Saturday 27 February 2010

Over a Barrel.

What the fuck is going on with pubs? More specifically, what the fuck is going on with pubs in the West End of London? Why are they trying to bleed us dry? And why are we letting them? I mean, besides the whole needing booze to survive thing.

On Tuesday night, Bennett Arron and I went to a pub in Covent Garden called The Marquess of Anglesey. It describes itself as "a wonderful traditional pub" which it isn't. A wonderful traditional pub would be one that welcomes it's customers and offers reasonably priced drinks. Maybe there would be a lovely log fire there with a beautiful Red Setter sleeping in front of it while old men get distracted from their dominoes game by the quite old-fashioned but still strangely attractive bar maid who is singing while she picks up empty glasses. The Marquess of Anglesey is a bar full of cunts run by cunts who treat you like a cunt. £4.40 for a pint of fucking lager? How is that fucking justified? I went to the bar and asked the bored stiff ghost who was "serving" for a pint of lager and a pint of Guinness. She shuffled back with the drinks and said "£8.45".

I asked for a pint of lager and a pint of Guinness, not a pint of Lager and pint of Guinness and a hardback copy of Saturday Night Peter (that goes for about £3 now, right?). She must have got it wrong. Like so many choices she has made in her grey spiteful life, she must have got this wrong. But no. That's what the Marquess of Anglesey chooses to charge in an ordinary pub during our credit crunch.

Fine. That's the way they want to play, fine. I just won't ever return. That'll show them. I mean, no one is going to pay these prices. This place will close in a week.

I would have really believed that if it wasn't for the fact that the pub was rammed full. Full of cunts, like I say, but full nonetheless. Of course the Marquess of Anglesey can charge whatever it likes. These idiots are more than happy to pay without actually even considering that they're being ripped off. The whole clientèle is made up for four different types of people: Office workers who love to play who can shout the loudest when out with the very people they despise (their workmates), arseholes who think that going to see Dirty Dancing The Musical is a night at the theatre, Bennett Arron and me.

The Marquess of Anglesey is not alone in this destruction of my beloved pub culture. Every pub we went to that night was charging over £4 a pint. Why has this happened all of a sudden? Why are they doing this to me? I don't want to come across all Four Yorkshiremen (I do, that's really funny) but when I first went to a pub it costs 68p for a pint. I remember when it was coming close to £1 a pint and saying that once it hits a quid I'm stopping drinking. These bastards aren't going to rip me off.

And that is what a blog is all about. Complaining about something you have no intentions of doing anything about whatsoever. I have done my job.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

5 comments:

Paul McIntyre said...

You could try home brewing:

http://www.the-online-homebrew-company.co.uk/

My Dad used to do it. Not anymore though. He's dead.

No, not really, he just decided the results tasted of piss.

Mat Rodger said...

Sam Smith's - decent pubs, central london, £2.10-ish a pint. There's loads of them.

Part Time Infidel said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Part Time Infidel said...

Just buy forty thousand cans from the supermarket for a tenner, leave them on a windowsill for three weeks, then sit at home drinking them while watching Sky Sports News with the sound off while the Kings of Fucking Leon plays at nine thousand fucking decibels. Then invite a fetid old man and a group of skin-headed twats round to harangue you and sing racist songs; thus accurately replicating the modern pub experience.

Sarah Lady said...

If you're going to drink in the centre of town, go to a Sam Smith's pub. Nice pubs, nice beer and 2 pints for under a £5.