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Everything illudes on the way to nirvana
Apr. 21st, 2006 09:19 pmI went to a place called the Jerusalem Bar last night, on Rathbone Place, just north of Oxford Street at the Tottenham Court Road end. It's a new bar downstairs, constructed out of what is basically a large cellar, and thereby hangs a tale.
Because, with that element of mysteriousness usually saved for B horror movies or the beginning of Brideshead Revisited, I could say "I have been here before, 30 years ago".
And it was true. Because upstairs used to be the Oxford Street branch of Mecca Bookmakers -- closed some 20 years ago. And the downstairs was what the Jerusalem Bar looks like today, a cellar. Except that 30 years ago its major customers were rats.
But and, well, here's the most frightening thing. The toilets hadn't changed. I mean, they'd put in a couple of new bowls and a pissoir, but the size and location and the doors were all in the same place. Which, I guess, just goes to show how expensive plumbing must be these days, if people are prepared to open up a whole new huge bar, at a cost of at least a hundred grand, but can't afford to install new toilets.
I'd half-intended to get out of there fairly early in order to get to see Richard Keith Herring doing his first run-out for Edinburgh at the bizarrely named Blue Elephant just off John Ruskin Street. This wouldn't just have been for the interest in seeing RKH, but also to see what this part of the world between Camberwell New Road and the Walworth Road looks like these days. And, if I did turn up at the Blue Elephant, which in my youth was probably called something like The Scar and Bar, I could, once again, say mysteriously that "I have been here before". Mainly because there are, as far as I am aware, no pubs in SE11 or SE5 that I have not been in before. And I'm fairly certain that none of them were at the time called The Blue Fucking Elephant.
But I didn't make it, mainly because I could not resists spending three-quarters of an hour explaining to the boss how the Internet had altered the whole structure of news.
So I came home and went to bed instead.
_____________
Because, with that element of mysteriousness usually saved for B horror movies or the beginning of Brideshead Revisited, I could say "I have been here before, 30 years ago".
And it was true. Because upstairs used to be the Oxford Street branch of Mecca Bookmakers -- closed some 20 years ago. And the downstairs was what the Jerusalem Bar looks like today, a cellar. Except that 30 years ago its major customers were rats.
But and, well, here's the most frightening thing. The toilets hadn't changed. I mean, they'd put in a couple of new bowls and a pissoir, but the size and location and the doors were all in the same place. Which, I guess, just goes to show how expensive plumbing must be these days, if people are prepared to open up a whole new huge bar, at a cost of at least a hundred grand, but can't afford to install new toilets.
I'd half-intended to get out of there fairly early in order to get to see Richard Keith Herring doing his first run-out for Edinburgh at the bizarrely named Blue Elephant just off John Ruskin Street. This wouldn't just have been for the interest in seeing RKH, but also to see what this part of the world between Camberwell New Road and the Walworth Road looks like these days. And, if I did turn up at the Blue Elephant, which in my youth was probably called something like The Scar and Bar, I could, once again, say mysteriously that "I have been here before". Mainly because there are, as far as I am aware, no pubs in SE11 or SE5 that I have not been in before. And I'm fairly certain that none of them were at the time called The Blue Fucking Elephant.
But I didn't make it, mainly because I could not resists spending three-quarters of an hour explaining to the boss how the Internet had altered the whole structure of news.
So I came home and went to bed instead.
_____________
