Of all of the pubs which I frequented during my one month stay, the Rising Sun was my favorite. Now, you might ask why I would be interested in going to this tiny pub with limited outdoor seating, and frankly food which was lacking in sophistication and cooking skills. Seriously, Dave got frozen peas with his Fish n’ Chips. And the answer is, of all of the pubs I went to during a football match, the clientele at the Rising Sun were the only ones that I saw as being truely interested in the games at hand. And I think that the smaller atmosphere of this pub actually facilitated this.
Tonites game was Tottenham Hotspur versus Arsenal. From the reactions of the pubgoers to each of Arsenal’s four goals against the Spurs, they were vastly Arsenal fans. When an Arsenal player was fouled as he brought the ball through the penalty box, the fans were outraged. And the exitement of the sucessful penalty kick got the entire pub cheering afterwards.
During the second fifteen minute half of the extended time period, the fans would also cheer as a group whenever an Arsenal player gained possession of the ball or stole it from a Spurs player. For example, if the Arsenal player avoided losing posession, a large contingent of the pubgoers in front of the bar would exclaim say “OHHHHHH!” in unison. This actually reminds me quite a bit of the reaction towards gaining possession during football games at the sports bar I go to back home. At many of the other bars, it seemed that the football matches on the flatscreens were more of an afterthought, and most of the customers were ignoring them. However, that may be because Arsenal wasn’t playing in those games.
If you want good food and an excellent selection of beers and spirits, go to the Jack Horner. The food is quite a bit more expensive than the other pubs, but the Fish and Chips are some of the best that I have had throughout my stay in London (and that is many a fish n’ chips). I would also recommend trying the Fullers ESB. Another favorite pub of mine was the court, mainly because they served Everards Tiger, an ale with light coffee notes.
2 responses so far ↓
Karl // Sep 23rd 2010 at 15:31
Do you have any reflection on Orwell?
What is this word: “tonites”? I don’t think that is British or American English.
tylerweick // Sep 23rd 2010 at 17:20
Orwell was trying to communicate that there is no such thing as the perfect pub. Yes, there are qualities that make a pub more attractive to the pub goer, but this varies from person to person, and it is impossible for each pub to meet all of these qualities sufficiently. Each pub has it’s own specific clientele; the Court for uni students, Jack Horner for the more mature adults and good food, and Rising Sun was reasonably priced and had the best flat screens so it was best for football matches.
I personally disagree with many of the qualities which he chooses as beneficial to the atmosphere; mostly pubs without music (to me, music is alright as long as it’s in the background of the conversation), and the publicans taking personal interest in all of there customers (a lot to expect of busy bartenders, but I have yet to experience being a regular at any pub). The pub should be more than the sum of its parts, and each quality should complement the other to the benefit of its clientele. And if it has very few or none of these qualities, we can just call it a bar.
And it looks like I dozed off into SMS speak for just a second. But to put an Arsenal related spin on it, Tonite is an explosive compound or a form of gun cotton.
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