about the Wetherspoons guy. He's a total prick who looks like a scarecrow with a severe meth habit. I had decided not to mention him in order to avoid going off on one. He recently got a cheap loan of £48,000,000 from the government due to the pandemic, after telling his staff they should just get a job in a supermarket, which will help him continue to sell food and drink dirt cheap and contribute to other, much nicer pubs going under, which they were doing at a rapid rate even before the virus.

He named Wetherspoons after one of his teachers who said that he would amount to nothing in an astonishingly petty minded act of vindictiveness which is pretty much the most likable thing he's ever done.

 

[Mr. Tea]

He named Wetherspoons after one of his teachers who said that he would amount to nothing in an astonishingly petty minded act of vindictiveness which is pretty much the most likable thing he's ever done.

Yes, it's about the one point in his favour.

 

[Murphy]

Pubs are an endangered species. Two of my favourites in Bristol were shut last week and look like it’ll be a while before any trade could function.

Pub names in Britain and Ireland are a lore unto themselves.

 

[Leo]

I remember the first time I went to a pub in England and being baffled as to why it had wall-to-wall carpeting. you never see that here, everything is wood or tile floors. why on earth would you want a place where drunk people invariably spill their beer to be carpeted, unless the lingered smell of years of spilled drinks (and before that, cigarette smoke) is part of the ambiance and charm.

 

[IdleRich]

Plenty do have that yeah. And I almost think that that is the reason.

 

[Murphy]

What you want is a carpet that’s so aged, so dense with dried booze, blood and fag smoke remnants, that it feels like lacquered leather under your shoes.

 

[yyaldrin]

Nah, it can just be lots of things from a real working boozer to a posh gastropub with expensive food. Although problem is that tax on alcohol is so high now that even cheap pubs aren't that cheap any more. And again they can be totally different vibe if they are in a city or in a country village or whatever.
Wetherspoons is a big chain of cheapish pubs that is owned by this big Brexit supporting wanker who is a massive cunt who tried to fuck over all his staff during the lockdown despite being a billionaire or something. They tend to be in abandoned posh buildings for some reason.
This is the one they are talking about in Stokey - it kinda looks posh from the outside arguably... but it isn't

I miss pubs here. They have nice friendly local cafes where you can buy beer and they have bars but they don't have the same feel. I was chatting to this German guy I play squash with about this and kniepers (is that right?) like they have in Germany which are kinda like pubs and we were both lamenting that none of the Portuguese drinking places reproduce that experience.

i think the word your after is "kneipe"? which would be german for pub. but now i'm starting to think that a pub can mean anything whereas a "kneipe" is very specific. it's basically just a place filled with chain smokers and alcoholics. you certainly can't get food there and there's no chess boards around. there might be a pool table and an electronic dart board but that's it.

 

[yyaldrin]

the idea of a chain or franchise of pubs is so alien to me.

 

[IdleRich]

i think the word your after is "kneipe"? which would be german for pub. but now i'm starting to think that a pub can mean anything whereas a "kneipe" is very specific. it's basically just a place filled with chain smokers and alcoholics. you certainly can't get food there and there's no chess boards around. there might be a pool table and an electronic dart board but that's it.

Yeah that's what I mean. There are loads of pubs that are very like that. Just a basic room, a bar and maybe some crisps for sale... and yeah, a dartboard. The kneipes I been to in Dusseldorf were very close to a cosy East End boozer, felt at home in them straight away. Some have basic food like sausage with raw onions and proper strong mustard. Went in some bigger one in Cologne which was maybe a bit posher.

the idea of a chain or franchise of pubs is so alien to me

Well it's kinda complicated. Most pubs are just stand alone but you do have chains of pubs and bars and such. But also you have ones that are affiliated to a particular brewery and they may or may not be similar to each other.
Also, as WYH said, you have these traditional names for pubs which are an interesting study. Where I grew up there were two pubs - Fox and Hounds and The White Horse, both very common names. Along with.... I dunno Red Lion, Kings Arms, Kings Head (or queen in some), local noblemen (Marquis of Lansdowne, Prince George etc), local sights (eg The Blowing Stone in Woolstone) and various other animals and fish, and several slightly less common ones such as Eagle and Child or... I dunno The Cheshire Cheese. Or course some with historical names (Trip to Jerusalem in Nottingham which claims to have been where the knights got tanked up before heading off on the crusades). In a way the standard names are the most interesting somehow. Special mention for The Case is Altered which is a somewhat common name for pub although I've no idea why (I mean it's a play but why should that be a pub name?).

 

[IdleRich]

To answer my own question....

This pub, near the Five Ways roundabout, has an unusual name (The Case is Altered). In the 19th century the owner, Mercedes Griffith, had a small cottage with a licence to sell beers and ales. She made many applications to be able to sell wines and spirits as well, but was always refused on the grounds that her premises were too small. Eventually she was able to buy the cottage next door, and so the ‘case was altered’, and she got her full licence. The road it stands in has also been renamed ‘Case Lane’ after the pub
.Other ‘The Case is Altered’ pubs
A search on the internet reveals that this name is not unique to this pub in Warwickshire, with various explanations for the name elsewhere (though usually involving a court case).

 

[IdleRich]

And some more info.

A local history buff has put together some fascinating information on the history of the name of various “The Case” pubs around the country.
CASE IS ALTERED – A phrase first used by Edmund Plowden (1518-85), a lawyer. It referred to the effect of new evidence on the case he was dealing with in court.
The phrase seems to have become almost proverbial. It was taken up by Ben Jonson for his comedy The Case is Altered, written before 1599. As a pub name the reason for its use is a matter of local legend in each instance. Often it is said that the landlord’s situation altered for some reason, perhaps in his dispute with the licensing authorities. A sign at Banbury shows a courtroom scene. There is a local story about weavers winning a court victory, resulting in the Weavers Arms changing to the Case is Altered overnight.
Amongst the various more ingenious, but almost certainly totally false, explanations of the name one may cite a) a corruption of Casey’s Altar for the pub at Woodbndge in Suffolk; b) a corruption of Casa Alta for the several pubs of the name in the Harrow district. This is supposed to be because soldiers returning from the Peninsular War at the beginning of the nineteenth century had often occupied a ‘house on the hill’ during the battle, c) a corruption of Casa de Saltar, explained as ‘house of dancers’ where the British soldiers betook themselves. The last phrase is totally meaningless in Spanish (though saltarina is a dancer) and demonstrates only that in trying to explain a pub name, most people prefer to stay in the bar and invent something rather than pursue the matter properly.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I'm in our regular right now, which is 'posh' in the sense of actually being a stone-built manor house that's nearly 500 years old, but which also does pretty decent main courses for a tenner.

 

[IdleRich]

What's it called?

 

[IdleRich]

My local in Hackney was The Prince Arthur - definitely at the posher end of things but still was a really good friendly place, the food was rocking and there was some discount or something which made it ludicrously cheap. Got bought by some arseholes who fucked up the decor and made it shit though. Although there was one upside to that cos when we went in there we were moaning about the new look and we got talking to this older German lady cos she was also moaning, she told us all these fascinating stories about living in Dusseldorf or Cologne or something in the 70s, watching Kraftwerk and the parties she went to etc etc used to see her around every now and again and have a beer with her.

 

[Mr. Tea]

What's it called?

The Cowick Barton.