Mordeduras

New look launched

In a vague attempt to look a tiny bit less like most of the blogs out there, as well as provide a bit more context and linkage back to BITE, I've fiddled with the layout and style to make these pages look a bit better than before. Hope you like the results. Coming soon: an explanation for the geographically-diverse (albeit within London) nature of the most recently added pubs.

Imperial measurement

What number constitutes a "group" of people, I wonder? The question arose yesterday (and remains unanswered as yet) thanks to the barman working in the Imperial on Leicester Street, just off Leicester Square in central London.

An as-yet unreported (ie, watch this space) crawl was taking place involving 6 of us and the Imperial was on our list. So we walked in and went to the bar to order our drinks, in the same way we do in every pub we visit. In this instance however, the response was different to normal: we were refused service. The reason? "No groups". No further explanation, just "no groups". (Actually "no groups of lads" was also offered, but quickly retracted once after I said "What about my girlfriend, then?", pointing out to him that Anne was with us)

We told him we only wanted halves, and would be out of the way in a flash; no dice. We said we'd sit outside, but still he wouldn't budge. He wouldn't even tell us what number constituted a group, preferring instead to turn away while repeating the reason he was refusing us service.

No groups. No groups. No groups.

This is a new policy. It must be, because the Imperial is already in BITE having been visited on the Monopoly crawl of 2002, when more than 6 of us went in and were served without a problem. In fact on that day I hazily recall that we were drunk and being pretty loud too; yesterday we had a teetotaller among us, and not more than 3 pints had been drunk by any of the rest.

Today, I telephoned the Imperial. I wanted to ask for clarification on their policy, and an explanation for exactly why we were refused service. Whoever answered picked up and simply said "Hello", without any extra information, for example the name of the pub. The landlord, I was told, is away until Sunday. He will be receiving a call from me next Monday. In the meantime I can only suggest that should you wish to visit this pub, you had best not be one of what the barman considers to be a group — you won't get served.

10 Counties write-up complete

Setting a new record for non-tardiness, Mike Techno has already finished the write-up for the previously mentioned 10 Counties pub crawl, an outing which only occurred last Saturday. You can read the gory details and see a fair few photos here.

Show me Devon

It is difficult to come up with an opening gambit for this column which expresses succinctly what happened last Saturday, so it's probably best just to come out straight and say it: 8 of the 9 inner spiral members plus 7 of our friends visited 10 pubs, each of them in a different English county. That is to say that we, a group of 15 people, managed to visit a pub in each of

• Honiton (Devon)
• Crewkerne (Somerset)
• Gillingham (Dorset)
• Salisbury (Wiltshire)
• Basingstoke (Hampshire)
• Reading (Berkshire)
• Goring (Oxfordshire)
• Egham (Surrey)
• Twickenham (Middlesex), and
• Clapham Junction (Greater London)

all in one day. A full write-up is on the way and will appear as an article on BITE rather than here, but in the meantime I want to take this opportunity to say a public thank you to South West Trains, both for their provision of free weekend travel vouchers to Gold Card holders (which made the whole trip feasible) and their near-perfect service on the day, with only one train running even slightly late. Ta!

BITE, Bucks, Beds, Becks...

No updates here for a while, various circumstances conspiring against us all and eating into the time available for conjuring up any editorial. Thankfully a great deal of this time was taken up by visiting new pubs, with a 'last month' high of 131 being hit a couple of weeks ago. Back down to just under 90 as I type but I think we can all agree this is far more respectable than the 30 or so trough of late summer/early autumn.

Continuing the "BITE visitors drive the site" theme mentioned before, 3 of us took on Stoke Newington (or "Stokey", as the locals prefer) the other weekend. With hindsight visiting 19 pubs in 7 hours on a Sunday evening wasn't the most sensible thing we'd ever done, but with a wealth of suggestions in the area it would have been remiss for us to not take the area seriously. If anyone can clear up the naming confusion regarding this place, please drop us a line! :-)

Previous top-rated pub the Oakdale Arms is another recent addition, and as per the comments left I can definitely recommend seeking it out — but then again I do have a penchant for Schneider-Weisse, even if on the day we went there I was on soft drinks only. For fans of old pub interiors a visit to the relatively-nearby Salisbury on Harringay Green Lanes is recommended too, a grand old building full of private booths but with a cavernous back room.

Bucking the above mentioned trend, one Saturday not too long ago was devoted to seeking out a pub near Britain's least used railway station: Kempston Hardwick. Tucked away on the little used and mostly single track Bletchley to Bedford line this place apparently has 38 passengers a month. We figured we'd up this figure some and visit a few pubs en route. So, starting at Bletchley, home-made guidebook in hand (courtesy of friend-of-BITE Sarah), we embarked on a mini-crawl along the aforementioned route, confounding train guards, children with bikes, and ticket inspectors (or revenue protection officers, whatever). Sadly Kempston Hardwick itself was tantalisingly out of reach, since the only pub there wasn't opening until 8pm by which time the train journey home would have been nightmarish or even impossible. Maybe another day; we did nonetheless manage to visit several little Bucks and Beds villages not to mention the B towns at either end, and have resolved to give Bedford a more thorough going over in the future.

England played Turkey for automatic qualification to Euro 2004 on Saturday just gone. We were in the Falcon in Clapham Junction, as per; Portugal here we come. A thought has occurred to me — if chaos theory is to be believed, perhaps our very presence in this boozer is genuinely the cause of England's good fortune in international football? No, didn't think so.

I Am The Only Running Footman is one of the oddest named boozers on BITE, and graduated from suggestion to entry proper thanks to last week's New Pub Thursday, which took place around Mayfair. And, on Friday, the Pineapple in Kentish Town did the same. The latter has a bit of a story attached to it: faced with the impending closure of their local, a group of residents clubbed together to buy, save, and re-open it. I for one salute them!