Tour 9 - From Canada to New Zealand

You know buses? You know how supposedly you wait for ages and then 3 come along at once? Well for me my current analogy for buses are my new colleagues at my new company. Well here again, I say “new” yet I’ve been there for over a year and I’ve still not managed to get even a tiny whiff of interest in anyone accompanying me on one of the fabled pub rambles.

Weird isn’t it? I mean, who wouldn’t want to come down the pub with me and colour in a flag? That’s surely got to be better than nature documentaries.

Anyway, in this particular episode the buses finally came screaming round the corner in the shape of 4 work colleagues and 2 partners of those said colleagues. (I mean that two of the work colleagues were accompanied by their partners, not that the four colleagues share two partners between them! What sort of a perverted company do you think I work for?)

I guess the only perverted thing in some respects was that the buses that these colleagues had had to catch to come on the tour had travelled the 4,780 miles from Seattle or the 4,794 miles from Hyderabad to take part in the tour.

I guess I’ll have to keep working on those UK based colleagues.

Anyway, the tour from the Wimbledon office started with a rather labourious and tortuous train journey to Waterloo and then a cramped, labourious and tortuous tube journey along the Jubilee Line to Green Park (standing next to a drag queen) where we emerged into a dark damp and generally thoroughly nasty November evening.

Luckily the walk to the first pub wasn’t too far and we did have the distractions of several luxury cars lining the well-heeled kerbsides of St James as well as the bright lights of the well-known frontage of The Ritz to entertain our foreign guests and give them a flavour of this area of London.

When planning this particular tour and discovering that one of the High Commissions was located in St James, I desperately searched around for some new pubs that we hadn’t tried before but alas I could only come up with 2 suitably located watering holes that we’d previously visited as part of the Pall Mall square of the Monopoly Tour. But just to make sure that I would still be able find these places and the other ones I’d organised, I used one of my days holiday the previous week to do a quick practice tour around the streets with the benefit of daylight….which also explains why some of the photos weren’t taken on the evening and that you can actually see what’s going on in them.

My daytime route took me from Victoria Station via Buckingham Palace so I approached St James from the southern end and as I approached the first pub I noticed one particularly well appointed house and garden with a whole array of flags flying in the grounds. This turned out to be Marlborough House, the headquarters of the Commonwealth Foundation, so the omens should be good for this tour. Maybe they’ll let me hold the after-tour-completion party there?

Anyway, back to the night in question.

The first pub was The Red Lion, a cracking little boozer tucked down Crown Passage and when we visited last time it was almost deserted and I was hoping that its secret location would work this kind of magic again. Unfortunately it wasn’t so and a healthy crowd of early evening drinkers were spilling out of the door in the passage itself.

Richard tells our visitors the role he played in the war of independence.

I forced my way to the bar and decided on a policy of simplicity by ordering everyone a pint of St Austell Tribute and told them to try and secure as many stools as possible. As I was at the bar I bumped into Richard who had made it to the meeting point in good time and told me that he’d just received a message from Buddy Rob and New Guy Mickey that they were also in the Red Lion.
With Richard and I joining the rest of the work colleagues who had done very well by securing not only stools for everyone, but a table in the packed pub, we worked out that Buddy Rob and Mickey had made it also to The Red Lion, it’s just that they were at the wrong one. By now Spikey Haired Ed had also arrived so it was electronic devices to the front as we made contact with the two lost souls and directed them to the right place.

One pint was enough in The Red Lion so once Buddy Rob and Mickey had arrived we finished up and made our way back to King Street and a different coloured lion in the shape of The Golden Lion, where last time we had an experience with a pair of red high heels and I still have photographic evidence to prove the encounter.

No shoes or Scotch eggs feature in this photo.

There were no shoes on display tonight but there were Naked Ladies in the shape of the pints from Twickenham Fine Ales and we once again struck it lucky by getting a table in the well frequented pub.

Several of the tour took the opportunity to take in some sustenance and there was a flurry of orders for Scotch eggs and other fine food stuffs and when Mr Cheese finally arrived he was just in time to treat me to said Scotch egg which I have to say was very welcome indeed. There was just time for a swift half as Richard’s son Paul turned up last for the second tour in the row.

Cyprus

So with the full complement of the tour now in position it was time to complete the first High Commission of the night and it was but a short stroll from the Golden Lion to St James’s Square along King Street. A sharp left turn saw up approaching the north-west corner where the premise of the High Commission for Cyprus lives.

Halloumi

Although darkness had well and truly fallen by this time, the flag was still flying proudly outside and the tour had ample time to log the colours for the necessary colouring challenge later….or so we thought.

3 Prime Ministers lived here. None wanted to come out tonight.

We continued around the square passing the many blue plaques that are littered around like discarded chip wrappers and dodging the sleek black limos that were prowling in circles around the square.

The route took us from the east side of the square along Charles II Street before taking our lives in our hands by crossing Regent Street. Just off Charles II Street is the Royal Opera Arcade and when I’d carried out my recce earlier in the week this was almost un-enterable (?) due to the road works along the street. Tonight, not only were the road works in a much more advanced state but the London Beer House at the entrance to the arcade was open and serving beer.

Alas I couldn’t persuade the tour to stop and in reality we’d have never all have fitted into the small premises anyway. So our route had to lead us across Haymarket (another lives in our hands moment) before pausing momentarily across the road from New Zealand House and taking a photo of your truly in between the passing buses.

We’ve seen some different High Commissions so far but I reckon that New Zealand’s has to be by far the ugliest so far. A big concrete monstrosity that doesn’t even have the retro charm that some brutalist building now seem to endear. I’m glad I didn’t have to get any nearer for my photo.

Ugh.

The final High Commission of the evening advertised itself from several hundred yards away in the same fashion that Australia had done previously. Canada certainly seems loves a flag and at least we’d found the real Canada House this time instead of the wild goose chase I’d led everyone on during Tour 3.

Canadian Flags.

We weren’t planning to immediately visit the High Commission itself as the next pub of the evening should have been The Two Chairmen, tucked down the side of Warwick House Street, but the signs of the black windows and the locked door told another story and we soon knew we wouldn’t be getting a drink there tonight.

Dark and closed.

If I’d planned the route with a bit more care I could have quickly led the troops to The Admiralty, a Fuller’s pub on the south side of Trafalgar Square (and also took advantage of another free pint) but instead we crossed the road and took the obligatory photos outside the grand door of Canada House.

More Canadian Flags.

Canadian Knockers.

It would have been nice to have seen Trafalgar Square in all its glory instead of trying to peer through the gloom to make out the lions and what was on the various plinths at the moment but we didn’t linger too long and instead made our way out the north side towards Leicester Square and hit the welcoming arms of The Chandos on the corner of William IV Street.

Plinth.

Cooper.

This is a pub I’ve longer to visit for quite a while as it features an animated cooper on the top floor who faithfully bangs a nail into a barrel at all hours of the day….also it’s a Sam Smith’s pub and these are always good for a cheap London pint. Spikey Haired Ed also has fond memories of the place but you’ll have to ask him about these.

It’s not the most picturesque of Sam Smith’s pubs having a rather more functional look than the nice shiny varnished wood that you see in some of their premises but never the less the organic wheat beer is always nice and once again we did manage to secure a huge table around which I could set the tourists their colouring challenge.

The newbies are the ones colouring. Buddy Rob and Mickey look on with sardonic uninterest.

I have to admit that perhaps the colouring element of the tour is becoming a bit passé dare I say, fucking boring, as the regular tourists all ensued a chance to win another great prize and were more than happy to let the newbies attack the colouring with a fervour that did them all proud.

And let’s also put to bed once and for all the cliché that apparently Americans don’t know anything about any other country unless that particular country plays some silly stick and ball game. Not true as the colouring examples here show. When it came to the judging it was a toss-up between Kendahl and Lauren’s efforts and I decided that Lauren’s sheet just edged it in terms of a better blue in the New Zealand flag. There was time for a steward’s enquiry as it seemed that she’d coloured the Cypriot olive branches black instead of…well, olive but the decision stood and she was well deserving of her prize of a Poppy Day poppy pin.

I gracefully did not deduct marks for the spelling of coloured.

Hopefully the evening didn’t take a maudlin turn as I explained how the inspiration for tonight’s prize was the acknowledgement that Remembrance Day also commemorates that thousands of deaths from Commonwealth Countries as well as British lives and we decided that a suitable end to the evening would be found in arms of The Harp next door.

Again for those who remember previous visits, The Harp was where Aussie Pete had his run in with a charity collector but tonight there was no such entertainment as we took our drinks (mine being an oatmeal stout) to the upstairs room which as someone commented, could have the owners sitting room with them having just popped out.

There was then a round table discussion on the differences between US and UK TV shows of which the finer points may have passed me by. Just like the time which showed that I had to make a move for Charring Cross station in time to get the tube round to Paddington in time for the last train. I left the others in the middle of (the) Strand* as they made a decision as to whether to get some more food. I guess some American clichés are perhaps quite true……

* it’s a running joke thing…..read the other blogs.

Tour 3 - From (The) Bahamas to Malta (via Canada?)

There’s a famous Shakespeare play called “The Comedy of Errors” and although I wouldn’t dare be as so conceited to compare my level of writing with the great bard’s, (I mean we all know I’m much better) I think I could legitimately claim that there were enough mistakes with the latest tour route that the title of the play would be a suitable epitaph for this particular episode.

If you remember, at the end of the last chapter I tempted everyone to come along to the next outing by explaining that the next High Commission alphabetically (after Antigua & Barbuda and Australia) would be Bangladesh. I, of course, like so many things in my life (as Spiky Haired Ed constantly reminds me) got this completely and utterly wrong.

The next country alphabetically is of course, as even the most challenged of primary school pupil knows, Bahamas, or to give it the more proper title “The Bahamas”. So actually, perhap it should appears with the T’s anyway, which would make me right…..or half right anyway.

So thanks to the power of the search engine I searched around for other High Commissions near to where the one for The Bahamas is located in central Mayfair and eventually located another two such establishments nearby. One of them, the Canadian High Commission, was a bit of a surprise because I always thought that they were located in a big impressive building called Canada House in Trafalgar Square. It turns out that apparently the building in Trafalgar Square is just a “front” and all the actual official business is done from MacDonald House in Grosvenor Square.

So with the route all planned with a very ambitious 6 (or maybe even 7) pubs, it was only on the evening before the trip that I discovered that actually the good people of Canada had moved all the business of the High Commission to Canada House in Trafalgar Square and the one I had planned to visit was sold to a property developer for 530 million dollars in November 2013 and has been vacated since December 2014.

Never mind, I’m sure the tourists would understand…….yeah right.

The meeting point was The Three Crowns, a Taylor Walker pub located in Babmaes Street, a little side alley off Jermyn Street which itself is just off Piccadilly Circus. And it was into this busy, bustling place that I emerged on a lovely sunny June evening.

Oi you! Put that Ullage away!

Finding the pub as easily as one can say “Google Maps” I was pleased to see New Guy Mickey was waiting outside and it was with pints of Little Vienna from The Little Beer Corporation that we welcomed the prompt arrival of the others which consisted of the aforementioned Spikey Haired Ed, Buddy Rob, Gemma, Mo, Nicole, Phil, Lucie and Isabelle. And if you were wondering what we were all doing out on that most partying of nights, a Tuesday, it was because Munchkin Steve was down for another dose of southern culture and modern life (like cars and street lamps).

Is that Will Carling on the label?

It was also nice to see the reappearance of Lisa (along with her eyelashes and pink nails) and new to the tour Russell, who was an old ex-work colleague of Rob. There was also a reappearance of Emma, making it two tours in a row (obviously we didn’t offend her too much last time then) and also a young gentleman by the name of Tim, who probably only the most dedicated readers will remember from the Park Lane episode of the Monopoly Tour.

The pub is quite a nice attractive one with the usual dark wood and glass that Taylor Walker seem to like so much, but it was small, meaning we had to stand outside and endure constant berating from the glass wardens as they forced us back behind an arbitrary yellow line painted on the street. The pub was also the first Cask Marque pub of the evening and I easily spotted the certificate behind the bar, nailed to the wall, which made it easy to spot but impossible to scan.

After a quick visit to the toilets and cajoling the late arriving Rav into finishing his pint we needed to make a move to pub number 2 if we were ever going to make it round all 6 pubs (or maybe 7) before the clock struck midnight.

The next location couldn’t be nearer in the shape of The Red Lion in Duke of York Street which runs parallel to Babmaes Street and in fact the two pubs are almost carbon copies of each other with the same dark wood, etched glass and moulded ceilings. The Red Lion also has a nice line in a cosy little back bar and a wrought iron circular stairway complete with sticky patterned carpet.

We took our drinks outside again and were at least this time not harangued by any overzealous drink monitors. The drinks in question was Redwood, a seasonal special brewed by Fullers under their Gales name.

The Red Lion saw the late arrival of Mr Cheese and Mr Clarke who certainly in the case of Mr Cheese came sauntering down dressed for a blazing hot summer’s evening with just a toothbrush in his back pocket. He looked so stylist in fact he was almost comparable to the models in the windows of the gentleman’s outfitters just over the road.

Yep Rob....just like the picture.

So with everyone finally now on board we moved off for our first High Commission of the evening which meant a quick cut up by the side of St James’s church and a safe crossing of Piccadilly itself by use of the handy pelican crossing. Directly opposite us was the High Commission of Malta located in a building imaginatively titled “Malta House” (I sense a pattern here).

Whilst the tour tourists were taking note of the flag colours I made the flurry of real-life tourists walk around us for a change as Munchkin Steve took my photo which is also becoming a bit of a pattern.
We now had a bit of a walk in front of us; a long stroll down the length of Piccadilly, past the Royal Society, past the Ritz, past the entrance to Green Park tube station and finally, after much moaning from the tourists about their inappropriate footwear (at least Nicole was back on form again) and from me about the idiots with their wheelie suitcases, we turned into White Horse Street and hit Shepherd Market with its collection of pubs.

Walking up White Horse Street.

Ye Grapes.

Last time we came here, as part of the Mayfair square in the Monopoly Tour, we stopped in the Kings Arms but tonight we sailed on by and went into Ye Grapes, which is a tall looming building tucked in the corner of the market place. There was quite a crowd outside the pub but that meant that inside things were actually fairly quiet and we managed to secure a couple of tables in a raised area which were a positive boon for the people wanting to crack on with the night’s colouring competition.
With the three flags now on display most of the players had no trouble identifying the very recognisable flag of Canada which led to more than one cry of “I thought they were in Trafalgar Square?” which forced my hand rather earlier than I had wished and I had to explain that although the Canadian flag was on the sheet tonight, we wouldn’t actually be visiting their High Commission.

What should be the before and after of the colouring competition

The moaning aside, I think I got away with it although it seems that a few of the colourers took it out on the crayons and quite a few were pressing much harder than was actually needed. In fact Munchkin Steve’s entry was so waxy you could have sewn a hood on it and used it as a fisherman’s jacket.

Waxy

The drink of choice in the pub for me was a pint of Rev James Gold and although it came in the correctly logo’ed glass I missed a trick as several of the others secured pints of something called Franciscan Well, which turns out to be a beer from a brewpub in Cork in Ireland. I’m not sure if this is just a front for one of the big brewers trying to jump on the craft wagon or whether the brewery has just signed a distribution deal but what I can confirm is that the beer was very very nice and even though I only managed to sneak a sip or two of Rob’s pint, it was the beer of the evening.

Bar at Ye Grapes.

Saying goodbye to Isabelle and Lucie who once again didn’t make it to the end of the tour we made a move to leave. Also staying behind, tucked up very cosily in a corner banquette were Mo and Gemma although I have it on very good authority that “they’re just like brother and sister”…….yeah right.
The route now led us through the small alley running up the side of Ye Grapes to Curzon Street where we dodged the chauffeur driven Bentleys and twat driven BMW tractors turning into Chesterfield Street. Half way up this smart residential area was the second High Commission and the next in the list alphabetically, so not Bangladesh.

The Bahamas has its High Commission at number 10 and they in an amazing effort of originality have named this house, Bahamas House and it only seemed like the right thing to do to ask Munchkin Steve to capture the scene once again for posterity.

Someone call security.....

Continuing our journey round into Charles Street it was another case of dodging the luxury cars until we reached the junction of Hay’s Mews and the planned 4th pub of the night, The Only Running Footman. This fantastically named pub was earlier called “I am the only running footman” but seems to have lost the personal pronoun sometime during its recent refurbishment.

The refurbishment has made the pub a smart place and it was very popular with a huge crowd of floppy haired, blazer wearing, young poshos but the beer range wasn’t up to much and with a heavy schedule still ahead of us we chose to make a quick exit and continue to wend our way up the mews to The Coach and Horses, which was the “reserve” on the pub list at the start of the evening.

Buddy Rob cases out The Coach and Horses.

This was the “one mistake” of the evening which turned out to be a better decision as the pub was a smart and welcoming place and although the beer range was limited to Shepherd Neame beers, (I went for a bottle of non-Shepherd Neame Sam Adams) it was probably a better choice than the TORF and we at least had enough room to sit down for once and either complete the colouring or eat some crips. Or in my case, get a lecture from Nicole about how unbelievable it was that I’ve never seen any of the Star Wars or Indian Jones films from start to finish and how I’ll never be a complete man in her eyes until I had done so. Something else to add to the bucket list then.

Me and Sam

The planned route took us up and round the corner into Farm Street and The Punchbowl, the 6th pub of the evening and the third Cask Marque accredited one. There was an actual bouncer on duty outside the front door, which was quite puzzling as surely there aren’t any rowdies in this most gentile area of London? Unless of course there’s often pavement scraps breaking out over “did you spill my Dom Pérignon?” or “are you looking at my missues in her Christian Louboutin’s?”

Getting punchy at the Punchbowl

Not being in a scrapping mood, we instead went inside and took a far too long a time waiting to order drinks as Rob, Ian & Rav had all got lost and had gone sauntering off to what should have been the final pub of the evening. One quick phone call later they eventually arrived only to order a pint of one type of ale (can’t remember what it was) and then have the barman top it up with another type of ale (this one was Deuchars). Upon mentioning the mistake the friendly chap pulled two new pints and then even gave us the two “mixes” for free. “It’s been one of those days” he grinned and we nodded “I’ve been a twat all day” he continued and we stopped nodding.

Top - Gemma & Mo or Mo & Gemma

Bottom - Rob's life-size cock and Ian's origami

So with drinks eventually purchased (or obtained for free) it was time to judge the colouring competition. We had the usual array of entries, ranging from Gemma & Mo’s joint effort (brother and sister….yeah right) to Ian’s over-neat folded effort and from Rav trying to highjack both Tim and Ed’s very competent entries by forging his name on their papers, to Rob’s usual level of sexual abuse.
In my mind there was a very clear winner and it had a lot to do with not only the superbly neat entry for this week but the superbly neat entry from last time also, which nearly won the prize. So taking these points in mind and of course the fact she hadn’t drawn a cock on the paper or tried to pass herself off as someone else’s effort, I declared Emma the winner.

A worthy winner.

And of course then World War III broke out. The biggest cry-babies were Ed and once again Rav but I just comforted myself with the sight of Emma being quite overwhelmed with her prize of a real life Union Jack. You’d never know that it cost me 50p from the local car boot.

It was then time for another mass departure as several of the tourists took the end of the competition to mark the end of their evenings but the brave Secret Seven of Rob, Ian, Rav, Tim, Emma and Nicole decided to try to complete the tour by making our way through to Grosvenor Square, past where the Canadian High Commission should have been, and up towards Oxford Street and the planned final pub of The Running Horse. But because the gates to Mount Street Gardens were closed we got a little lost and ended up in South Audley Street. Luckily to the rescue came the welcoming sight of The Audley on Mount Street.

I wonder where these three are going.

Rav, still miffed at the colouring competition, note that he hasn't got a drink.

This was our second Taylor Walker pub of the night and the 4th one to hold a Cask Marque certificate, which amazingly was freely available meaning the first actual scan of the night. The pub was a much bigger place than the Three Crowns and had a more traditional back street boozer feel to it, with the red ceiling and the pattern carpet. There was also a very interesting ceiling clock which we toasted with perfectly poured pints of Young’s London Stout.

Time to go home.

And all too soon , time eventually got the better of us and Tim had to runaway to catch the last night bus to Paddington whilst I was in the fortunate position of being able to enjoy things to the very final ring of the bell as I’d been offered a bed along with Mr Cheese at Mr Clarke’s Couch End. So for us it was a retracing of the steps back to Ye Grapes and then back up Piccadilly to Green Park Station.

Show me the way to go home......

So next time we will definitely be visiting Bangladesh and I think for peace of mind I’ll let the tour vote who should win the colouring competition…..maybe that will stop the moaning. Yeah, right.

Down Mr Clarke's local.