Kmflett's Blog

Ambridge Socialist

26^th February

Save the Bull Petition Update

It’s when all’s quiet that the seed’s a growing

Henry Mayhew quoted a Victorian costermonger:  People fancy when all’s quiet that all’s stagnating. It’s when all’s quiet that the seed’s a growing.

We dont yet know how the quiet Burns Night at The Bull will play out in respect of the name change.Will Lillian Bellamy press ahead or take the hint.

Now is the time to keep the pressure up and get more people signing the petition to Save The Bull

https://www.change.org/p/residents-of-ambridge-and-listeners-to-the-archers-save-the-bull-ambridge?recruiter=45817997&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=share_petition&recruited_by_id=c320f9e0-7d09-0130-ecdf-00221964dac8

A little bit of rivalry as well between Thompson and Hobsbawm. Eric Hobsbawm’s Marxism was more classical while E P Thompson’s was more innovative. Thompson found Eric ‘not sufficiently critical of Marxism and above all of Communism’, while Eric found Thompson ‘a little bit too polemical’

Georges Haupt international round table discussions on social history 1974

(From Richard J Evans 2019 biography of Eric Hobsbawm)

Beard Liberation Front

26th January

contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Beard of Winter Vote closes Midday Monday 27^th January: Hairs are being split

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that the vote for Beard of Winter 2020 closes at Midday on Monday with hairs being split between brewer Daniel Vane and trade unionist Ben Bellamy for the top place and author Michael Rosen holding his own in third place

The vote for Beard of Winter will close at midday on 27th January with the result announced on 28th January

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, voting often peaks towards the close of the poll so it may get hairy out there

Beard of Winter shortlist

Dominic Sibley, England cricketer

Michael Rosen, author & broadcaster

Guz Khan, comedian & actor

Paul Chowdhry, comedian & actor

Carrick McClean, beard campaigner

Mikel Arteta, football manager

Daniel Vane, brewer

Wayne Rooney, footballer

Prince Harry, ex-Royal

Justin Trudeau, politician

Nuno, football manager

Ben Bellamy, Beard Bard

Mark Wood, England cricketer

The Ambridge Socialist

Petition to Save The Bull gets support. Splitter Snell set to fail

26th January

Following the controversial decision to change the name of The Bull and potentially its entire character, on which no regular user was consulted, we have set up a petition to demand the name change be stopped and the community- people who actually drink in The Bull- are consulted fully about any future changes.

Thanks to all those who have signed the petition to Save the Bull Ambridge & stop the name change. It would be the beginning of the end for the pub.

Sign the real petition here don’t let splitter Snell win. Please encourage others to do so. The Bull is one of the most iconic and well known of British pubs and its future must be protected. Over 270 have signed and we are aiming for 500. Lilian Bellamy will have to listen

https://www.change.org/p/residents-of-ambridge-and-listeners-to-the-archers-save-the-bull-ambridge?recruiter=45817997&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=share_petition&recruited_by_id=c320f9e0-7d09-0130-ecdf-00221964dac8

The Professor travels to Harold Jayson’s funeral

There was a good Abba beard joke on the outward journey but that aside this was top class drama covering a very difficult issue of abuse in a sensitive and appropriate way. Don’t expect to read that in the Daily Telegraph though.

When will Josh Archer be arrested?

While we appreciate that PC Knacker Burns is fully engaged in hunting for the missing bunting isn’t it about time that Josh Archer was arrested and questioned about dealing in stolen property? Do Archers get indemnity in Ambridge?

In Other News

Kirsty’s on/off wedding is on again as she plans an overnight trip with her latest to Borth.

Beard Liberation Front

25^th January

contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Poll finds most think Robert Burns was a bearded radical

The National

The Beard Liberation Front has said that with Burns Night on Saturday a poll has found that 42% believe Burns really had a beard contrary to his Establishment ‘clean-shaven’ image.

The poll carried out by the BLF in the week before Burns Night found 42.86% of respondents backed Burns as a beard wearer with just 14.29% agreeing that he was a ‘clean shaven Establishment Man’. The remainder said they planned to consider the matter over a meal of haggis, neaps and tatties and a dram or two of malt whisky.

The campaigners say that the likelihood was that the clean shaven image of Rabbie Burns was a construction over many years of pogonophobes, or beard haters. There is a strong possibility that the poet had facial hair for much of the time and this may have influenced his poetry.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, let’s face it. Burns had a beard

Beard Liberation Front

18th January

Contact Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social

Stout is not ‘lost’ in facial hair but used to strengthen the follicles

Quite Interesting the twitter account run by the BBC programme QI occasionally tweets about beards more often than not with a pogonophobic bias.

The tweet below from 24^th January 2020 is no exception

It is estimated that 163,000 pints of Guinness are lost each year by being absorbed into facial hair: the average drinker takes 10 sips to sink a pint, of which 0.56 millilitres is trapped in the average moustache at each sip.

Guinness is not lost in facial hair but used deliberately by the hirsute to marinade and strengthen the follicles.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, if you are going to do this its best to use the more robust Guinness Extra Stout

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release 25th January

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

CAMPAIGNERS SAY BURNS FOUND HAGGIS ‘BEARD FRIENDLY’

On Burns Night on 25th January the Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has declared haggis, whether in its traditional or vegan form, to be amongst the beard friendly of foods.

Burns called the haggis the ‘Great chieftain o the pudding’-race.

The poet was clear himself on how beard friendly haggis is, ending his poem with the verse:

Old Scotland wants no watery stuff,

That splashes in small wooden dishes;

But if you wish her grateful prayer,

Give her [Scotland] a Haggis!

It is clear here that Burns was contrasting the haggis, whose consistency, with oatmeal to bind the ingredients together, means that it can be eaten without the danger of getting any in the beard, with other dishes where this was an issue.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, the debate about whether Burns himself ever wore a beard continues. It is clear however that he thought haggis was amongst the beard friendly of foods.

Petition to Save The Bull. Stop Splitter Snell. Sign the Petition Now!

The Ambridge Socialist

24th January

Following the controversial decision to change the name of The Bull and potentially its entire character, on which no regular user was consulted, we have set up a petition to demand the name change be stopped and the community- people who actually drink in The Bull- are consulted fully about any future changes.

Lynda Snell who by her own admission hardly uses The Bull is trying to protest at attempts to ‘modernise’ the pub by changing its name by encouraging a boycott. Her protest if successful will not save The Bull but see it shut.

Sign the petition, engage with the owner of The Bull Lillian Bellamy & get her to keep The Bull as the iconic pub that it is,tho preferably with decent beer

https://www.change.org/p/residents-of-ambridge-and-listeners-to-the-archers-save-the-bull-ambridge?recruiter=45817997&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=share_petition&recruited_by_id=c320f9e0-7d09-0130-ecdf-00221964dac8

A Visit to Brewdog Alcohol Free

I’m not doing Dry January and never do. While I know the history of the temperance movement and respect at least some of it, I’m not an adherent.

Of course people have all kinds of reasons for not drinking from personal preference and principle to health and perhaps age (the last two may impact my liking for beer eventually I suspect).

So I welcomed Brewdog’s decision to open an alcohol free beer bar at (the rear of)207 Old St on the northern edge of the City of London.

It was previously part of the Draft House chain that Brewdog bought. I’d been in occasionally and I cant say it appeared all that different(though it has been thoroughly renovated).

Its on two levels with ample, comfortable seating, working wi-fi and a relatively small-ish bar area with 16 taps of low or no alcohol beer. There are also a couple of hammocks. Take care out there.

I stopped by at 6pm one day in opening week earlier in January and it was fairly busy though not rammed.

I ordered a pint of Hazy AF (0.5% £5.90) sat down and pondered how to smash capitalism, as you do.

Anyway more mundanely the beer was not particularly hazy, coldish and carbonated and tasted ok. It tasted less great as I got down the glass and it got less cold. It was still perfectly drinkable but not something that made me think, hmm, perhaps another.

Fortunately one of the original London craft beer pubs, the Old Fountain, is immediately over the road. It was busy, as it more or less always is. I had a glass of a Burnt Mill pale that was decent.

So a beer flexitarian….

I hope the Brewdog AF bar does well. There is a genuine demand and market there for such a venture. Its not particularly attractive to me at the moment, but you never know…

Those Were the Days: Wetherspoons First 10 original pubs tour

The original Muswell Hill Marlers Bar

The February/March 2020 issue of CAMRA’s London Drinker magazine carried details of a tour by a group of hardcore Wetherspoons fans of what they judged to be the first ever 10 Wetherspoons pubs opened.

The tour before Xmas 2019 was designed to mark the 40^th anniversary of the first Wetherspoons, Marlers Bar in Muswell Hill.

All of course are in north-east London, once the limits of Tim Martin’s pubs horizon

Only one now, the Rochester Castle in Stoke Newington, remains open as a Spoons. It was due to be sold but according to North London CAMRA is off the market.

I’m not sure the list is really accurate but full marks for trying. The stated aim was to visit the locations of the first 10 actual Wetherspoons pubs when Tim Martin had split business wise from Andrew Marler. Working it out, as anyone including the BBC who contact me about this from time to time who tries soon grasps, is fiendishly difficult.

I’ve drunk in all of them over the decades except what is now the Despard. I would have thought the Tollgate in Turnpike Lane (an ex-Spoons) and the Elbow Room in Tottenham (still open not a Spoons) might well qualify as amongst the earliest.

Further having spent many evenings drinking in Dicks Bar (its opposite Hornsey police station) in Tottenham Lane N8 over the years I’m not so sure it was styled as a Spoons. Still memory is not a great way of remembering things.

Click to access LDvol42_1.pdf

Lord Moon of the Mall* (reverted to McMullens)

Furlongs (Marlers, Colney Hatch Lane)

Dicks Bar Crouch End (shop)

Old Suffolk Punch Green Lanes (betting shop)

Mortimer Arms, Harringay (Old Ale Emporium)

Marlers Bar, Stoke Newington (Coach & Horses)

Tanners Hall, Stoke Newington (Rochester Castle)

JJ Moons, Upper Holloway (Landseer Arms)

White Lion of Mortimer Stroud Green (White Lion)

Marlers Bar, Crouch Hill (The Robin)

Elbow Room Crouch End (Small Beer)

Marlers Bar, Archway (Charlotte Despard)

Coronet, Holloway Rd* (open ex-Spoons)

*start and end point not on the original list