Mordeduras

You've Been Framed

Pubs should be required to install CCTV to watch their pool tables.

Whatever for I hear you cry? To make sure nobody cheats? To resolve disputed coins lined up along the side? Don't be silly - to record accidental trick shorts of course!

I'll take a group of semi drunk pool players over John Virgo and his waistcoats any day of the week. Those physical law defying swerving escape from a snooker shots that knock the black out of the jaws of one pocket and into another one can only be achieved after several pints. That crystal clear thinking which enables you to see angles which are invisible to the sober eye, the cue-behind-the-back-cos-theres-no-rest tips of toes on the floor contortions you never see at The Crucible.

It's the unpredictability that makes pub pool so entertaining. Plus it would make for excellent viewer's clips TV, much better than watching children fall off bikes and the like.

BITE's all Wright

Yet more free publicity for BITE recently as we got a mention on Steve Wright's show on BBC Radio 2 last Friday afternoon. Seems that Miles Mendoza is a fan, and that a lot of people trust his judgement going by the flurry of hits received immediately after the announcement (not to mention the steady stream of referrals since). Thanks, Auntie :-)

This is of course only the latest in a series of mentions BITE has received without doing any pro-active publicity. In 2002 we got a mention in the Daily Mirror just before Oktoberfest — Carol Vorderman thinks we're "one of the best drinkers' websites", don't you know. And just a few weeks ago online satirical IT newsletter NTK gave us a link too. Wonder when our first mention on television is due ...

Be Afraid, be very afraid

Well, finally I have done it - I have started to organise the threatened Uxbridge pub crawl. And what a challenge I lay before the BITE inner circle. I have trawled the internet, and come up with 39 pubs to be visited in the area. They sit there with their ominous grey cells, waiting to be turned white. Will we do it, will we not, only time will tell.. Saturday is devoted to the town centre. I have a provisional crawl ready, although this may change as I visit pubs beforehand. I feel Sunday need to be devoted to Recouperation, and possibly a Bus route crawl or two. The 222 route is ripe with new pubs as is the U1 route. Messiness will ensue!

Cry Havoc, And Let Slip The Dogs Of Belgravia

As it was Twelfth Night on Friday we thought a tenuous Shakespearean pub crawl was in order.

After a few bevvies in The Sundial BITE went just up the road to The Duke Of Wellington (alls well that ends well see?), which due to a logistical oversight wasn't actually a new pub at all. Still, particulars noted about the inside and we were off again.

With echos of the Ealing to Hammersmith crawl when we only managed one more pub. The Moore Arms (Othello - told you they were tenuous) was to be next but we stopped off at The Fox And Hounds first. And stayed there, because it's such a fantastic pub! The decor is all dark wood and red, we got chatting to the landlord and lady, they let their giant dog Hamish have a walk around the pub. A top night!

Guess You Had To Be There

BITE inner circle members Darren, Anne and myself missed the England game last Saturday due to travel commitments (i.e. being on a plane), but by all accounts it wasn't the greatest game. Wednesday however saw us return to the oft lauded Falcon in Clapham Junction for a satisfactory if frustrating win against Liechtenstein.

Goal celebrations are strange events. Players might run to the corner flag, slide across the ground, do a funny waddle while team mates pile on. And then it's back to the kick off again. The crowd however will continue to revel in the moment long after. People with the benefit of TV replays will cheer again as they watch the goal a second and third time. Is the crowd more emotional? Perhaps it's because the players on the pitch can deal with their frustrations at not having scored yet by trying, but those not participating end up building all their emotional energy into that one glorious moment. No wonder so many heart attacks happen during international games.

Passport to the Pub

Getting in the way of real work today is the online version of a book called "Passport to the pub", published in 1996 by the Social Issues Research Centre. This fantastic document is a guide to pub etiquette in Britain, describing for the benefit of tourists how to discover the true nature of us natives by visiting our natural habit, the boozer. The advice is fantastic, in several cases coming across like the voiceover for a bad 1950s tourist information film; as I type my favourite piece is in the section explaining how to get served at the bar, which states "Do let the bar staff know you are waiting to be served by holding money or your empty glass in your hand. You may tilt the empty glass, perhaps even turn it slowly in a circular motion (some say that this indicates the passing of time)". Being a native I was of course unaware of the whole 'indication to barkeep of passage of time' aspect of my bored fidgeting while waiting to get served, being unable to detach myself suitably from the unwritten rules of pub usage in which I am understandably fluent; this book will change all that, no doubt.

Ebury Arms Watch

Some time ago I'd pondered the idea of having a semi-regular "Ebury Arms Watch" bit on here, since the pub started to show signs of life having been bought. Laziness got the better of me but that was no bad thing, as progress was astoudingly slow and it is only now that there is something vaguely interesting to report.

For those who don't know, the Ebury Arms is a pub situated in Belgravia, very close to where I work, and which I once famously^(*) upped my rating of when it closed down because it was so god-awful when it was open. Well times have changed and after weeks/months of ongoing work inside but with no real clue as to what was going to become of this place, they've finally scaffolded up the outside and placed ads for staff in the windows, including an email address. A quick look to see if there was a corresponding website was met with success and thus I am bored enough to announce that the shithole which was once the Ebury Arms is soon(-ish) to re-open with a brand new name: The Ebury! Yes, they've lost the Arms and, judging by the website, are trying to go all upmarket and perhaps a bit restauranty and stuff. Perhaps they're going for the Pimlico Road antique-dealer set ...

^(*) Not famously.

Fame at last

Received an SMS with follow-up phone call from our erstwhile Welsh friend Gryn last night, coincidentally enough while doing some BITE administrative stuff. He was having a few Monday evening drinks down Holborn way and just had to call us about something he'd spotted in the Ivy House. It turns out that this establishment has a blackboard with some famous last words written on it, uninspiringly headed 'Famous Last Words'. And, if Gryn is to be believed, at the top is a quote from Lord Byron, something about 18 whiskies; then comes Oscar Wilde, shuffling off this mortal coil with the line "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do". But, of far more interest to Gryn and us, at the bottom has been written a quote from BITE. Not actually from any of us in the inner circle/spiral, though, but taken instead from the 9th May 2003 comment of BITE visitor 'daniel', who said "A truly cracking boozer".

This does of course beg several questions, but surely the most important one is: is 'daniel' dead? Or perhaps barred? After all, why else would this quote be listed under 'famous last words'... But seriously (folks), big up to the Ivy House for giving a bit of a plug to lil ol' BITE. How about a free drink, though? ;-)

BITE and bites

September's arrival heralds the end of summer, and comes just after a flurry of holidays for members of the BITE inner circle. Mike Silky and Clare along with Graham and sundry others headed to France whilst Loz has been bitten by the camping bug, spending several weekends sleeping in a tent in various locations across the south of England. Myself, Anne and Mike Techno on the other hand were bitten by an altogether different kind of bug, having been attacked by mosquitos for a week in south-east Italy where we formed half of a six-person party hiring a villa.

During our stay we visited just one pub, Gipas 111 in Ostuni. A mixture of restaurant and Irish pub, we spotted it up a typically steep and narrow side street in the historic old town thanks to the large Guinness sign protruding from the wall. Foiled before our meal by it being shut, the visit took place after the 6 of us had eaten either rabbit or horse meat in a restaurant whose tables and chairs were dotted around 3 or 4 streets. In case you're wondering why I'm not actually writing much about the pub itself, that's because there really isn't much to write. It sold Guinness, Harp lager, and Kilkenny, and we sat outside by a very low table (perched on cushions or tiny stools) in the courtyard of a large cathedral. And, well, that's about it.

As it happens, Italy is unlikely to ever be particularly fertile ground for BITE anyway. It isn't that the Italians don't drink — think of the wines — but that they don't place any emphasis on drinking as an activity in itself. Alcohol is drunk with food, but there isn't a pub culture. According to our Lonely Planet book, 80% of sales in Italian bars comes from coffee; Rough Guides back this view up, saying "Although many Italian children are brought up on wine and a mezzo (half-litre carafe) is a standard accompaniment to any meal, there's not a great emphasis on dedicated drinking in Italy". So there we have it. There were other pubs in Ostuni and the other towns we went through, Carovigno and San Vito dei Normanni, but to be frank we weren't that interested: our holiday was a holiday both from our paid jobs and BITE. Of course, on our return to England ...

Hampton Hill is an area we'd been through several times recently, featuring as it does on the 285 bus route from Kingston to Heathrow Airport. The threshold for passing pubs that look half decent but are as yet unvisited is understandably low, and so Anne & I took it upon ourselves to go visit them. Not a bad bunch, really, and with the Lion in Teddington acting as bonus pub for the evening (having spotted mention of it in the most recent CAMRA newsletter) we're happy to be back in the swing of things. As I type the 'last month' figure is 58 new pubs — not a bad total considering the sub-30 figure touched earlier in August!