It thawed

Just after Christmas, I set out to close a Co-Op bank account that I’ve not used for years. The nearest branch to me is in Islington, just opposite Angel tube station. Look, I’m aware neither of those are the most dynamic opening sentences, but bear with me. I did say the setting was going to be mundane.

It’s one of the more perplexing names in the tube network – why did they go for Angel? Why not Islington,or Upper Street, or something a bit more geographically helpful?

The answer is that it’s one of five tube stations named after a pub (the others are Elephant & Castle, Manor House, Royal Oak and Swiss Cottage) and when the Angel tube station opened in 1901, the Angel Inn was still thriving on the corner of the High Street – much as it had done since the fifteenth century.

But within twenty years of the tube station taking its name, the Angel Inn was closed. Today, the tube station is the only reminder that it was ever there.

According to Henry C. Shelley’s The Inns and Taverns of Old London (1909):

The Angel dates back to before 1665, for in that year of plague in London a citizen broke out of his house in the city and sought refuge here. He was refused admission, but was taken in at another inn and found dead in the morning. In the seventeenth century and later, as old pictures testify, the inn presented the usual features of a large old country hostelry. As such the courtyard is depicted by Hogarth in his print of the Stage Coach. Its career has been uneventful in the main.

Its career may have been largely uneventful, but the inn survived for generations and the galleried interior was immortalised by some of the most celebrated English artists of the day: not just Hogarth in The Stage Coach: Country Inn Yard (1747)…

…but later by Thomas Rowlandson (in Outside the Angel Inn, Islington)…

…and Charles Dickens, who called the Angel “the place London begins in earnest” in Oliver Twist.

Despite an 1819 rebuild as the area rapidly transformed from a rural to an urban one (some of its land was sold off to realise some healthy profits), the Angel Inn was eventually demolished in the dying years of the nineteenth century.

But the Truman, Hanbury, Buxton and Co brewery had no intention of closing the pub down – instead they were going to make The Angel more popular than ever before.

In 1899, they rebuilt the old pub as an ornate, six-storey, terracotta-brick building which still stands today.

Renamed the Angel Hotel, the new building was intended to do justice to what the brewers described (with some marketing hyperbole) as “the widest-known hostelry in the world.” The ground floor was faced in polished Norwegian granite; carved stone cherubs look out from the higher eaves; a mahogany and green-marble staircase led from the bar to a smoking room upstairs; and crowning the entire heap sat a grand baroque cupola, which quickly became one of Islington’s landmarks.

But within twenty years, the Angel Hotel had closed – its grand, high-Victorian design swiftly looked out of date and unfashionable, and the building’s three-hundred year history as an inn came to an end in 1921. The brewery sold the building to the Lyons catering empire, most famous for their vast Corner House restaurants which dominated the West End in the post-war period.

Staffed by waitresses affectionately known as ‘nippies’, the Corner Houses were more like department stores than tearooms, with several restaurants, numerous floors and hundreds of staff. In the 1950s, the company could boast it was serving over a hundred million meals a year to the British public.

The Angel Cafe Restaurant was opened in February 1922 as a grand, two-storey restaurant – large, but not on the same scale as the massive centrally located Corner Houses. The novelist Arnold Bennett came for lunch in 1924, and wrote that he preferred the “brightness and space” of the Lyons house to “the old Angel’s dark stuffiness.”

It lasted until 1959, when the Lyons company sold the building to the Council. Road widening schemes had been constantly mooted throughout the century (one estimate claims the corner was subject to seventy individual road-widening schemes from 1890 until the 1970s) and with a compulsory purchase order about to come into effect on the building, Lyons sold the site to the council a few years before they would have had to.

The decision was made easier for the company due to the increasing cost in the upkeep of the now shabby building – a slow and steady decline in Lyon’s trade from the end of the Second World War onwards meant the company were already feeling the downturn in fortunes which would see them go under in the 1970s.

The building was leased to the University of London’s Geology department until 1968, and then spent a number of years empty until the council finally abandoned their road widening schemes. Having escaped demolition by the skin of its teeth, it is now listed and has been fitted for bank use since 1979.

And that’s where we come in, with me popping in to close a bank account in the Co-Op, who occupy it today.

And that’s when I noticed this inside the front entrance.

The huge gold plaque commemorates the day in 1925 when the building was still the Angel Cafe Restaurant, and Victor Watson stopped by for lunch.

Watson was the managing director of Waddingtons, a firm of printers from Leeds who in the 1930s had started to branch out into card and board games. In 1935, the company sent a game they’d devised called Lexicon to the Parker Brothers in America, hoping they might agree to produce it in the States. In return, the Parker Brothers sent them one of their board games that had not yet gone into production: Monopoly.

Following a weekend of play, Victor’s son Norman urged his father to quickly snap up the rights, and three days after Victor had received the game, Waddingtons obtained the licence to produce and market Monopoly outside of the United States.

Watson felt that for the game to be a success in the United Kingdom, the American locations on the board needed to be replaced, so he and his secretary, Marjory Phillips, travelled to London for a day to work out which street names they would put on the board.

By all accounts, Victor and Marjory’s single day in London was a hectic one – Victor later admitted he’d slipped up by putting ‘Marlborough Street’ on the board when it should have been Great Marlborough Street – but in a short period of time, they managed to pick a broadly accurate selection of roads to represent the varying values across the board.

One of the only known facts about their day out (which would turn out to be a very lucrative one for the Waddington’s company) was that Victor and Marjory sat in the Angel Cafe Restaurant in the afternoon and reviewed their work.

And whether it was to celebrate completing their job, or just because he liked the name, Victor decided to include ‘The Angel, Islington’ on the board. Unlike all the other property squares, it’s the only one which isn’t a street, but a specific building.

You can find this plaque, unveiled in 2003 by Victor’s grandson (who is also called Victor and is also the managing director of Waddingtons), just as you walk into the Co-Op bank at 1 High Street, Islington.

A couple of doors away, there’s a Wetherspoon’s which has taken the name The Angel, but don’t be fooled. This Angel can only trace its history back to 1998.

Yesterday I started my epic journey to Aylesbury to start off a new Avon Rep. Why was it an epic? Read on, I will tell you.

I started my morning as usual with a cuppa in Wetherspoons, Gloucester and then spent a couple of hours looking for more team members. I left Gloucester at 1pm to head for Aylesbury. All was plain sailing until I hit the A40, close to Witney, this is where I lost the back end of the car. Being a bit surprised, as I was driving on a straight road, I stopped in a layby to compose myself.

Onwards I went with what sounded like a family of mice in the back of my car and skidding every so often, I hadn’t a clue what the issue was but I carried on. Arrived in Aylesbury to a warm welcome from Shagufta (New Avon Rep) with her best china tea cup and saucer and a lovely warm brew. Having spent an hour with Gufta I set off back home.

Still skidding every so often, I got as far as the A420, when their was a huge clunk and a lot of grinding, with the car traveling sideways for a mile (probably a foot or so but you know what it’s like).

So with that, I called the AA, no way I was going any further. This was fantastic, they would be with me within half an hour, and so they were. The patrolman told me the Wheel Bearing had gone, there’s nothing he could do. He called for back up and left me.

A phone call came through, AA would be with me within 2 and a half hours. I said OK no problem. What a plonker I was. I didn’t mention I was a diabetic and hadn’t eaten since midday, a banana.It hadn’t occurred to me to tell them.

I phoned Jen, told her the plan. She reminded me I had to eat. Nearest place 2 miles away, it was snowing, freezing and I needed the loo. An hour passed, the AA rang, please order a taxi and get some food, you are diabetic, we will pay for the taxi!!!! Jen had sent an SOS to the AA and it’s seems the whole of the UK on Facebook. I said I was OK to the AA woman on the phone! Plonker error number 2.

I decided I must find a loo, a tree, a few yards up the road. There had been no cars go by for a good hour, I would be fine. You guessed, I made it to the tree and was then lit up in all my glory by passing car.

I then elected to sit in the car, too embarrassed to move!

8.15pm, the AA truck arrived with a sandwich and a bag of crisps. It was fab driving back, we talked about how busy he was, how busy I had been with Avon etc etc. The car was dropped off at 10pm and with that the AA man asked me for a business card. Hey presto, his wife is signing up to be an Avon rep with me next Tuesday. What a result, they say things happen for a reason.

PS: This morning Jen had packed me a survival kit, just in case.

Indeed they appear to be a species apart, the males distinguished by ill fitting track suits topped off with a baseball cap advising any of that the literate amongst us that they are keen on some baseball team in the United States. The female of the species is recognizable by the unfeasibly high number of peircings in both ears, the tightest ponytail in the history of the modern world and the wearing of track suit bottoms (or leggings if overweight) and a “sexy” vest. The male and female adorn their feet with latest in sports footwear which assists in getting away from security when they go shoplifting in Poundland.

The breakdown of modern civilization can be attributed to the hero worship of Wayne and Waynetta slob from the Harry Enfield TV show, reality TV, the desire for fame with out talent and most importantly the decline in grammar used by the uneducated thick populace.

This little list below can be found all over the web and just about sums it up

It’s “I couldn’t care less.” “I could care less” means that you actually do care.
An apostrophe is never used to form a plural.
“Literally” means it actually happened, not that it figuratively happened.
“Loose” and “lose” are two different words.
“Your” and “you’re” are also two different words.
“Their,” “there” and “they’re” are actually three different words.
“nonplus” does not mean what you think it means.
“Affect” is a verb. “Effect” is a noun.
“Should have” is correct “should of” proves you’re thick
“It’s” is short for “it is” and “its” means “belonging to it.”
“Irregardless” is not a word.

Finally there’s the phenomenon of text messaging but we’ll leave that for another day

I must be getting old and turning into a grumpy old man

Ciao For Now

Denbow

Instead, what happened to the shops we grew up walking into? Were you being dragged around shops you didn’t like as a child by your mother? Or perhaps you are the dragger of children; but either way, there are fond memories of throwing tantrums and pushchair wars down the isles in such shops that are leaving us behind; only to make way for empty premises.

I’ve managed to list 29 shops that have been administration so far; some have been bought and rebranded while others have left a gap in the shopping centre.

*Thomas Cook was on the verge of announcing administration in the Summer of 2012, however scraped by and survived.

As I age from being a child to a ‘young adult’ (or big kid if you’re my mum and dad), the shops that I grew up around are closing down.

There’s one thing that I guess I can take away from this and that’s something my dad tells me all the time. In the ever changing face of Birmingham City Centre, my dad is forever getting lost but if he’s outside Lewis’, he knows exactly where he is. The department store went into administration a few years before I was born but the building still stands and serves the family in a different way.

There is something I guess I can take away from this and that’s something my dad has shown me, probably without even realising. With the ever-changing face of Birmingham City Centre, my dad is always getting lost and losing his bearings, however if he’s outside Lewis’, he knows exactly where he is. The department store went into administration in 1991 and is now being used as an office block. While my dad no longer has use of the building; I have. I was a regular at the Wetherspoons on the ground floor for some time before moving to London! The message doesn’t stop there though; as all these businesses around us are collapsing but how many times will we tell our children in the future (for if you’re young like me and don’t have kids…yet) about that store with all the penny sweets, only to find that it’s a new pub? Or a venue of some sort?

The row of stores you used to work in, or shop at could then be offices too; somewhere where your children could be working in the future. But despite the change; they’ll grow up with a purpose for those buildings that was different to ours.

And in the end; we’ll have had a far better memory than they’ll ever had.

The Bull’s Head in Tintwistle is my friend Dan’s local and has to be one of the oldest pubs I regularly go in. They even gave us free pie just before midnight, the Landlord was very friendly and the pub was great. All in all pleasant but not that exciting.

A week later I met Dave of Sheffield fame in the Bull’s Head in Manchester from my previous post (http://drinkingaloud.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/a-drink-in-the-afternoon/) at about 3pm for ‘a couple of pints’. Let me say this now, if someone says only for a few pints it never happens, never. We had a pint of Sunbeam and a catch up talking of all things drinking.

We moved on to fresh territory after that because the Bull’s Head is great but we’ve all been there and a session in there depletes the beer tokens very quickly. We all know how much I like it in there so I’ll skip ahead to uncharted territory.

The next stop was the Waldorf which is just up the road past the train station opposite Piccadilly station approach. I don’t go in very often but I’m not sure why not. The beer is good and the Bar staff are friendly. I think one of the problems is that it has little or no atmosphere if it isn’t busy.

They had plenty of hand-pumps serving Acorn and Timothy Taylor beers. Yay. I had Acorn’s Blonde because I don’t think I’ve had it before and it looked the lightest on the bar. It was very nice had a bit thin texture. It tasted great though and went down quickly and was only around £3 if memory serves me correctly, which it might not be as I’ve had a fair few drinks since as well.

This was round the time Billy arrived. The slow accumulation of people through the day is always a bad/good sign for what is supposed to be only a couple of pints. It was dead in the Waldorf but I think it gets busier later on. We decided to ditch and to move on again because we were getting hungry. Cheap is the name of the game when you’re building up to what looks to be a session. So we headed to Wetherspoons.

I think a few people may have clicked off to another page because, for some reason, they don’t like Wetherspoons. I have to say I think it’s great, the beer is cheap and there’s a wide range. I think it gets a lot of bad press because it’s cheap and there are admittedly a few dodgy ones however, you can’t argue with the beer. They train their landlords well and the beer is always excellent also the selection is always good.they were all the same I know it’s a franchise and lord help us if  You could probably argue with the food if you wanted to but not for the price. I’m with ‘spoons all the way. So anyway I had a pint of Buckeye by Roosters Brewery. I have to admit that from here on in my picture taking failed me partly because of busy bars plus the battery on my phone was low and the flash wouldn’t work. I hate my phone.

As you can see on the picture it describes itself as a session beer and I think I was blinded sided. I’ve never had Roosters before but I’m won over, it was very good and they were right about it being a session beer. It’s pale, tastes light, it’s not too strong and it was only £2 which is one of the cheapest pints in Manchester. I wish I could have had more with my burger but alas back to the grind and the ever lengthening pub trail.

It was at this point I mentioned in passing The Gaslamp pub in comparison to The Temple because they are subterranean tiled and quite cosy in winter time. Dave had never been and if there’s something we can’t have it’s a lack of adventurous spirit so to the Gaslamp we headed.

The Gaslamp is just a doorway on Bridge Street which is easily overlooked. It opened around 2010 and for a while I put off going in because frankly descending into a tiled bar with no windows. I braved it eventually though and it was worth it. The Gaslamp is in the kitchens of an old childrens street mission and apart from  the Temple located in some ex-public toilets has to be one of the strangest places to have a drink. There are pictures of the children on one of the walls.

I’ve saved you a thousand words.

There’s another room about the same size as well so it’s much bigger than you might think from the door. The staff are always great. There are a range of bottles behind the bar and 2 real ale pumps, though be warned none of these are cheap. Dave payed over £4 for a pint of Brooklyn beer which he liked very much. I’m more of a fan of Brooklyn when it’s bottled, in a pint it’s a bit to stodgy somehow and it tastes more like a dark larger to me so a good compromise if there are no lagers you fancy.

I had a pint of Beginners Luck by the Blackjack Brewery who I’ve just googled because I’ve seen a few of their beers recently but before that I’ve never seen anything of them.

Apparently they are a new Manchester Micro- Brewery based in the Northern Quarter. Here’s their website (http://www.blackjackbeersltd.co.uk/home) however there won’t be any pictures because they haven’t put any up and I didn’t take one, more fool me. The hand-pump looks like a playing card and says blackjack brewery on it so it’s hard to miss. It was nice though deceptively heavy for its colour but I liked it very much, enough to try another one of their beers a few days later. The Gaslamp is expensive though, it was £3.50 a pint but I think it’s another pub where you pay for your surroundings. I like it in there but my wallet doesn’t. The only other beer on was very strong as well so it seemed like a good time to go to a pub I’ve been meaning to take people for a while. It’s a bit further out of the city centre and into Salford further up Chapel Street. It’s not quite far enough into Salford to be on the part marked ‘here be monsters’ but it’s far enough out that you don’t get the scenester hipster guys pretending to like ale because it makes the skinny jeans look a little less feminine.

I don’t know who that man is…

The New Oxford was a regular haunt for me when I was at university because it had lots of real ale, bottled beers and a beer bible. If you like beer you’ll love it, they have lots of European beers, have a look at the bar.

There’s a bar on the other side as well with more beers and a few ciders as well. The pumps you can see in the foreground are fruit beers, ciders and some really nice lagers. Veltins is my favourite lager and it’s started to be in more pubs, it’s really nice. I had though  a Leeds Best from the Leeds Brewery for the average cost of a pint of ale in the New Oxford £2.90.

It was a nice light beer nothing special but OK none the less a standard drinker. I preferred the beers I’d had earlier. I drank that fairly quickly as I’d sunk deeper into my drinking state. I felt like a change from the regular ales so I had a half pint of Fruli Strawberry beer.

You get the right glasses as well when you order beer, it’s a nice touch. 

It’s not as sweet as you think it’s going to be but you couldn’t have a pint of it. It’s quite refreshing and a nice break from hoppy beer. It’s worth trying though it’s around £3 a half, I think it’s worth it though you’d pay far more for it in the Northern Quarter or further into Manchester. The guys at the New Oxford know how to keep it as well which can’t be promised by the indie bars. Try some anyway.

I then had another Acorn beer called Strisslespalt IPA.

I’m not even going to pretend I remember drinking this there’s only this picture mysteriously in my phone and that’s definitely the New Oxford’s Bar so I can only assume I drank it but I have no idea what it was like. I’m going to go with it was nice or I would have remembered it. Dave had wheat beer which really doesn’t agree with me, I like the taste but the after effects aren’t worth it. There really is a mine of great stuff to try in there and it’s not to expensive for what you get either.

While I’m trying to remember it I’ll tell you a bit more about the New Oxford. I think it’s fair to say that it’s mainly an older crown who drink in there but they’re always friendly and hospitable. The bar has two sides there is a larger room with tables and chairs at the back  whereas when you walk in it’s much narrower with a few high stools and cushioned wall seats. If that looks full head round to the other side of the bar there’s always room somewhere. I still can’t remember the beer so I’m going to move on. We were at a point where we were debating where to go next. I suggested the Salford Arms which is just down the road and under new management so there are new beers to try where before there was only lager. Dave’s mate had joined us in the mean time and they were planning to head to a club, possibly 5th avenue later on. It was agreed then we would head further into town to The Temple at the top of Oxford Road.

The Temple is tiny, only has lagers on tap but you will not find a better drinking hole on Oxford road. It’s size gives it an intimacy and you can make friends on the next tables easily. We stood at the bar for a while waiting for a space to open up but it’s not usually long before you can sit down. The second we sat down the lady next to me told me there were 4 free songs left on the jukebox from her turn. The jukebox is really good but the music isn’t too loud. I had a bottle of Coniston Bluebird.

It has a proper bitter taste but it goes down very easily. at £3.40 it isn’t cheap but space is a premium in there. It’s good to start on but if you’ve been on a sweeter beer it can be quite jarring to move on to. The atmosphere in the place is always friendly and everyone I’ve taken in there has loved it. I have to say though the toilets are pretty rough. You can get Tuborg on tap if you don’t fancy a bottle which I think Billy had. I try not to mix lager and ales though because it gives me a horrendous hangover. Dave had more wheat beer in the shape of bottled Bluemoon, again, I like wheat beer but it doesn’t like me and mixing at this stage in the game is never good.

I’m not sure if we had one or two in there. We left after that they headed down Oxford road going to Footage. it’s along way from my flat and they only have lager, plus my wallet was empty so I decided against it. It later turned out they didn’t make it gave up and got on the bus. Billy had to get off later though because he was dry heaving and if there’s a moral to this story it’s don’t mix your drinks.

I got home at around 1am having started drinking at 3pm this is the kind of thing that happens when you go out for only ‘a couple of pints.’

Whatever it was, it was cold and wet.

Became not so direct

With a cough and a splutter

So lots of shopping, rain and complaining! Heres some pics

vegan train snacks above; delicious pombear crisps, mango and apple juice, yoyo bear fruit rolls, fresh mango, pineapple, melon and grapes.

Empty plates at wetherspoons! except for mine cause I was way too full!!

And a happy veggie baby

All in all a good day!! If you have any questions let me know or if you want me to post some of my purchases

Addicted