A new bar is opening near where I live but I have no intention to go there.
It’s a great little outfit in a unit beneath some new apartments. It sits nicely on a corner looking out up and down a street rammed with night clubs and other shops.
There’s a McDonald’s, too, and a Black Sheep Coffee outlet on another corner further up the road.
It makes sense, then, to have a bar here and I’m sure the owners have done their due diligence in their research. It must make business sense to have a bar here that makes a splash on the scene. There’s a BrewDog pub in another part of town, and that does a roaring trade, also.
I don’t mind going for a drink but I’m not a bar type of guy. I’ll sit in a pub a few times but mostly on my own, as I don’t like company when I’m drinking – and thinking.
I like a chat as I walk about – and maybe a few words at work.
I say this because a new bar is a new opportunity for many of those who like a new drinking hole to get in on.
It makes a home out of a place that may not feel like it, sometimes, without someone talk to (it’s well known that bars are a good place for a chat).
I looked at it today and it looks great. It appears a photographer was on site to deal with the promotional side of things, and a few members of staff hanging around (no doubt for extra training, as well).
Pubs come and go in London… if you’re on a pub crawl, that is.
A good ‘crawl’ around London is just what some need to shake off the days blues, and a pint here and a pint there is just what a doctor should order us to do.
Alas, we tell ourselves to just get on with it, and stop at the first bar that comes to mind.
The Tipperary in Fleet Street, London is exactly what some of us need to cast away the day’s cares and get down to some serious banter, and a drink or two.
As you can see, it’s now a sprawling empire in miniature after a brief bout of closure, and that’s since been resolved by its grand reopening on an historic street famed for its rigorous paper journalism.
A look at the new pub frontageThe sign that hangs above a side entranceAnother part of the pub’s sprawlAn inside view of an outside courtyard
There’s some new stuff either side of it, too, so it’s worth a good look at for a bit of light shopping with a drink or two to settle down with afterwards.
It’s a classic, well-known pub in a big city that has plenty to offer and an equal number of those who find it a pleasure to drink it all in, so it’s well worth a look in.
I took an underground train to West Brompton station in London, yesterday, and photographed and videoed as I walked through.
It’s an interesting part of London; a small neighbourhood, and a tranquil place to walk and pace yourself on an afternoon out.
I say ‘tranquil’, because there’s also a surprising lack of activity. I say that, also, in view that many of its shop fronts have now been transformed, and look like houses, and not commercial spaces.
These are examples of what is happening – and seen – across the country, and all across our towns and cities.
I do not bemoan the arrival or emergence of phone or vape shops, for example, as these exhibit simplicity that we need. I like them because they are what I can head for in a straightforward way and makes my shopping experience easier, at least.
It’s simple to find a phone shop these days, and to find what you want. It should be the case everywhere, and with everything.
In times past, we have prospered over the simple things in life that brought us income and wealth. It wasn’t someone’s idea that we could ‘sell’ to the world, but staples that we brought in and sent out (sometimes in a stylised way).
It’s our ideas that keep us here, but our trade that gets us places, and this is the truth with footfall. If there is sufficient here to engage the mind, and to open the wallet, it’s sufficient to get us out and about again.
I don’t know if West Brompton or beyond seeks an answer as to its streets lined with houses in former shop units, as it may want that, but I doubt it’s nice to live around if what someone wants is a coffee, or a grocery shop to visit, or even an arcade, or something, to browse around.
We are people who ‘look’, and it beats television, sometimes.
If you look at the Tower lifeboat station, along the river Thames, in London, it looks as though public services are in rude health.
The RNLI have access to public funds – that being, private donations made by individuals who support them through their advertising, and their campaigning, and fundraising.
It’s not a publicly funded service, in the sense of a national health service, or fire service, and it doesn’t get public funding from the Government.
There it is, however – a public service for the good of those dying at sea, or stuck in trouble in a river, for example.
There is reason to hope that privately funded – that is, charitably funded – enterprises can work for the good, for the long term.
It’s possible, and it’s not only seen with the RNLI.
There’s ample opportunity to see more privately schemed, resourced, and financed projects working up and down the country.
There’s a matter to consider of whether it’s best run privately, or run that way and publicly funded. But, it’s a vitally needed service that’s there, at least.
Eating is a large part of any city’s culture, and a better moment is shared over a meal.
Take for example an afternoon lunch, brunch, or a champagne booze-up and you get the point; these terms and conventions have entered our common mindset as acceptable, trendy and even expected in some quarter’s.
It’s just ‘the done thing’ for many people to find themselves over a table, eating away at the tapas, or wining and dining with their friends.
However, it’s an industry that comes under threat, from time to time, as news of foreclosures and a decline in ‘eating out’ indicate a ruining of our appetite for a more ‘alfresco’ type of lifestyle, at home or during work.
Take for example the ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ scheme run by the Conservative Government of Rishi Sunak in 2020, a pledge to the hospitality industry that the Government would support its existence during very trying times, at the height of the Covid pandemic.
Its success is hotly debated, but it showed a level of trust in restaurants in particular about their place in our society.
As members of the public were able to take advantage of a Government-sponsored discount to cover a meal, the hospitality sector could take stock over its position as well as the welfare of its staff.
It shows that even during a crisis that presses on all of us, we still remember what’s important.
It isn’t a ‘feature’ of culture that rates highly in people’s imaginings of who they are, as if the rush for a carbonara ranks highly next to another person’s need for a boost in Universal Credit.
It doesn’t, but it does to the person who isn’t aware of a person’s need for Universal Credit, so it makes sense to see it in a more practical way, than sensible.
The ‘eating out’ industry is a vital part of our way of eating at all, and it makes sense for many people to enjoy it.
Yet, it suffers losses like any other, and it won’t go away unless we want it to, which is highly unlikely.
The country has many byways and highways in it, and you’d expect differences between where you live, and where someone else does.
I’ve been looking keenly at the ‘state’ of our streets for a while now, and it seems that – actually – we have similar if not the ‘same’ places to live as each other.
If it comes to shopping, our tree-lined rows, or the amenities we have that are in walking distance, it’s remarkably similar.
I’ve lived (or stayed) in more than a few places with names you may recognise. These are towns and cities you may have visited before, to meet up with friends, or shop in a mall, or a precinct, somewhere.
The brands that we have are mostly familiar (which is great if we need a Costa latte pick-me-up), and the layouts are reassuringly simple.
I’ve met folks who’ve told me that they appreciate it because it means they can get around easily, and are not confused by a layout that doesn’t make sense.
We’re not all the same when it comes to “needs and greeds”. So, it’s because our town and city centres are so appropriate for us, that we’re able to find our own little corners and use them for an hour or two, on whatever we want.
This is what we get to enjoy as an afternoon out, for ourselves.
It’s a part of our way of life to keep doing this, but it’s also human, too, in that we’d do it, anyway, even if it weren’t already here, for us.
This is how we live, in other words.
It isn’t clear cut how each of us will decide to use our time this weekend, for example.
It’s someone’s pleasure to stay at home and read, or another’s to cycle in a rural area at breakneck speed.
This is all our choice.
I’ve also noticed we’ve made choices in other ways, too, in the sense of staying local and living local.
There are differences of opinion of how things should look, where things should be, etc.
Take a look, by example, at these photos I took this morning;
Picture #1Picture #2
I happened to be walking past a line of houses, and saw this load of rubbish around a perfectly ordinary terraced house.
It isn’t clear why it’s there, in the first place, but it’s a fact that it is. It must have been there for a while.
It’s not evidence of carelessness, but a sense of confusion over why things are happening – or not happening – in the way we think they naturally should.
It’s about how I think life should be, and why particular things don’t match up to my perception of life as it should be, here.
I suppose most things do, now, because I have those expectations.
Yet, as most of us interested in the way things are, ask, what about the rest?
