Good-bye to all that

Bah - the gods of progress are conspiring against me.  Mrs O and I were in Primrose Hill on Sunday evening, and discovered that our former local has been sold.  The new owners are making the usual comforting noises about not changing the place too much, but we've all heard that before.  Besides, they also own a couple of other pubs in the kinds of areas that only merchant bankers and TV presenters can afford to live.  I don't know these particular boozers, but my guess is they're efficient and rather soulless restaurants-cum-pubs.

There's nothing inherently wrongs with pubs of this kind; it's just that the one they've taken over was the last of its kind: a truly independent local hostelry that reflected the diversity of the neighbourhood it was in.  The couple who ran it until recently were an admirable pair.  They were a New Zealand couple d'un certain age, who wanted nothing more from life than a heavily-laden table, a couple of bottles of fine wine and a terrier or two scurrying about their ankles.  They used to eat their supper every night in the pub itself, even though they only lived upstairs.  It was a joy to watch two people dine with such brio.

They'd run the pub for donkey's years, after moving to London in the 1960s.  The pub they built resembled them and their shared outlook on life.  It served fine food (this was years before the fad for gastropubs took hold) and fine wines, not to mention fine ales.  But it did this without losing its unpretentious, convivial and cosy atmosphere.  It was not a place for posing, posturing and/or poncing about.  Primrose Hill has plenty of establishments where you can indulge those particular interests.  My fear now is that it will go the way of the others.  Also, I read on the web this morning that the new owners have already tried to sell off half the beer garden to a property developer, with a view to turning it into a "luxury dwelling".  The rotters.

I always hanker after moving back to PH.  It's a lovely, friendly and well-positioned place.  I love my current home, but The Hill will always have a special place in my heart.  It was some small compensation to Mrs O and myself that although we could not afford to buy so much as a skip there in which to live, we could always go back and revisit the pubs and restaurants that served us so well during our stay.  Now it seems they're being picked off one-by-one by developers.

It's becoming like the other moneyed areas in London: conservative, corporate and dull.  Oh so dull.

Boys and their toys

I bought a new bike on Saturday.  I'd been planning to for ages.  My commuting bike of the last 12 years finally gave up the ghost a few weeks ago, so I had a bike-shaped hole in my collection.  I did think (briefly) about not replacing it.  The Mrs and I had a purge of our belongings during the summer.  We also rejigged the furniture, which made the old homestead feel rangy and splendid.  Whilst I was caught up in hysteria this engendered, I thought it might be nice to thin out the number of velocipedes cluttering the downstairs.  The mood passed, however.

In fairness, I do (I suppose) need two bikes.  Should one develop a mechanical, then I always have another at my disposal, which is reassuring.  They are tools, rather than playthings for me.

The funny thing about making major purchases like this is that it doesn't excite me anymore.  When I was younger, I used to sweat cheddar finding the money for guitars and stuff.  I'd salt away tiny amounts of cash whenever I could.  I remember I used to walk down to my building society branch late at night and stare at the balance on the cash point machine, just to give myself a little frisson; my dream was getting nearer.  And on the day of the purchase itself, I'd spring out of bed hours before the shops were open and spend the morning pacing the up and down like an expectant father.

I remember in particular the joy I felt when I bought my first good guitar, a 1974 Fender Stratocaster.  After getting it home, I would sit and stare at it for hours, such was my love for it.  This was in 1986.  About four years ago, nearly a quarter of a century after that initial guitar purchase, I had occasion to buy another good guitar.  I was playing in a band with friends at the time and needed to upgrade my machine.  This experience was the polar opposite of that mid-eighties one.  I had tons of money, so I trundled up the Denmark St, tried out a few guitars, found the one I wanted, slapped down the money and simply waltzed home with it.

Even as I minced up the Charing Cross Road with it en route to the tube station, I was aware of the disappointing contrast with my teenage self walking back to Mum and Dad's with that strat.  Age and money had made me unshockable.  I could buy any production guitar in the world without feeling the financial impact, and that was the difference.  Also, the later guitar wasn't charged with future possibility and aspiration.  It was simply a rather nice object that allowed me to indulge a much-loved hobby, just like my new bike.  Sigh...

East End Style Geezerism

Money is a big deal in the horse world (Quelle surprise). If the people where I work are not actually piddling greenbacks up the wall backing nags, they're talking about it at some length. There was a protracted discussion in the office today about London slang terms for amounts of cash.

Most British readers will be familiar with the expressions "pony" (£50) and "monkey" (£500). Anyone brought up in the UK will have heard them a million times. But have you heard of a "macaque" (£11)? Or better still an "otter", which apparently is an old east end term for £8.50. It wasn't made clear why one might need a one-word, handy shorthand for this arcane amount. If I find out, I'll let you know.