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 1 - From Antigua & Barbuda to Tonga

So here we go again on another ground breaking adventure and if you’re still with us after the previous two sojourns then I can only commend your stoicism and salute your dedication to this pointless cause.

If you’re new to this inane waste of time, money and brain cells, the sit back, put your mind in neutral and enjoy the ride.

The rules are very simple. I go out for the evening, either with or without other people, drink some beer and then finally, write some half-baked, half-illiterate report of what happened during the tour.

The only thing that I’m determined to change this time from previous expeditions is to take more photos, as not only do they make the blog more readable and appealing (yes, even with extra photos of me!) but with the nice light evenings upon us we should take every opportunity to record these moments for posterity and in case we ever need to defend ourselves in court.

Thank you Ma'am, first class to Edgware Road please.

So anyway, the first tour on “Flying the Flag”, (which makes me feel like the marine in that famous photo from the Falklands Conflict), meant that I didn’t need to yomp to the start location but instead could board my regular homeward tube train and travel the complete length of the District Line from Wimbledon to Edgware Road. At least I was able to do it on one of the new trains and it was lovely to see that TFL had especially laid on a named train to whisk me on my way.

Edgware Road Station. Looks better in real life.

Edgware Road station is worth of a mention in its own right with a nice line in original tiles and ox-blood signage announcing its presence. Just outside is a comical little statue of a window cleaner staring up with dismay at the 15 odd storeys of Capital House. It looks like he could do with a pint.

Working up a thirst.

And he isn’t the only one. Luckily for those of us who don’t have feet of stone, I was able to walk down Edgware Road itself, a cacophony of noise and traffic being quite a shock to the system after starting off in leafy Wimbledon, and turn into Crawford Place and the corner of Brendon Street which is where I found the agreed rendezvous point of the Lord Wargrave.

Rendevouz at the Lord Wargrave.

Of course to have a rendezvous point in the first place, you’ve got to have people to meet, and on this particular evening the main suspects were veterans of the Oranges and Lemons tour, Mr Cheese and Mr Clarke, who you may remember meeting for the first time on the “Bullseyes and Targets” episode.

Initially I could only rendez avec Mr Clarke who was just settling into his first pint of Guinness. I, taking advantage of his credit card, chose to go for a pint of Dark Star’s Summer Meltdown, which came in a nice smooth handled jug served by a pleasantly smiling barmaid.

Quite probably the best beer of the night.

We didn’t have wait long for the next participant, a newbie to the tour, by the name of Rav, who’d scampered over from work in the city. Hot on Rav’s heels was Mr Cheese himself meaning that Mr Clarke and Rav’s question of “what the heck are we doing up in Edgware?” could be answered.

I’d already told Rob (Mr Cheese) the thinking behind this new tour but he hadn’t told the others meaning my now well-worn question of “what’s the difference between an Embassy and a High Commission?” could be posed again and this time I could accompany the question with an explanation of the tour’s on-going competition.

This is what the results should look like.

What had taken me many hundreds of hours to produce was a sheet of black and white drawings of the four flags that we would be seeing on the evening’s entertainment. The tourist’s challenge was to colour the flags in (crayons were provided) and a prize would be awarded for the most accurate rendition. No extra points for staying within the lines.

The competitors get their sheets ready. I have no idea who the chubby bloke in the specs is.

Rav immediately took the thing far too seriously and proceeded to write his name and the date on his paper as if he would have to hand it in for homework. What the silly ninny didn’t realise is that he’d got the paper upside down! This didn’t bode well!

The final point to mention as we were finishing our first drinks was that the Lord Wargrave promotes itself as a “whisky library” and certain going by the number of bottles behind the bar, they look to do this very well. The pint of Summer Meltdown wasn’t too bad as well but fearing that we might become overdue we finished off and started out on the trip.

The whisky library and the top of Rob's head.

The first leg of the journey was a little loop around Brendon Street, along Harrowby Street and back up Molyneux Street. There’s basically a pub on every corner and initially when planning the route, I was going to miss out The Victory, the pub located on the first corner, but the boys obviously with some sort of thirst on, decided to go in.

V for Victory.

It wasn’t an unpleasant place but it certainly wasn’t a beer venue as there wasn’t any draught ale to be found at all. I went for a pint of Peroni just too late to see whether Rav’s suggestion of “let’s have a cocktail” was made in jest or for real.

Rav peruses the cocktails.

There’s not a great deal more to say about the place; there were two chaps enjoying a game of chess and a poster advertising salsa dancing in the toilets. Let’s go.

Salsa in the toilets.

The next corner saw us entering The Duke of York, which was still advertising its previous Cask Marque status. I presume it is a “previous” status as it no longer appears on the Cask Finder app meaning there was no scan to obtain but it was certainly much more my idea of what a pub should be, with some great leaded windows, shining mirrors and a barmaid very willing to sell us pints of East Coast IPA, which is a new beer from Greene King. To be honest they might as well not have bothered because it was almost as tasteless as the previous pint of Peroni and the best thing about it was the branded glasses.

Lovely glasses.

It was definitely the Duke of York, not the Duke of Troy

There was a smattering of people in the pub, most of them taking an avid interest in the televised football and from the shouts of delight and despair, it was not a British game. A quick question to the barmaid revealed that it was in fact a Swedish game. All I could tell from the abbreviations on the in-screen score was that a team called FFF (which turns out to be Falkenbergs) were losing, quite badly.

Cheering FFF to defeat.

Arriving too late to enjoy the football but in plenty of time to take part in the competition was the final tour attendee, Simon, who looked a little lost to be ambushed with a childish colouring competition but made did manage to correctly answer the “Embassy/High Commission” question.

Dragging Simon out of the Duke of York within moments of arriving. Note out of date Cask Marque plaque.

And with that in mind we rounded the final corner and proceeded up Molyneux Street where I could see a rather limp looking flag hanging outside our very first High Commission. Now I know that the Kingdom of Tonga isn’t the world’s biggest country but I think I was expecting something more than the smallish terrace house which one would describe as “smart” rather than “impressive” or “ambassadorial”. Although the flag was hanging limply, luckily for the school students the colour scheme is extremely simple, featuring only two colours, but Rav still managed to get these the wrong way around.

Red and white but not that way around Rav.

The next pub was one I was really looking forward to. The Windsor Castle stands on Crawford Place and if you pick up any half-decent guide book of London pubs it normally features somewhere along the line.

Outside the Windsor Castle.

Crammed to the gunnels with royalist and celebrity memorabilia, there is something interesting to look at no matter where your eyes alight. The bar is lined with little brass plaques, presumably denoted where regulars have propped it up over the years, and it’s also the home of the Handlebar Moustache Club.

I plumped for a pint of Adnams Southwold Bitter and we retired to a cosy corner which gave us a great view of the celebrity photos lining the top of the bar, the Filipino serving boys (who were scampering around collecting empty glasses), the line of gin-soaked regulars who were seated on tall stools around the bar and a very shiny brass garden tap located on the bar which presumably dispenses fresh water for those who require it.

No surface left undecorated.

It was a shame we only stayed for one drink, I guess that was our punishment for bothering to go to The Victory, as I could have happily spent the rest of the evening there. But the needs of the tour are paramount and we had to leave and take the 2 minute stroll to the junction of Crawford Place and Homer Row to the next High Commission, or in this case High Commissions, as Antigua and Barbuda share the same building as Belize.

Hanging limply from the 2nd and 3rd floors.

Antigua and Barbuda are on the second floor of 45 Crawford Street and Belize lives on the third floor. Both flags were again dropping rather saggily outside of the relevant floors which makes me think whether we should only hold subsequent tours on windy nights.

End of the light evening outside The Larrik.

Directly opposite is The Larrik, which bears a lot of similarities with the Lord Wargrave, large open plan and a good range of beer on offer. The group in general went for Mad Goose from Purity Brewing and secured comfortable table seats next to a row of spring onion plants.

Perhaps they were crocus or something?

By now the schoolwork should have been more than half completed but the subject of the forthcoming general elections were distracting everyone from their proper work. Mind you the elections weren’t as distracting as the toilets in The Larrik which had a monochrome tile scheme so befuddling I wonder if they shouldn’t provide dark glasses to those who enter.

And you're meant to concentrate and have a pee in here?

The final bit of walking was the short leg-stretch down Crawford Street to the junction with Seymour Place and a quick visit to the outside of Rwanda House, where the final flag was (again) drooping from its pole. Luckily for those who were struggling with the colours a single gust of wind flapped past and quickly caused the flag to display itself.

Rwanda House.

The single gust of wind.

With the flag floor show over we retired to the final pub, The Royal Oak, in York Street where the beer of my choice was Spring Brew which must be a pretty new beer from St Austell as I couldn’t find it in the untappd database.

The Royal Oak

The pump at the end is Spring Brew.

The pub, another big open plan venue much in favour of rough wood and mismatched tables and chairs, was the busiest venue of the night so we took refuse outside where the boys rushed to complete their schoolwork with much copying and not enough apples to teacher.

Exam cramming.

The winner, by half a point, was Mr Cheese and he was delighted to receive his prize of a Union Jack bedecked purse into which he can keep his hard earned pennies for the next tour. Rav was in last place and even though I let him off the upside down name and date he just had to loose points for colouring in a cross white, on a white piece of paper. Better luck next time mate.

And to the victor, the spoils.....

Rob's winning entry.

No wonder Rav lost.

And so there were have it, one down goodness knows how many more to go, but hopefully the fact that the next one (alphabetically) is Australia which will take us much more centrally to Fleet Street might mean a reappearance of some of the old crowd.

This was my journey home, but that perhaps belongs in a different blog.