Making new friends, South London style
Cooked a nice, hot — if not particularly authentic — jambalaya on Saturday night. Naturally we drank a gallon of red wine with it, and were still up at 5am knocking back the Merlot. The ‘Big Easy’ theme continued into Sunday, as I didn’t wake up until mid-afternoon. L and I decided to head over to the Crown & Greyhound in Dulwich Village for a restorative pint or two of Guinness.
The Crown & Greyhound is a lovely, large Victorian pub, but was actually once two inns, The Crown and The Greyhound. The Crown was where farm workers drank; The Greyhound, across the road from the Crown, was where gentlemen of the village drank, including Charles Dickens. The two pubs merged when the Greyhound was demolished to make way for Pickwick Road.
Midway through our first pint, we were interrupted by a very large, very drunk bloke, who wanted to demonstrate a numbers trick. L and I sat through it, and made the appropriate impressed noises once he’d finished, assuming he’d stagger off and talk to some other hapless drinkers. Unfortunately the guy, who informed us he was called Steve, didn’t take the hint, and decided he’d stay for a chat. He was having trouble standing and speaking, but was friendly enough (kept putting his arm around my shoulder!). We still hoped he’d get bored with our monosyllabic replies to his chat, but when he insisted on buying us drinks, we knew he wasn’t going anywhere. We really did try to decline his offer of Guinness (a first for me!) but he wasn’t having it. So we sat there drinking our pints, thinking ‘please go away now’, as he proceeded to tell us his life story (cab driver, wife with great arse, two boys). I could have asked him to leave us in peace, but as he was:
- a big fucker,
- off his face,
- an amateur boxer
- heavily scarred
- apparently suffering PTSD after seeing someone’s head blown in half in Kosovo during his time in the British army
- well meaning, if annoying
I decided that discretion was the better part of valour. After half an hour, L and I made our excuses and left for the East Dulwich Tavern.
Monday whizzed by, a mixture of web designy stuff and grouting tiles.
- It’s finally here!
- Liverpool into last 16
