I sincerely believe that there are very few things in life more amusing than listening to the route announcements at an English train station. I could just sit for hours listening to a recital of all those whimsical place names that sound like they’ve come straight out of an Enid Blyton novel.
The train on Platform 14 is the service to Old Biddy, calling at: Jiggling, Horking Noisily, Twiddlesby, Chicken on Teacup, Spit, Kangaroo and Steeple, Stinkerloo, and Old Biddy. Please change at Chicken on Teacup for the Affronted Pudding line. Mind the gap, please.
This was my second visit to London, a quick toe in the water on the way from Munich to Dublin for our Ireland trip. After a very touristy first visit checking off all the blockbuster sights (Tower of London, Westminster,the London Eye, et al), I was looking forward to a more low key visit blending in with the locals. London’s probably the only city in Europe I could truly blend into, after all!
One of the things I was pretty excited about was visiting some nice old English pubs. I always liked the old-fashioned pubs in the Sydney CBD, with their smooth, polished wooden bar in the centre, the homey feeling brought by the regulars bantering and nursing their pints, and the gentle murmur of the cricket commentary floating over from the telly in the corner. I’d say the pubs in Sydney are at most 150 years old, so my expectation was that the ones in London, which have been two or even three times longer, would be even more pleasantly atmospheric.
My last visit to England was when I still thought that beer tasted like crushed up Panadol mixed with water, so the other thing I was looking forward to was finally trying real English ales. Living in Munich generally means a life of endless lager (not a bad life, it must be admitted), and I was also anticipating a bit more of a variety in beer selection. Sean and I were worried at first when we saw this sign a few hours into Day 1 – it appears the mega-lagers of the continent have infiltrated deep into the ale heartland:
On the first day we visited a couple of newer pubs, the Washington (with Sean’s sister Jeanette, a long-time London resident), and the Narrow Boat (a happy reunion with my ex-EDI colleagues, Daphne, Niall and Gaby). At the Washington I got my first taste of English ales. They were deliciously full-flavoured, although I’ll admit it took me quite a few sips to get used to the flatness, which I wasn’t expecting! So by the time I got to the Narrow Boat and Niall asked “warm beer or normal?”, I knew what he was talking about.
The next day we went with Jeanette to some very old pubs in the centre of the city: the Lamb and Flag, and the Harp. Both were just as wonderful as I hoped, with old wooden bars rubbed to perfect smoothness from centuries of use, nooks and crannies to explore, and pots overflowing with flowers out the front.
The Lamb and Flag is over 300 years old, and has the dubious distinction of being the place where the poet John Dryden was beaten up by the henchmen of an important Londoner whom he skewered in verse. We stood outside with our ales (happily, England is just as laissez-faire about drinking on the pavement). It was super.
The Harp was probably my favourite pub of the four – they had a wonderful beer selection including quite a few microbrew ales. We sat upstairs in a parlour that felt like some old Englishman’s sitting room, and I had a really delicious ruby ale which sadly I can’t remember the name of.
I did allow myself one super-touristy excursion in London – a tour at Lord’s, which I don’t have to explain to any self-respecting cricket fan. For those who are looking blank, Lord’s is the most hallowed cricket ground in the world: what Fenway Park or Wrigley Field is to baseball or what Wimbledon is to tennis.
Among other things, the tour took in the MCC committee room, where the major questions of the game like Bodyline have been discussed by the big wigs, and the Long Room, where MCC members can come to watch the game. Our guide regaled us with hilarious anecdotes of crotchety old men lining up at the W.G. Grace gate at 5am and sprinting to put their jackets on the best seats in the room. We also got to sit in the England team dressing room. At this point our guide got a little hot and bothered as she explained that the showers are down the hall, meaning that with a little luck, one can catch a glimpse of Freddie Flintoff striding down the corridor in a towel. If that were to float one’s boat. Theoretically.
We stopped in one of the grandstands for an open-air view of the ground (I leaned over the boundary and touched the grass! All handshakes will be £2, plzthx), and then at the new media centre, a.k.a the alien spaceship. We also got to see the real Ashes, stored in a glass case at the Lord’s Museum, and a temporary exhibition comparing cricket and baseball, which was rather interesting. Next time, hopefully we’ll be back racing one of those old codgers in for a test match!
