Friday, July 19, 2013

Death of an institution

I've been putting the final touches to the plan for tomorrow's trip to see The World's End movie, followed by the Ollie Reed pub crawl.

A change of cinema venue to the HMVCurzon for the 13:50 showing has been agreed. It is in Wimbledon like the Odeon but has a bar and allows, nay encourages, you to take drink into the auditorium.

Of the eight Wimbledon Village pubs in the classic crawl, two have closed.

Finch's is no more, but it is now part of the Dog and Fox, so - in Catholic theology at least - it still counts.

The Brewery Tap has gone the way of all flesh as well. It is now, God's bodkin, a Caffè Nero. John Sweeney paid tribute to its passing in the November 2011 edition of the Oldie in a style that should inspire us to live up to it tomorrow,
The Brewery Tap in Wimbledon Village wasn't much to look at, easily missed from the other side of the street from the better known, blowsier Dog and Fox, where Oliver Reed used to dip his moustache into his beer when not wrestling in the nude. The Tap was a king of home from home to the Village's non-hedge-fund-set, the people who might not want to have a Ferrari, decadent iconoclasm though that might be. Over the years the Tap had been patronised, if that's the wrong word, then sorry - by the likes of (the late) silver-tongued lawyer Geoege Carman, cricketer Bob Willlis, indie garage pop singer JameT and comic Paul Merton.
Landlord John Grover was - is - a miserable sod. ...... read on......
Prodnose: A toast to absent friends?
Myself: Absent friends!

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