Deep Dive Episode 28 ( London Pub Crawl )

Our special guest this week is Nathaniel Green.  Nathaniel  is a colleague of Brad and John's based in London and was gracious enough to put together  a historic pub tours for the boys in both London and Scotland

This week's show Nathaniel's stayed up late and discussed with us British Pub food, French farts, and the 300 year old history of some of the bars they visited during the historic London bar crawl. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I think you know what people think is oh a pub will be open late. In reality, most pubs, especially in the countryside, they're probably closing at 10, 11 at the latest. Um, so you go in and you get your drinks early and you have plenty of them, and then you go home and you pass out after eating some food on the way home, walking, stumbling, bouncing, you know, you find your way back. Where I think the French after work, what they do is they go find a place where they can sit outside and they make sure they it's got a really good view to judge the passerbys, and then uh then they order some small plate food and then sip their wine, thinking about you know why they smell their own farts.

SPEAKER_04 0:41

Perfect. I think that's very statically.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

All right, boys, here we are. Here we are, we are back again. Last time we were here, we had a tornado. We had tornado sirens, we did, and then like four days later, we had a blizzard that shut down most of Iowa, and then four days after that we had Props crooked in the backyard.

SPEAKER_04 1:02

Yeah, what was it, 80 some degrees yesterday? The when we played a basketball game at home in an unconditioned arena that was 91 degrees indoors. Yeah, see that? It's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

I wonder why they don't have concerts.

SPEAKER_04 1:13

The last of the snow is literally melting in the parking lots as people were standing out there.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

I don't trust Iowan March. It's it's okay. But other than that, I'm ready, man. It was a nice day today, and we had to be what it is, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 1:34

We have a guest today, John. You want to introduce him? I do, sure. So we are joined special guests uh from overseas. Nathaniel Green is a colleague of ours that we do some work with in London. He's based in London. Um, I've had a chance to spend several business trips with Nat. Uh, he's been gracious enough to take me on some amazing pub tours uh in our off hours in both London and uh up in Scotland and around Edinburgh. Uh, we had a large work event that uh took a good crowd of us over to London this past week. And uh we normally try to build in a little some evening time, dinners, other things like that. Nathaniel was gracious enough to put together kind of a historic pub tour for us. So uh we got a chance to take the dive bar pot on the road, if you will. And uh so Nat took us around. Uh we didn't record live there, so we're recording now. And Nathaniel's been gracious enough to stay up late in the wee hours of the evening in the UK uh time zone. And he's gonna help walk us through the pub crawl that we did. Of course, we'll post all of our picks and everything that we always do on our Facebook page to go along with the episode when it drops. But that is the uh cue. So without any further ado, uh Nathaniel, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

No, thank you for having me. Uh lovely to see you guys again. It's been uh you know long time since last week, but uh no, it's uh definitely had a good time. And you know, you'd go to some places that you don't go to every day in London, which is nice, but uh some nice historic stuff. And uh hopefully you guys took away a little piece of uh you know the history and stuff uh and the drinking culture a little bit over here.

SPEAKER_04 3:06

But we certainly did, and we'll I we we'll do a we'll get to we'll go through the pubs we went through and do the history of each of those in a minute, but I should keep up Nathaniel, I think is a good person to talk pub and bar culture because he went to college in the States, so he's uh well familiar and uh lived for a period of time in Chicago, so he's um no stranger to the dive bar culture. So I guess to queue up, Nat, if you want to give us your impressions of the pub culture in the UK versus the bar scene and maybe the dive bar scene in the US, have you got any opinions about the two?

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah, I think the there's major differences. I you know, I think when I was in the States for a bit of time, I was in Chicagoland, and then I went a little bit further out to a place called Hinkley, more towards like uh Rockford Way or sorry to Cowboy, but it the differences with you know you see in the States are kind of I think similar to what you can see here. You know, big higher population centers, you're gonna get a lot more crowds going out, and they're using their bars as their pregame for their nightclubs and things like that. And then when you go into your small towns, it's your like watering hole. It's the locals who all turn around and stare at you as you walk in and go, Who the hell is this new person? Um, and I would definitely say pubs are like that here, in that extent. They're more I would I would frame them more so in the small town place in the States where you're gonna have your locals and they go there most nights, meet their friends, it's where they catch up. Pubs here are a social experience and I would say very family friendly, which isn't, I don't think, so much a US bar theme. I would from my experiences, you know. You can bring the kid, bring the dog, you know, have make it a family day where you have like eight pints and then walk home together. But uh, you know, states is uh I think it's the difference is you know, you've got your jukebox, you've got your music, you go there and there's an atmosphere more, I think, in the states and the UK. It's quiet, it's a place for the most you can talk. Obviously, later in the night, people might get a little more noisy, but it's it's a social gathering, it's the public house, it's the place you go to after work and you catch up with friends.

SPEAKER_04 5:19

For sure. So, you know, we've talked a lot about the dive bars, and that's kind of the theme of our dive bar. So we always ask each guest what they think constitutes a dive bar. Since you've uh spent time in the States, uh, I'll throw that at you. And then on the back end of that, um, is there what you would call a quote unquote like a dive pub scene in uh London? Or how how do you distinguish a dive bar versus whatever a downgrade pub?

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Yeah, so well, I think my my take from being in the States a dive bar is yeah, it's one, say if you're in a university town, it's full of townies, and then you go in, the floors are probably sticky, and you're gonna go to the bathrooms, and it looks like a bomb has gone off and no one's really bothered, and you just make do with what you got, but you're gonna you're gonna get you know some definitely some interesting people in there, and it's always a good time, and it's one of those places you go into and you end up talking to everyone because eventually they kind of warm up to you coming in as you get enough drinks down your neck, you end up uh socializing and it becomes interesting for sure. But uh yeah, and then in terms of I guess uh what's a dive bar equivalent in the UK? You know, I I would call it what we call a rough pub. So it's it's it's a pub where yeah, the the rougher members of society go into they have like bottom shelf lager, like uh carling and stuff like that, and fosters on tap, and they're selling it for like four pounds a pint, and you go in again, similar sticky floors, destroy felt on the pool table, that type of environment.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

And viroposters or no?

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, so yeah, exactly. So that type, yeah. I'd say we have it. They're just a dive bar terminology is definitely a US-centric thing, but we have it here, it's just rough pubs.

SPEAKER_03 7:15

You know, I gotta be honest with you, Nat. I'm a little bit terrified of the British culture because um in the United States on our public television station, they have about six British shows. They're all from the early 1800s, like Miss Scarlet and the Duke, and people are just murdering each other like crazy over there. Like every every hour there's another murder in the small little town, and they're sitting in the corner of some pub trying to figure it out. Is that uh basically a good take on it?

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Or I think probably if you went to East London with Jack the Ripper back in the day when uh everyone, the water quality was so bad, everyone had to drink gin every day. So they're probably all like just getting it, probably hallucinating by the end of the day, might get a little stabby, you never know.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Right. Yeah, everybody gets a little stabby when they get hold of some bad uh pump water.

SPEAKER_04 8:05

So well, we're the bars out of the official tour, but uh the next day at lunchtime, uh Nat took us to a bar called the Hung and Corner, right by the London Tower, which had a bit of a dark history.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah, exactly. It's uh you know, back in the day you could uh see the people with heads on their heads on spikes uh on pikes around the Tower of London as a bit of a warning. Uh don't do what they did. And or just uh some nice people hanging and disembowel, you know, depends on the flavor of the day. Right.

SPEAKER_04 8:35

Just don't descend from the the throne.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 8:39

All right. Uh you got any other questions before we go through the tour? No, let's do the tour. Okay, let's lay into the tour, Nat. So um you took us the well, I guess first before we do that, even you picked the location, kind of the general area where we were at to start with. Like you want to just tell us a little bit about Old Town Central London. Um, and for those who aren't familiar with the geography of London, what is distinguishing about that?

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Yeah, so obviously London today is it's like most cities, it's expanded like massively over time. So what the areas I picked to take you guys out were is still called the City of London. So it's the original part of London, you know, getting on for 2,000 years ago now, Londinium, which the Romans came over and kind of planted along the estuary and built their walled city, um, continued obviously through history. And um it's most people don't realise, but actually the city of London has a different mayor than the than London itself, which is Greater London. So that's why all the banks and stuff are based there, because they get different tax rates. So anything outside of the city of London is considered Greater London. So you get your Kensington's, your Chelsea's, your Westminster's, your uh Putney's, Wandsworths, the all the boroughs, you know, it's basically over time all these towns and villages got uh incorporated and caught in the growth of the city and just became part of Greater London. So yeah, we went to the oldest part, which is uh always fun.

SPEAKER_04 10:08

Isn't it true that to this day, if the king uh wants to travel into that part of the city, they technically have to notify the mayor of London, and there's kind of a ceremony around that?

SPEAKER_01 10:19

I would imagine so yeah, because well, in terms of the residents, Buckingham Palace is in Greater London, so it's uh it's a different area, and there's actually a different police force as well. So there's a I'm sure there's some uh intricacies between it because they yeah, they've got a different so the Met Metropolitan Police can take care of Greater London, then you've got the police force for the city of London, and they wear like uh red and white checkerboard type like uh shoulder stripes on the uniforms that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 10:47

Yeah, yeah. All right, so we were in Old Town London, and we started the Blackfriars pub. And now you tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Yeah, Blackfriars Pub, it's you know, in terms of its age, it's obviously not one of the oldest in London. The site itself was uh uh where Dominican uh it was a Dominican friary, so the old school monk. So I guess what you would picture, like I guess in Robin Hood where you got the guy with the completely bold top, like Friar Tuck type characters living. Um, you know, and it's a grade two listed building, it's a protected building, it's uh nice, it's it's like a little wedge shape tucked right around all these big buildings, and it's uh the inside's nice. They've dedicated it to the monks with the metalwork and the you know the framings of everything in there, so it's definitely got some good character.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 11:40

Yeah, you've got some great picks of that. The interior was super cool. Um, you mentioned earlier the cask ales. I know several of us had different cascales at the Blackfire. Um, what's your take on the cascale? Do you recommend? Is it the thing to get there? Is it overrated? Is it what are your thoughts on cask ale?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Cask ale is something I think you know, I just looking at like British drinking culture. The younger you are, the more you're gonna be necking lagers and stouts and things like that. You know, a lot of young people will be on lagers and more carbonated or you know, fizzy alcohols like ciders as well. Um I think it's one of those things you start to appreciate more with age. And you know, I know a lot of people from the states who go, Oh, it's warm, it's the you know, but it's one of those things where if something's really cold and also carbonated, you can't get the true flavor profiles and stuff of the beer that you know when it when it's not that ice cold temperature, you can actually get the hops and the malt flavors coming out of it. And I think you'd be surprised, you know, once you try it, it's actually quite good.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

So just to let everybody that's listed know that doesn't know what a cascale is, can you tell us what is different between a cascale and a regular barrel ale?

SPEAKER_01 13:00

So, yeah, cascales and the I think for me the biggest thing as well is the way they're poured as well was important. If you go into a pub, you're gonna, you know, if you've never been to, I guess, a European style environment for pubs and things like that, especially British Isles or Ireland, you're not gonna be familiar, you're gonna be like, what is this long pipe that they stuff down to the bottom of the glass? And they fill from the bottom up, it's not a top pour. And they overfill the glass, it pours over the side, you're gonna have a little bit of a wet glass. And I think, you know, like you guys have already hinted at, it's not ice cold. And I think it allows you to taste it and enjoy it, and compared to a lager, it's gonna be a lot more carbonated, the lager. And I feel like you can it's one of those things, the older you get, it's kind of like Guinness. You you think it's heavy when you're younger, but you realize that it's something you can drink quite a lot of because it's actually more lighter and compared to other beers. And I think ales come under that same viewpoint for me as well. Where I think you can get away with more without feeling like you're pregnant by the end of the night with your belly broken out.

unknown 14:07

Right.

SPEAKER_03 14:07

So do they actually come out of a wood cask, or are they they come out of a keg just like a regular beer or not?

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Um, I've I've for the most they're wood casks, I believe. Yeah, so I think with modernization, I don't know how many, if it's still if they're you know, they're still doing that, but I think it's also that's where you get the flavors and stuff that you wouldn't from like the metal kegs and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

And are they are they pulled or is it vacuum pulled or is it gravity pulled?

SPEAKER_01 14:36

It's vacuum pulled, it's that old school, that's why you see them pumping. They don't just flick the the tap down or the to let it pour. They you see it pumping, and that's why they put it down at the bottom first. And yeah, I think you know it's just uh old school, and it's definitely something you can appreciate if you see it for the first time.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

Yeah, you know, I United States is going through a bit of a um craze that we have to thank for you. And um, I think probably three in every five beers that come on the market now are an Indian pale ale. Yeah, um, a lot of the Indian pale ale that I had 20-some years ago were all cask-fed, you know, have them sitting on top of their beer coolers up top, and then they would have some sort of aerator at the top where they would fill the pale ale and um yeah, so IPA's been around forever.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Yeah, like the IPA crazy feels like has been like more the last 15-20 years, right? There's a craft IPA everywhere, but like IPA's been being poured in in the UK since I don't even know.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

Since we've been going since the British Isles have been going to India at least.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yeah, we got we gotta think the thank the British Raj for that, I guess. But uh yes, I guess some hipsters have bastardized uh our founding ideology of a nice uh cascade when wanted to make it more fruity and flavorful.

SPEAKER_04 16:02

The history of it is they added extra hops for the journey to India for the colony there, but yeah, there was no hazy fruit IPA back in the smoothie, uh the Americans bastardize the good concept.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Is there a craft brew scene though? Like I was I was trying to figure out Nathaniel when we were over there, if there were like I know there's been regional beers in the UK. So you if you're from this part of you know England, you drink a particular brand, but did did you like the US have these local kind of garage startups that then became a thing?

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Or yeah, if you I you know I think if you look if you were to say, I know that England isn't particularly large geography-wise, so I don't I think it's hard for people to understand that you can travel half an hour, 45 minutes, and it's completely different accent and also way of thinking a little bit to an extent, and you can get that where you're gonna have regional ales and things like that, like in the southwest where I was at a few years ago and grew up when I was younger. You know, that there's an ale there called Doom Bar that's really really started up and it's actually becoming popular and it's catching on more nationwide. But that was more of a regional thing it started off with. Um, so yeah, I you know, I think there definitely is that, and I think some of the bigger companies like brewdog and stuff like that, they try and do all these funky stuff some from time to time, but I think there definitely is more so on the smaller scale. You'll find at local pubs, they'll have local breweries they go to for their beers and things like that.

SPEAKER_03 17:38

From my time in Weybridge, uh my general observation would be that everything was so compact. Like that was the first time I ever had a washer and a dryer in the same unit. My refrigerator was basically a little bit bigger than a college dorm refrigerator. You know, I had to go to the store every night. That Americans have this huge basement or third star garage or whatever to have all of this brewing equipment, all this craziness. And um in England, or at least the place I was, there just wasn't a whole lot of space if you wanted to brew beer somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

No, exactly. Yeah, you're exactly right. Most people, everything's walking distance, you don't have like a lot of stuff, and if you do, good luck finding a place to put it. So I you know, I think a lot of these places that's why. So for like the southwest, there's a lot more room to play there, it's in the countryside more. You know, they probably got more, they can build a shed in their garden, that type of thing. Where you know, if you're in the London area, yeah, good luck to you if you want to try and get a setup going.

SPEAKER_04 18:41

All right. So the next uh pub, which was about a block and a half, two blocks away, was the Bell.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

If I got that order correct, yeah, Old Bell Tavern. Uh so that had been a tavern for 300 years, and their claim to fame is uh they're on the same uh street as uh Sweeney Todd.

SPEAKER_04 19:00

Oh, yeah.

unknown 19:01

All right.

SPEAKER_04 19:02

And that building, right, is believed to be one of the few it that survived the fire of 1666. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Yes, correct. Yeah, because even some of the, as we'll get to later down the line, some of the those pubs weren't lucky enough to survive it and had to be rebuilt. So yeah, it was uh definitely uh one of the rarer ones that survived it.

SPEAKER_04 19:24

The question came up when we were sitting there, someone wanted to know how that fire started. Google says that that fire started by a bakery that did not clean the embers out of their oven at night very well. Okay, and the city was so overgrown and all wood timber that it just went up uncontrollable. So that was that's the history of the Great London Fire. Right. The Bell was one of the few, maybe the only tavern we went to that is the original building that survived that fire. It also kind of came away as most notorious for our Simpco crew because they had bass ale on the cask. So uh we do have questions about bass ale the theta that was seemed to be really prevalent 15, 20 years ago in the States. Yeah, and it it said it had England's oldest trademark, the red triangle. Yeah, saw it everywhere. You don't see it in the States anymore. I I think we can answer the question we saw sparingly, but it is bass ale hard to find as hard as we seem to make it to find anyway.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

I don't think if it's it's as hard to find as it is in the states. Obviously, they've still got a market presence here. I think the problem is, is like I hinted at earlier, is the shift in the younger generations into they're drinking ciders and lagers, so maybe their market share is going down a little bit, so they're having to pick and choose the areas of where they're succeeding at. But yeah, you definitely see, and it wasn't planned. I didn't know they were gonna have it. I didn't, you know, look at the pubs.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

So it was just uh, I think really uh fortunate that we I would have believed that you had had scouted that out and you picked it specifically to scratch the itch that you knew I was in search of. I was super excited to see Bass on Tap because it's like like we mentioned in the States at least, I think since COVID, it's been non-existent. And so it was a nice treat. We were um we were not met with a friendly reception when someone in our party wanted to get a black and tan. Oh, yeah. And uh the bartenders thought that that was absolute sacrilege. They'd never heard of such a thing, and they weren't about to uh do a half and half.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Well, I mean, yeah, I mean that they're too young to, I think, understand it, and they're just they were so far up their own arse, I don't think they knew obviously everything. But yeah, there's typical like look like Silverspoon Union University students who were just forced to get a job to pay for their weekends. So yeah, I don't think they didn't want to do any more work than they had to.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

It was a short stop, but it was, I think many of us had the bass. Yes. And uh, you know, a bag of chips, and we were uh, I guess I should say crisps, uh some salty, crunchy things because we knew we were gonna have to try and get some food in us, and that was a little bit of a challenge, but we got it we got it done. But short stop, bass on top. Uh great place.

SPEAKER_04 22:01

So, really quick on the black and task stand, is that something you were familiar with in you know growing up moving pubs, or is that strictly like an American thing, or was it a thing that's gone? What's the take?

SPEAKER_01 22:12

It's an older generation. I I you know, I think it would be like my my dad's generation, definitely more so that they would know about that than my generation.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Okay, but we didn't make it up over here.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

You're saying no, I don't think so. Yeah, because I spoke to Stu about it. He said, Oh, this he said they're just too young.

SPEAKER_04 22:30

All right. Well, I had had someone once upon a time tell me in the States at a Irish pub that the gist is a black and tan is they'll pour them in Ireland because the English ale's on the bottom and the Irish is on top. I don't know for city.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

I wouldn't be surprised. There's always some uh you know, healthy love to say the least in that department.

SPEAKER_04 22:50

So, yeah, so from the bell, then we went to one that I think everyone really enjoyed, and that was the old Cheshire Cheese, which maybe is the most famous if you just Google historic pub of London.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Yeah, so yeah, Cheshire Cheese. Um one uh 1538, it was founded on its location, didn't survive the great fire, so it was rebuilt in 1667. You go inside and it's definitely yeah, it's like stepping back in time a little bit. You know, they've got little hidden rooms, everything's you know, each room's got its own different presence and I think feeling to it, which is quite nice. Um, and it's had a fair share of uh famous visitors over its time, Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens. So quite a spread of timeline there for those people visiting the establishment. But uh again, yeah, kind of uh kind of a shit show when we arrived in there. They run around like headless chickens.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

So they were trying to get a uh food order in before the kitchen was closed. But yeah, that the you know, you talked about like the heritage of it, and they had uh posted signage outside that said, you know, how long they'd been going and uh under each king and queen, and they had had to like add on to pacharo, like they had a little extension of the of the little namesake that has all the you know famous, uh well not famous, but kings and queens of England, right?

SPEAKER_04 24:15

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because we did do food there. Um, you want to talk just a little bit about pub pub food culture and uh the difference between I know standard pub fare, uh a little bit about that, but any of the more dodgy places that you would call a dive pub, what would you expect uh for food if any at a place like that in the UK?

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Oh a dive pub, like yeah, like a rough pub, looking at it, and uh, I'm just stealing it off this old bloke I knew who were at uh one of the my first jobs. His name, he I can't remember his name, but he would call it Bing Food because they just pop it out of a microwave. It's just like God knows what it is. Yeah, but you know, you've got levels of pubs, you've got your rough pub, you've got your normal local, and then you've got gastro pub. And gastro pubs just happen to be really nice restaurants with beer, good beer on tap, where there used to be a pub at some point in time and they converted it into a nice eatery, and you can still just get a lot of beer.

SPEAKER_04 25:16

Uh so what we had at the Chesare cheese, we had scotch eggs, yeah, which I think you can see find in a lot of places at right now.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Is that a pretty yeah, scotch eggs? I mean, I think I think for you guys, people probably prefer them warm. We like that stuff cold, like pork pies, scotch eggs. I'll eat that cold as like food on the road. If I'm driving for work and I need something quick to eat, I'll grab that. Uh, you know, sometimes depending on how I'm feeling, of course. But you know, that plowman's is big for us as well. Like obviously, plowman's is again, it's just a mix of cheeses, salad, some type of you know, pickles, stuff like that, pickled jarred, you know, pickled onion, that type of stuff, and you'll put it in a sandwich. Um, obviously, the form we had was more kind of just spread apart, but I would say most of the time it's a plowman's in a sandwich form. But in terms of hot food, which we didn't have there, but you know, steak and ale pies, fish and chips. I think it's fish and chips is definitely more of an idea of pub food if you're in the city and people are coming as tourists. If you're at a proper countryside pub, you go to your you're not gonna have fish and chips at the pub, you're gonna go to your chip shop after you've been drinking, and that's kind of like your late night dirty food. You go to the chippy and stumble home, get a battered sausage and uh and you know, a large cotton chips with vinegar and uh salt.

SPEAKER_04 26:40

So perfect. And so the pies, uh meat pie, steak pie, chicken and leek pie. What's your favorite?

SPEAKER_01 26:48

I like I really like steak and ale pie, but you know, I chicken, chicken, bacon, and leek, that's another close second, I would say. Um yeah, it's it's good food for if the weather shit, it's cold outside and it's right, yeah, raining. You're gonna go after work, get out of the weather, meet up with some friends. You're gonna drink prominently first, and then you're kind of gonna load up on some food after. We're not like the French who go to eat first, which is ridiculous. So we're gonna go we're gonna go drink first and then get food after trying to soak it up.

SPEAKER_04 27:22

That's right. Yeah, so you tapped on maybe one of the questions we were gonna ask you was the difference between French, Parisian, and France uh drinking culture, pub culture, which I we're not even gonna call it that versus uh London in the UK.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Probably yeah, if all if I was French and like say, you know, when I was closer to my uh friends before I moved to you know this area, every Friday we'd meet at the pub like clockwork as soon as we all finish work, and we'd probably stay there till nine, ten at night and go home. Because I think you know what people think is oh, a pub will be open late. In reality, most pubs, especially in the countryside, they're probably closing at 10, 11 at the latest. Um, so you go in and you get your drinks early and you have plenty of them, and then you go home and you pass out after eating some food on the way home, walking, stumbling, bouncing. You know, you find your way back. Where I think the French after work, what they do is they go find a place where they can sit outside and they make sure they it's got a really good view to judge the passerbys, and then uh then they order some small plate food and then sip their wine, thinking about you know why they smell their own farts.

SPEAKER_04 28:33

So perfect. I think that's very succinctly. Some some opinions of the French never change. That's right, exactly. All right, the last thing on the food front before we get off the topic, uh, do you want to explain and then try to justify the British breakfast?

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Yes. Um, you know, I think it's one of those things. If you come over here, you need to try a proper fry-up breakfast. You're gonna need your black pudding. Yes, yes, it's congealed blood cooked in a sausage. It's fantastic. Don't knock it until you try it. Right. You know, our sausages, the the back bacon, you you know, we've incorporated hash browns now into it. So there are hash browns in our breakfast. You know, you've got the you've got the fried tomato, you've got the mushrooms, and you've got what we call fried eggs, sunny side up for you guys, and make sure the yolks always runny. And then we add beans in because when you've got that much meat and fattiness, you need some type of, you know, the tomato our beans are tomato-based sauce, so it helps uh break through the the saltiness and the fattiness of the meat to kind of give it a you know a balance to the acidic part of the breakfast, if that makes sense. And also, you're eating that much meat, you're gonna need some fiber.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:50

All right, that's probably the best excuse I've had. I mean, I I went to Stratford upon Avon, stayed in uh a little bed and breakfast type of thing, and the kind of the the highlight of that breakfast was the beans. I had more beans than I had anything. I had like two or three chunk, good sized chunks of sausage, but their beans were what they were proud of. Yeah, that's what I was having that morning.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

I for one am a fan. I love it.

SPEAKER_04 30:20

I haven't been a big fan of the beans on the plate, but I'll tell you what, you definitely described it and justified it in such a way I might have to revisit it.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Did you leave out the and maybe this is more of a I'm used to what they call the Ulster Fry, which is more like a Northern Ireland thing, but like there's often as well um brown bread that's been fried. Yeah, so yeah, on an English breakfast plate at times.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

So I think when you go up north more, if you go up to like Yorkshire and places like that, you'll get fried bread. Down by me, it's more so an optional side of toast. Okay. I'd say if you want toast on the side, you go up north, they'll do like fried white bread and then Scotland. Scotland's breakfast is actually really good. You you get square sausage, you can get potato like pancakes, yes, love those with it, and uh, and then they do haggis as well, which is also I'm a big fan of haggis, but I don't know how many people actually like eating, you know, hearts or lungs and stuff, you know, it's an acquired taste.

SPEAKER_04 31:16

Certainly an acquired taste, that's for sure. But I don't mind it. Avec haggis, you're Scottish, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:21

I I enjoy haggis, I enjoy Scotch eggs too. That's uh so you know, not deviating too far from what we're talking about in um with the the Parisians. You know, is there a difference between the Scottish pub, the Irish pub, and the British pub?

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Yeah, I think there's the distinct differences. So I'll start with the Irish because they're across the water. They're definitely it's more of um at least, you know, it depends. You've got to pick and choose like it anyway. You're gonna have more touristy places, you're gonna have more local places. And you know, I was across in Belfast for uh a conference one time, and me being me, I just went out by myself one evening and up chatting to two Irish guys, one was a unionist and uh one was a Republican, which was definitely interesting. But they they they grew up together and they're like ah it's just an old people problem. But uh, I stayed out with them, all the pubs closed, and they pulled me in uh the back door of one of them, and they had you know the Irish music playing, live instruments, stuff like that. And I think in that regard, I would say it's more of a a warm atmosphere with the Irish pubs. You can get it's a little more lively, there's music, you know, it's it's gonna be a little bit more going on. Uh Scottish pubs, you know. I think yeah, it's uh they they're rugged and cozy, if that makes any type of sense. It's they're definitely Scotland's a rainy place similar to Ireland, probably if not even a little worse with the weather. They look rugged on the outside, you go on the inside, they're nice, you know, places to be out of the weather and good spirits. Obviously, the Irish are known for their spirits as well. But when you're in Scotland, you're gonna get some good Scotch selection, stuff like that, that most pubs you're gonna go to anywhere else aren't gonna have the variety that you're gonna pick from off the shelf. Um and then I'd say England is like uh, you know, it's definitely the outside of London is more of the yeah, the public house atmosphere. You're going to meet your friends, you're gonna no one's gonna be playing like loud music, you're all gonna be sat around on your individual tables and everyone's gonna be catching up and you know, just having their discussions of what they did for the week and what they're you know, just being with friends. Well, in London and I guess population centers, the pub culture is depends where you are. People go straight from work on a weekday, you're gonna see them there in their suits, briefcases, they're gonna drink until they stumble home and just pass out and wake up for work. Then on a Friday through Saturday, they're gonna use it as their, I guess, what we call pre-drinks, pre-game for you guys, and they're gonna go there and then they're gonna go to a nightclub that's open until like seven in the morning afterwards. So, but I would say they all have inter-mingling similarities, but obviously, you know, I know Irish people won't and Scottish people don't like I wouldn't like an Englishman saying this, but we're not so different, but we like to say we are. We just we're it's like uh a load of brothers like wanting to beat each other up all the time. But you know, you look at in terms of the pub cultures, there is similarities but also uniqueness at the same time, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 34:37

Right. If you get out in the countryside, like not in London proper, not not in the cities. Are all three cultures they all have families there, kids in the pubs eating dinners? And is that similar in that way?

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Yeah, I'd say so. And you know, the pub is where you're gonna meet up with the in-laws and stuff like that, and the kids are gonna come along, and then the dads, and yeah, a lot of the time in uh British women or Scottish or Irish women, they're all gonna drink their fair share too. But a lot of the time it's the guy the dads are having a lot to drink with the father-in-law or their dad.

SPEAKER_02 35:12

I was gonna ask you, Nathaniel, because I was told, and I don't know if this is a particular thing to Irish culture or Irish pubs, but can you talk a little bit about the snug? Like, are are there is there a snug? My experience of the snug in in Belfast when I was there was there's there's a place called the Crown right across from the uh Europa Hotel, and they have these little booths that are set up, and it's got like a little window, so you go inside this the the pub booth, if you will, has a door on it, and you can slide a pint you know through it. And I I I understand. All of the Peaky Blinders fans listening are like, yeah, I know that. And I thought that was I don't know if this is true, and maybe you can verify if it is or not, but I thought that was like maybe women weren't supposed to be seen drinking in public, so like a snug was a place where they could do that, or maybe there was something to do with the clergy as well. Is there any truth to that, or do I have my my snug legend straight?

SPEAKER_01 36:10

To be honest, I think that would probably be more nail on the head for that. Because if you look at it as well in that regard, they're not gonna stuff the like uh working class common guys in there who just got back from a shift in the factory in there. They're gonna reserve it for people that aren't gonna want to be bothered or seen, and they kind of want their own space to be a little bit private in the pub, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 36:34

Yeah, I did I read a book on the history of Irish pubs that did confirm that the original uh reason for the snug was for women andor clergy. Yeah, but to your point, uh, we've been at some pubs in Dublin, and there were people, some famous people there, and that's what the snub is clearly for. Yeah. So they could be out of sight, out of mind, and not harassed for stuffies and autographs. Yeah. But one thing I wanted to ask you about the uh London pubs, and I have not seen this in other places in Europe, is this practice of standing outside drinking your pints, not in a you know, a dedicated beer garden or space associated by any account with the pub, but people getting their pints, going outside, and just the block of the pub standing on the sidewalks like that.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Yeah, it's uh that's the after, you know, especially on a weekdate, it's just full of suits. They're all standing outside. There's literally no room inside, it's just packed to the gills, and everyone, yeah. You drink outside on the street, you don't have to worry about open container or anything like that, and you're not gonna get bothered by the police unless you're being stupid, chucking pint glasses at people.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

But you know, and they give you a real pint glass, right? It's not like they give you a paper cup or a plastic cup.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

You get like you like get a proper yeah, they get you get a proper glass until about like 20 minutes before closing, they give you a to-go cup.

SPEAKER_04 37:55

Okay, which all right, back to the tour. The last place we did on the official tour was the bank. Yes, if I got that right.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Yes, so the the Bank of England, so uh 1888 to 1975, it was, I guess, best way to put it is the treasury building for us, which is the the Bank of England, and then someone you know that moved on and they had to relocate it probably to make it larger and go somewhere else. So, you know, someone had the bright idea of turning in. And I think you know, obviously it's it's not old in terms of age of being a drinking establishment, but the building itself on the inside definitely has some uniqueness and character to it. And you know, as we saw in the back garden as well, they got a double decker London bus out back too. So they've definitely you know made their own mark in their own way and utilized the you know the the architecture of the building to their advantage.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

Yeah, that's uh very ornate, really beautiful space. It was outside. Yeah, super nice.

SPEAKER_06 38:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

What I found out after the fact, um, I think the next day I took a train down to visit some friends, um and I met him in Richmond, and they're big rugby fans. And I had noticed that like as a most of the pubs don't have televisions.

SPEAKER_05 39:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

Um sports, that's more of a sports bar or sports pub.

SPEAKER_05 39:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

And in the bank, they did have a TV going, and there were some just very intent, you know, TV watchers. And I realized that wasn't there a rugby, I think it's Six Nations Rugby. I used to think it was Seven Nations, but Six Nations Rugby was going on, and uh England was playing France, and I think it went into like maybe even extra minutes or something like that, and England won. And we were just carrying on and drinking our gin and chatting about, but I think that was a pretty big game that was taking place, and there were definitely some people in there to watch that.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Yeah, no, I you know, it's West London, specifically where Richmond is, because that's right next to Twickenham, so that's where the national stadium is for the rugby team for England rugby team. So it's like an 80 80,000 seat stadium, something like that for rugby. And yeah, you know, West London, I I I would say it's probably the area where people are a little bit more well off and they're not so into the yeah, the football hooliganism, and they're more into the more civil rugby or beat beat the shit out of each other for rugby's more civilized than football, is what you're saying. Well, in terms of not when you're beating the shit out of each other for 80 minutes, but then afterwards you shake hands and have drinks together where the football hooligans will just stab each other or something or chuck bricks. So but yeah, the you know, six nations is a big deal. It's every year, uh Italy, France, England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland uh play in like a tournament uh against each other, and it's whoever's got the most wins at the end gets through England. We're favourites going in, and then we absolutely just uh lost the plot. So yeah, if we want to speak about that.

SPEAKER_03 40:59

What are you afraid of? Uh New Zealand and Australia or what?

SPEAKER_01 41:03

Well, actually, that's why we were favourites going in because we beat New Zealand, and that going in, we're looking in good shape, and then uh then yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Oh, so in the end, did the did England lose to France then?

SPEAKER_01 41:15

In the yeah, they yeah, they converted a kick in the last minute of the match. And then that then they won the six nations off of that.

SPEAKER_06 41:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

So the Irish weren't happy with us, the Scottish weren't happy with us because they were they were needing us to win, but I don't think we were wanting to do them any favors either.

SPEAKER_04 41:32

But all right, so those were the four we did on the official pub tour. I didn't prep you for this, but I assume you'll be able to speak to it, Nat. I want to ask you about a couple places that we visited or have visited that weren't part of this specific tour. First one is Churchill Arms, um, a pub that looks like it oozes a lot of history. Does it really oze history, or is this a tourist uh created destination?

SPEAKER_01 41:57

I would say it's very photogenic, and obviously, I was it you, Brad, that brought up the flowers.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

Oh, it was Josh that was asking about it.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Josh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So Josh was very curious because obviously church alarms is looks like someone's put a garden center on the outside of it, and they it's kind of it's kind of like uh what is it? Uh Temple Bar in Dublin, where they do it up on the outside all the time. I guess that's you know, the the equivalent is church alarms for Christmas, it's got lights all over the outside. So for specific things, they do do it up. And you know, I think in terms of its age, yeah, it's it's been around, but I think now in that part of London, it's definitely one of those places that's full fallen under the scrolling on Instagram reels and getting you know somewhere to go look at. Where I that were with the pub tour we did, I tried to kind of stay away from that. Blackfriars was obviously very busy, it is conveniently right next to a train station, yeah. But it wasn't like most of the you know, Cheshire Cheese is a bit different. Was it wasn't like we went in these places and it was rammed full of people like recording influencer TikToks and stuff, you know?

SPEAKER_04 43:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

But Churchill definitely, I would say, is falling under that these days.

SPEAKER_04 43:12

I think if if you're planning a trip to London and your Google pubs, pictures of Churchill is probably gonna be the first thing you see. Yeah, all flags inside, and like you said, heavily decorated with lights and stuff on the outside. So, but still a nice pub with proper pines for sure. Um, the other one I wanted to ask you about is Mr. Fogg's Hat Tavern, specifically the gin club speakeasy. Um, that place is phenomenal. Are there other speakeasy gin clubs throughout the city like that? Is that truly a London thing, or is that kind of a unique spot?

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Yeah, I think in terms of the, you know, there's there's Mr. There are Mr. Foggs dotted about that's a London centric thing, Mr. Fogg's.

SPEAKER_04 43:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

So obviously, I think with time they've grown in popularity, but I think that location there definitely is a unique one where you can go downstairs and you To walk past the you know through the painting door, and everyone keeps opening it, thinking they're going to the toilet, but they walk into that nice little space where you're down doing gin flights and all types of cocktails. So I'd say that one's more unique in in terms of that regard and the way it's decorated, and it's kind of like going in a time capsule. Where I think gin in in general, most pubs are going to serve some really good quality gin. If you go to a nicer pub and not a rough pub, you're gonna they're gonna have a good selection of gins to go through. And I I think it's you know that this day and age, with people being a little bit more health conscious, a lot of people are turning to gin and tonics for their evening drinks because it's a little uh little less heavy on the calorie front if you're drinking all night, too.

SPEAKER_04 44:46

Yeah. Well, you mentioned health trends. I was gonna save this for last, but since you mentioned it, we've heard there's this trend of some people planning dinners at restaurants that have no alcohol at all in London. Yeah. Are you familiar with this practice? And who would do such a thing? What's up with that?

SPEAKER_01 45:02

I heard the dickheads, to be honest. No, yeah, that was that was rather unfortunate. I thought Stu was gonna have a heart attack.

SPEAKER_04 45:12

This is a good joke for our listeners. Uh Nathaniel made reservations at an absolutely fantastic Indian restaurant for us in London, which is gonna do London is famous for its wonderful Indian food, and this was no exception. However, we were all somewhat surprised as we were scouring through the cocktail menu to see that it was all non-alcohol. Uh so we had to save our our intake for after the meal. We were a bit like Parisians that night.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

No, we are definitely judging and looking around that night. But uh yeah, and and the their I guess uh thinking on the menu was for health reasons, but you know, I think as well in the UK, a lot of Indian restaurants will be labeled as Indian cuisine, but they're actually cooked by like Bangladeshi cooks and staff. They're they're not Hindi or Sikh background, they're Muslim background, so it may be on the grounds of you know, it was Ramadan and things like that. It was Ramadan, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:06

Yeah, but I mean I think that's their policy year-round. Yeah, it looked like it was.

SPEAKER_01 46:10

But they might just say it's for health reasons, but maybe they got sick of serving drunk English people trying to eat curry and drink drink drink a load of beer because their curry's too hot, like uh my Danish colleague who was pouring sweat.

SPEAKER_04 46:24

So oh, that was great. Yeah, you need the spice in any of these places, that's for sure. Um, all right. The last two establishments I wanted to just touch on quickly. They're side by side in Kensington. To me, they both seem like dive bars. One clearly builds itself more so than the other. I think you know what I'm talking about. You want to uh tell us a little bit about those two establishments and any context around them.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Yeah, so we we were pleasantly surprised like uh when we were going by when after Churchill, we went to this place. It's a dedicated dive bath that's Philly themed. And uh it was definitely I you know, I think it's it's a really good idea as well, because there's a lot of expat Americans, especially in West London, that area, Kensington. You know, there's a lot of people in Holland Park, those areas that Hammersmith that I've noticed are from a US background that have been living in the UK for quite some time. As we saw in there too, they had quite quite a healthy you know patronage of look what it seemed like regular regulars that were in there and that have been over here for a while. So I think they're trying to get a little bit of a taste at home. And then right next door is the Prince of Wales, which yeah, it's one of the pubs that's open later, like midnight to one o'clock, depending if one they want to close and if the staff are fed up or if people were sick of drinks being spilled on the floor. Because yeah, that that was definitely in terms of that's a rough pub. If it's not rough pub in terms of the people drinking in it, but the way it's maintained by the staff, like that toilet. Like, oh my god, it was you might you might as well get a pair of wellies on and walk in there because it was like flooded, it was ridiculous.

SPEAKER_04 48:10

So, the first one you you talked about, if you walked up the street, you might think the name of this bar was American Dive Bar because that is what is above the door. What would be the sign? It's actually called Passiunk Avenue, obviously, a tribute to Philadelphia. And as Nat said, when you go in, it is all vintage Philadelphia sports decor. I think the menu is two things cheesesteaks and chicken wings. Yeah. Um, and they had a completely imitation ripoff Yingling called Yunkling with the exact same tap handle, which was fantastic. So, and PBR, which you will confirm is maybe the first time you said you've seen PBR on tap.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

Yeah, that was a first. I mean, we we made uh made sure we took advantage of that uh opportunity and had had had our fair view before calling it. But yeah, it was uh definitely uh, you know, I was like, I gotta I gotta drink at least three of these because uh when am I gonna get PBR on tap again?

SPEAKER_02 49:04

So that's right. So we tried to do that, John. I don't I don't like to correct you on a pub car all um lineup, but I think you missed one. You oh city of York. You were saying the bank was the end of the line, but we went to City of York. Oh, we did have one more. We went to a pretty solid place called City of York that um was part of I think the original tour.

SPEAKER_04 49:27

Yeah, we're just gonna edit this so it does not appear. We can fix it. We can fix that. Uh that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 49:32

We'll take that out in post as they say.

SPEAKER_04 49:34

I got so excited about the America Dive Bar and talking about it. I skipped the final one. So and I know you've done like an hour of research, so go ahead, Nat, tell us about it.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

No, so yeah, City York. I think for me, in terms of aesthetically looking at it, that was my personal favorite in terms of you know, you walk inside, it almost looks like you're walking into a church of beer, you know. That I think that's how I describe it, you know.

SPEAKER_04 49:58

Uh yeah, that was the kind of A-beams or whatever, and then yeah, had a little confessional booze.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

They had like the snug vibe, kind of, but it didn't have like a closing door, but had that little cozy booth vibe, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it looked like you know, you had to go to the priest if you're Catholic and confess your sins of the week, and then he'll say go set say uh ten Hail Marys and Five Our Fathers and have a pint afterwards. So uh you know, it's uh it was definitely nice. Um, it's been on that location since uh 15 1430. Sorry. So definitely one of the older ones, and it's even older than ye old Cheshire cheese. Wow. So it's uh I think it's one of the those hidden places as you saw inside it was more of the local crowd other than the screaming Welsh Welsh blokes, but uh who were using traffic cones as megaphones when they left.

SPEAKER_02 50:51

But uh you know oh the Welsh, yeah. What are you gonna do with them? And and we experienced the ringing of the bell, which is like get your ass out of here, because that must have been like 11 o'clock time to yeah, the liquor license closes at 11, so get on your way. And that's really cool. Three or four ringings, I think it was.

SPEAKER_01 51:10

Yeah, so they'll do the the one ringing is kind of kind of like get your attention, let's get a move on. Second ring's like, Come on, we really mean it now. Make sure you get your last orders in. And the third one's like, Yeah, I'm done with you, you're not getting any more. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 51:27

Yeah. And then be then was the taxi ride to the American pub that happened to be closed.

SPEAKER_04 51:34

Well, I was gonna say, and then we they're not real American die bar hospitable there because they did not let us in. He was done at whatever time that was kind of early. Yeah, there's no negotiating, I don't think. No, so why are pubs in some parts of the city open later then?

SPEAKER_01 51:48

Um, so you know, if you're in Kensington area, there's probably you know, the our local councils who run the licenses and stuff, okay. They'll best definitely be more so under the influence of people who constantly complain or write in with emails, uh, you know, saying, Oh, these people kept me awake at this time, I want you to shut down. So it's you know, it's because it's mixed in more with a lot of the residential areas of London. So that's why you know, for the most even in London or outside of London, your pubs will close at 11. So then you know, you're not kicking out at like two in the morning and everyone's screaming. Um, and in if you go more central, if you're gonna go into like Soho, you know, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, those areas, they'll be open till one o'clock, and then there'll be a conveniently located like nightclub and stuff next to them as well.

SPEAKER_02 52:41

But but there's that between hours. So, like when we tried to go to the American Dive Bar and they denied us entry, we went two doors down. Uh, what was the name of that place? Prince of Wales. The Prince of Wales. We went to the Prince of Wales, and they were clearly they had a raucous crowd and they were still going when we left, right? So somehow they decided we're gonna pay for the and they weren't a night, because like in my experience as a student, it was the pubs closed at 11, and if you wanted to drink after that, you had to pay a cover to go to like a nightclub, like a dance place, basically. And this was just a bar, this was a bar, it wasn't an I wouldn't call it a nightclub by any stretch. But they were like still rocking and rolling, so somehow they must pay an extra. I don't know, there must be some different liquor license you can get. I don't know how that works, but yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_01 53:31

And I you know, and it's up to you know, a lot of pubs in London at least will be under like Green King or Fuller's, which are like chain pubs. Okay, but they'll have different managers, and I think they that they have a little bit of play themselves of how they want to run it. And you know, like by your hotel, the Devonshire arms there, you know, right above them is a flat, so they kind of close right on time, especially on a Sunday. And I think obviously our days were bleeding together a bit because we're working over the weekend. We went out on Sunday expecting everything to be open, and yeah, that's one thing that's you know, here Sundays are still you know, it's becoming a little bit more Americanized where stuff's a lot more stuff is open than compared to when I was a kid, but Sundays are still really reduced working hours. You're talking like 11 to 4 o'clock at most most places, whether it's pubs or even stores of some kind where they try and give people at least one day off.

SPEAKER_02 54:29

Yeah, the other loophole that I found when I was a student was because we couldn't afford cover, right? So the the bars would or the pubs would close at 11. Yeah, and we had nowhere to turn. And I'm thinking, man, we're in one of the biggest metropolitan area, like biggest cities in the world, and like I can't get a drink at 11:30. What's going on? But we found out that across the street from where we were staying was a hotel, and they actually served as long as there was like a patron in the bar, they could stay open past 11. So that was our little way of keeping going. But if we didn't want to go pay seven pounds to get into a get into a spot, but it was interesting because I think that's an maybe that's a newer thing that what uh Prince of Wales is doing, like staying open post eleven. It's a good thing. I'm pro, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Yeah, I think as well, you know, you're gonna get areas and they're gonna they're gonna know all the local the other pubs in the area are gonna close down so they can kind of get an idea of the market they can get. They're like, well, there's a hole that needs to be filled here, so I I can make a little extra money being open an extra two hours compared to everyone else, which definitely that place was busy, so they're definitely making money.

SPEAKER_02 55:40

Yeah, there was some, yeah, it was crowded, and there was some uh there was some spillage, as you mentioned. There was some broken glass going down.

SPEAKER_04 55:48

Yes, so for sure. It was it was a proper mess, that's for sure. Um, London's famous for celebrity sightings now. What's King Charles's favorite pub? Where are you likely to see him at closing time of the business day?

SPEAKER_01 55:59

Oh, God knows with him.

SPEAKER_03 56:02

He's out in the countryside, isn't he? Whenever we see like the news carries that he stumbles into this little uh countryside pub and where the ceilings are only like five foot eight tall, and you get a duck over, and yeah, it's not Scotland.

SPEAKER_04 56:20

Yeah, the Queen did, right? She would be at Balmoral all the time, but I don't know if this is true. I had read as a tourist that with the Union Jacks flying over Buckingham Palace, that the monarch is there. And I think damn near every time I've been by Buckingham Palace, the Union Jacks are flying. So is that not? Is he always there?

SPEAKER_01 56:38

So it's opposite. If the Union Jacks up, no one's in. If the coat of arms is up, ah there you go. Okay, so that's the flag. Well, if I guess the best way to look at it is it it's four different squares of colours, and they're like yellows and blue and red, and or gold, blue, and red, and that's the royal family standard. Okay. So but he I Charles spends a lot of time at Windsor, which isn't far from where I am. Um he go obviously goes into Buckingham Palace a fair bit, but yeah, the the late Queen was definitely much more of a fan of being up in Scotland and definitely enjoyed her time up in Scotland.

SPEAKER_02 57:18

What was it that Josh was saying? Um we were talking football clubs. So um, what is the one that the Charles supports? You know?

SPEAKER_01 57:29

No, I've got no clue. I know I know Williams supports Aston Villa, which is quite strange, which is a Birmingham club.

SPEAKER_02 57:36

Oh, interesting. Yeah, and what's your what's your club, Daniel?

SPEAKER_01 57:40

Arsenal. We just lost uh in a cup final match today.

SPEAKER_02 57:43

Oh, sorry, sorry to hear it.

SPEAKER_01 57:45

That's fine. We're we're in the running, we're in the running for four of them, unlike Josh's team who are gonna get relegated.

SPEAKER_02 57:51

So he's Tottenham, and that's that's the team that you said could get yeah, relegated. They they could lose their status in the league.

SPEAKER_01 58:01

Yeah, and they're also my team's biggest rival, like absolutely despise each other, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:08

But there you go. So it's gonna happen? Are they gonna are they actually gonna go down?

SPEAKER_01 58:13

Well, they lost again today. They're literally tied on points with the teams in the bottom three of the league. So they've got another month, month and a bit to go, but yeah, it's not looking good for. And they're they're they're a big team. They just built uh a billion pound stadium that's used for NFL games as well in London. Oh wow. So they put a lot of investment in it, and they're gonna lose uh, I mean, a load of revenue if they go down, so it's gonna be bad for them.

SPEAKER_04 58:42

All right, uh, one more question for you on the pub front. You're a Guinness fan. Yes, what's the best poor Guinness in London?

SPEAKER_01 58:50

We haven't been there and we need to get you there. Is Devonshire Arms, it's owned by an Irish bloke. Um that that's known and has been rated. And Guinness, I I need to dig this out and send it to you, but Guinness had did release at one point in time what they rated as the best pours in London, is the establishments for that. So I've got it on my phone somewhere. I need to dig that out next time you're over.

SPEAKER_04 59:14

But uh I don't understand exactly how your pub names work because it feels like there's a Devonshire as often as there are Starbucks. Are these all independently? And is this one you're talking about, the one fairly close to Piccadilly?

SPEAKER_01 59:28

Yeah, yeah, that's that's the one more central, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:30

Okay, yeah, that seems okay. All right, boys. That leads us into our speed round distributing the pads, so much of a game to play. Nat, do you have a uh uh pen and paper there?

SPEAKER_01 59:44

Yes, I do.

SPEAKER_03 59:45

All right, it's time for the speed round.

unknown 59:47

I need it.

SPEAKER_03 59:47

All right, I should have asked. Do you guys have it all out of your system or do you have more questions?

SPEAKER_02 59:51

Um yeah, I think we I think we figured it out. My my biggest uh quandary around London and pub culture was why can't I get a drink at 11:05? Or with my tiki masala.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:07

But my my main question wasn't um necessarily drink related, but have you ever been to Worcester before?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

Yes, I have.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:15

Tell me, is there sauce really all that? Because in the United States, the Worcestershire sauce is all anybody talks about.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:23

I mean, it's really I you know, I if you have like steak pies and stuff, a lot of the like basses and and the slow cooking of meats, it's really good for that type of stuff. Yeah, and like uh another one is a Lee Perrin sauce, if that rings any bells.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:37

Oh, yeah, it does. That's the high holy.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:41

You know, those two uh are quite frequent, especially in slow cooking of beef and stuff like that, and lamb. Uh yeah, I think I think it's worth worth getting into if you haven't tried it before.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:54

Before we put the wrap on and go speed round, Nathaniel. We talked about you spending some time in Chicago. I think it's worth noting Nathaniel's grandfather played for the Chicago Bears. Uh, and I believe it was the first uh NFL player of Hispanic descent.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:07

Is that yeah, if my first or second, something along those lines? It was in uh it was in the mid-40s. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:14

Yeah, that was fascinating to learn. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:16

Saw that photo, that was amazing. Yeah, that's so cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:18

So, Nathaniel, his mom uh is obviously makes amazing authentic Mexican food, makes amazing authentic Chicago deep dish pizzas, and then all the staple British fare.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:29

So maybe that's the question. Where do you go in London for uh for a good Mexican food?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

I just go around my parents' house. I have her make enchiladas or tamales, you know. You know, I don't yeah, most of the time here it's some bastardized version because people have no clue what it is. The only thing I'd go for is the tequila.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:52

There you go. Is there respectable pizza in London? Yeah, Chicago style.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:58

No, not Chicago style. In terms of pizza, obviously, we do get a lot of Italians that move here. There's this place um in Chiswick we had pizza the other day at, and it's actually voted top 10 pizza in the world, but it's that like uh Napoli style pizza, real thin base, fluffy, light crust, real Italy style pizza, not like uh Chicago pub style pizzas and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:23

So I know, right? And you've not found a good pork tang bomb in the UK, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:29

No, I think that there's a gap in the market. Yeah, there's an opportunity there. There's a people love Jager bombs here, so let's why not why not reinvent them?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:40

All right, I like it. All right, right, you got a speed round for us. All right, time for the speed round, everybody. Get out your pad and paper. We are going to the three Isles of the British Isles, Scotland, Ireland, and of course England. I have made up three pub names to real. So I will give them to you once. I'll go through the list and you'll write down whether or not you believe this pub name is real or fake, and then we'll go back through a second time and you'll tell me. So the first one, the frog and rhubarb. The frog and rhubarb, is that a real name or not? Second pub name, the Baron's Thunder Mug. The Baron's Thunder Mug. The third pub name, the trolley crown, the trolleyed crown, the fourth, the hairy lemon, and the last pub name, the mutton banger. Is the mutton banger real or not? So we'll go through Nat since you're our guest. The first one, the frog and rhubarb. Did you was it real or did was it made up?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:57

That sounds real to me. I went made up.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:00

Brad? Real. Real. The frog and rhubarb is real. So the uh rhubarb means you're putting me on or you're joshing me, you're you're talking nonsense. So the frog is talking nonsense. Is is that right? Rhubarb, is that kind of a slang name for it in England?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:18

Yeah, I think that's more so like Cockney rhyming slang, right? So, yeah, and you know, that's why I definitely thought looked at the nail. I said that's that that's definitely a pub name somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:29

Right. Frog and rhubarb. Where is it?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:31

Uh, I don't know that. Yeah, so cookie.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:39

Gary, Indiana, I think.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:40

Yeah. Okay. The Baron's Thunder Mug. The Baron's Thunder Mug. You know what? It seems so bizarre. I said it's real. I went fake on this one. Yeah. Nat. I went fake. Fake. So do you guys know what a thunder mug is? I don't. Nat, you know what a thunder mug is?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:58

No, uh, this is out of my expertise.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:00

It's what you look like when you have five bottom shelf.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:03

A thunder mug is a chamber pot. It's what you uh what you keep underneath your bed. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:13

They the the room we were standing in from the rafters had maybe a hundred of them hanging above us. We had a whole discussion around this. The thunder mug is the is the name. Is the bedpan.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:24

Bedpan, yeah. And it is made up. I made that up. Yeah, the baron's bedpan is made up. All right. So next, Brad, the trolleyed crown. Is trolley crown is that made up or is it really I went, I went with made up on that one. Nat, what did you think?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:43

I went with real. I'm telling you what, it seemed so real. I went with made that's what I thought.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:49

I thought it was a trick.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:50

Right. So trolley is a uh nickname for piss drunk. So if you get so drunk that you have to be pushed around, it's a trolley. Crawley crown is fake. I made that up. But it should be. Nat, you're welcome to have that if you want to open up a bar. I don't know if that's you're gonna get in trouble, but he hasn't copyrighted. You did not trademark or copyright that so we can do that and then serve time bombs. Right, exactly. All right, the next one is the Harry Lemon. Is the Harry Lemon real or not? Go ahead. Nat, we'll start with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:25

I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go with yes, because I've I've seen some outrageous pub names in my time, so I would not be surprised.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:33

The Harry Lemon is most definitely real. Not only have I drank at the Harry Lemon, but I've sat and watched Becky join the band and play the accordion on stage. The Harry Lemon in central Dublin. It's very real.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:47

All right, last but not least, the mutton banger. Brad, is the mutton banger real?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:53

I'm a yes on that. John, yeah. I think if you bring single pounds in, you can spend them at the mutton banger all night. Pound coin.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:01

I went, I wouldn't know what that was.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:03

It doesn't sing as a pound note, is there or is there?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:05

Pound coin. Pound coin. Nat, what do you think? The mutton banger, is that real or not? I want no, but uh yeah, let's see. Yeah, the mutton banger is not real. Oh, but a great name. You would not want to go to Mutton Banger Island, that's for sure. I made that one up. Uh all right. Well, Nat, hey, thanks for being with us today. You guys have not let us down. He was 100% everything you said he was gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:32

Thanks for joining that. Nat's been a fan, he's been listening to this pod. I think he's probably heard most of them, so he had the context. And thank you for taking the time to take us around and show us, you know, around London Town a little bit. It was awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:45

Yep. Yeah, I'll like that. Thanks, Nathaniel. Thanks for the hospitality. Last week it was fantastic as always, and look forward to exploring some new spots with you in the not too distant future.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:53

I said no, absolutely. It's been a pleasure to be on, and uh it's uh been fun as always. And yeah, don't worry, uh, I've got something lined up for Glasgow for you. You can learn the rough side of Scotland to get a good taste of that. Fantastic. I like it. Looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:07

All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for subscribing and listening. Thanks for turning your friends on to us. Um, it's always good to hear from you. Um, we appreciate it, and we will talk to you next time.