Wednesday, December 16, 2009
In memoriam
A tour of some of the hostelries in Pimlico yesterday to make sure that they were all still there. At least two pubs had 'Landlord' from Timothy Taylor, first sampled some months ago in Mitcham Lane along with some home made sausage rolls - on that occasion the pastry rather than the bread variety. No sausage rolls of either the pastry or bread variety on this occasion but beer still good. One can delve further at http://www.timothytaylor.co.uk/. One had the not quite as good 'Doombar' - which must have a very energetic salesperson as it has got everywhere in the last year or so from nowhere. See http://www.sharpsbrewery.co.uk/. The rather unpatriotically named 'Constitution' was still there with good beer and good company. Some of whom remembered the old days when a former landlord of TB had it. Still plenty of shipping pictures but with the addition of a small stuffed pike over the door. At least I had not noticed it before. But the 'Pimlico Tram', sad to report, has been made over. Still a licensed premise but not a neighbourhood pub any more. Looked rather foodie and continental. They used to do a very decent pint of Green King IPA. Interesting clientele - but presumably not enough of it.
Preceded the tour by a return visit to Cardinal Place to inspect the Christmas lights - which I thought they had made a pretty good job of. Made good use of all the space and glass. But the white steel pipes holding up the roof gave me pause for thought. The round pipes were maybe nine inches diameter and made out of one inch steel. Whereas the square pipes being used at Clapham Junction to hold up a new flight of stairs were maybe 7 inches across and made out of one inch steel. So either the roof at Cardinal Place is seriously under-engineered or that at Clapham Junction is seriously over-engineered - a criticism which I recall being levelled at carriages in the days of British Rail. Those days when the union ruled the roost, the trains never ran on time and you could buy a one-way ticket to Frankfurt an der Oder at Epsom Station.
Will British Airways survive the attempt of their unions to rule a roost whose foundations are under attack by armies of woodworms? Not to mention feral ryans. Tough cheese that their world is changing and they have got to learn to sweat a bit, but they seem to be hell bent on ensuring that they have no world at all.
Talking of cheese, on the 'Constitution' hunt, it being a pub I almost never find at the first attempt, requiring one to pause and take stock somewhere else, we had occasion to pass Rippon Cheese, a splendid cheese shop which I used to patronise from time to time. The staff - perhaps the owners - wore black and white aprons and black bowler hats, sold excellent Emmentaler, Swaledale and lots of other stuff. The Swaledale I used to buy was a softish white cheese with a seam of small bubbles running horizontally through the centre of the quite small cheeses - maybe 8 inches across and two deep. Very good it was too and since then I have had a soft spot for cheeses with small bubbles. (But to be pedantic, Mr G. tells me that Swaledale is the name of a dairy not a cheese, so asking for the stuff might have various results). Been quite a reliable indicator so far. But maybe times are hard. The format of the shop appears to have changed and the contents to no longer be exclusively cheesy. Not a good sign. Use it or lose it!
Now time for a moan of closure. Our government seems to make a point of knocking the bog standard family whenever it gets the opportunity. It seems to be unaware that this sort of family is the most reliable known way - not that it is that reliable - to bring up large numbers of children. Unmarried mothers generate, other things being equal, more problem children than married ones and soak up an awful lot more benefit. So why are Ma. Harman & etc. always having a pop at the married ones?
# posted by Jim @ 8:27 AM 
