Worrying, very worrying

Malcolm was all of a quiver yesterday evening.

He had ventured into the newly-reopened Red Lion and Sun in Highgate Village. This used to be a favourite resting spot for our eponymous hero. But now?

The Red Lion's main attractions were good beer (Greene King's Abbot Ale), a congregation of the rude, the rough and the ready, an agglomeration of brown paint and woodwork, real jazz-men (Fawkes and Christie for starters). On a good Sunday lunchtime one could trample at least two members of the House of Lords on the way to the Gents.

All gone.

It is now pale-grey paint and the smell of recent decoration. The brown woodwork, the shelves of books one might occasionally actually read, and the clientele have all been given a Portland dockyard make-over. The new manager is the wrong side of forty; and he has little girlies running everywhere, soliciting for food orders.

A quick retreat was in order. From here on it's the Prince of Wales or the Gatehouse.

The local circuit of decent boozers shrinks annually. Sphere: Related Content