We're in the pub after work. It's called the two pound pub (because every drink costs £2.00, or thereabouts) which is all that the glorious area we work in offers in terms of entertainment, despite being bang next door to the PROPERTY BOOM OLYMPIC VILLAGE INVESTMENT BUY NOW!!! apartments, sprouting up like mushrooms, if large square boring featureless glass mushrooms, every time you look.
Where is the infrastructure for all these rich people supposedly snapping up these Olympic flats & moving in? They may have floor to ceiling windows, but all they look out onto is a motorway flyover and a far distant view of the O2, and there is fuck all (I say this with some bitterness in my heart) else around there.
A drive-in Macdonalds is the only sign of civilization, and that's as good as it gets. No cafes, no restaurants, no shops, no parks, no nada. Grim, rotting council high-rises, as far as the eye can see. Major traffic. Major pollution. No green space whatsoever. I can't conceive of moving into a flat, no matter how plush, in such a phenomenally deprived and dismal area, no matter how near the Games it was.
Anyway, the pub. There are toothless old geezer locals who try to accost you on the way to the loo, darts board with locals' names chalked up on the blackboard, red plush barstools, mahogany effect chipboard walls. It's muy reminiscent of the scary locals' pub in Withnail and I. If anyone needs to film in an authentic, unreconstructed pre-gentrification grim old boozer, drop me a line.
About teaching and crying
3 hours ago
12 comments:
Where were you? Woolwich? Charlton?
Or Canning Town? I hate that flyover and there are some well dodgy pubs round there.
July the 1st already? Does that mean I've missed the new series of Dr Who? Bum.
RoMo - near my work - though I can well imagine the pubs in Canning Town.
Tim - oops. Stupid dates. Doctor Who is for kids.
"no nada"
Cuidado, negativa doble. No existen en paloma español.
You should try the Earl Haig in Hounslow West. That is the most grotty and disturbing pub I've ever been in, although Hounslow town centre has a view.
en paloma español? 'in Spanish dove'? ahem. Do you mean palabra?
En el contrario, mi amigo, seguro existe, because Spanish grammar is more flexible than English in certain respects, eg to say 'There isn't anything', because there is no Spanish equivalent for 'anything' to express a negative, they would say no hay nada; in English, this would translate as 'There isn't nothing' - entonces, a double negative.
Maybe we should go on a pub crawl of the grimmest pubs in London, Billy. Then write a book about it, like Dave Whatsisname who did the Googlewhack book. Except more depressing. The thing about grim pubs is, the landlords are always very happy to see you.
You're right about Spanish grammar being flexible - 'paloma' means pigeon as well as that famous brand of soap. I was ofcourse referring to the former as that's the lingo you were using for this post.
Hasta luego, pussycat.
its bromley-by-bow way isn't it? Down the road from stratford station?
Hi Cacoac! It surely is - did you recognise the description of the pub?!
i knew it! I was flat hunting at one point (to rent, not buy!) around there, my friend had lived in the region and was trying to sell it to me, and all i could think was..lovely modern flats, but in the arse end of nowhere ! :)..its fucking depressing around there
Cacoa - you were most wise to avoid it. I work there, but couldn't live there...
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