Greetings my merry band of sippers, quaffers and slurpers!
My profuse apologies for allowing this blog to become so dusty with inactivity. Clearly I haven’t been out drinking enough! However, this next establishment is one that cannot be missed on any trip to the bustling metropolis of London. I speak, of course, of The Harp, a pub that last year won the prestigious Britain’s Best Pub Award, a pub that is forever bustling with custom. Perfectly placed between Trafalgar Square and The Strand, this small, narrow, busy pub is run with aplomb by its Irish landlady (who took out the “Welsh” part of the pub’s name when she took it over, cheeky thing!)
On the ground floor you squirm through the accommodating press of bodies to a bar that boasts both a plethora of draft ales and also an array of fridges bursting with great jugs of potent West Country cider with amusing names and terrifying ABV’s. The bar staff are courteous if a little squashed and busy and always serve with a smile and in the correct order. Upstairs, there are comfortable armchairs by the window where you can escape the loud pub atmosphere of the main bar and watch the world go by beneath you. There’s even a back entrance, leading into a dark and smoky alley that feels like it belongs a hundred years in the past (or it would if there weren’t theatre-goers and suits having a crafty fag out there.
The clientele is always a rich mix: actors and audiences from the West End, hedge fund managers from Mayfair, real ale connoisseurs from all over and the occasional tourist counting his blessings. For this reason I had reasoned a few months back, fool that I was, that this would be a cracking place to meet a date. Two things go wrong however. Her phone runs out of battery before I arrive and, due to a disaster at work, I arrive an hour late. I fly into the pub, dishevelled and disturbed. Surely she wouldn’t have waited that long? No one’s that patient! To my expected disappointment there is no sign of her. I lean on the bar to catch my breath.
“You meeting someone here?” comes a voice from next to me.
“I was,” I gasp with a heavy heart.
“Young lady? Brunette? Reading a book?”
“Yes,” I cautiously reply, looking up.
“Yeah, she left a while back. Good thing too. I was just about to hit on her myself!”
I check my phone just in case.
Didn’t you use to work at The Royal Oak?” the man asks.
“I did, yes.” I look at the man, recognition crawling across my face. “It’s Mike, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You look like you could do with a beer.”
“Certainly could.”
“Two pints please. Why didn’t you call her?”
“Her phone was dead. I’ll have to find some internet, send her an e mail or something.”
“You can use my phone. That’s got e mail.”
I grasp at the opportunity as I grasp for my pint.
“Really? That would be incredibly kind!”
“Don’t mention it.”
Four hours and several pints later and The Harp is closing. I have had an exhaustive e mail conversation with my date who is only slightly irritated (remarkable really how forgiving people are) and an even more exhaustive conversation with Mike, a past regular from my bartending days. I forget what we talked about exactly: life in general, The British Empire, elephants, falling off bridges in Edinburgh. I do remember, though, that our conversations attracted the attention of most of the bar and that we were among the last to leave.
Though the evening did not match up to its original possibilities it was still a fine pub experience and, rest assured dear readers, I was half an hour early for the next date with that poor unfortunate woman!
No comments:
Post a Comment