From Limey To Piney

It's Not A Gentleman's Club, Never Fear
Originally uploaded by Gringcorp.

We've commented before on the rotten changes that modern life and crude commerce have inflicted in the classic English boozer. You know, the ones with no, or bad, food, mishapen clientele and tragically cheerful staff.

What we tend to encounter these days, in places as diverse as Holland Park, the centre of Lincoln, and top demolisher-of-Gringcorp Polzeath, is a stripped-down, bare pine, tastefully, but relentlessly, lit wine bar. Such places are, we will own, a lot more pleasant for ladies and non-drunks to patronise, but lack soul and are not very comfy.

So we're walking down Bride's Street on the way to our London office, when we're diverted by the signage that you can see at left. It looked like a house fashioned from purest pole-dancing, because it didn't have any windows and had potted shrubs outside. But while we didn't step inside, it had a menu outside, and the sign said:

You’re with a client. You have to work late.
You’re best mate’s upset.
Alibi… Any Excuse.

This illiterate slogan from their website. The place is evidently an afterwork watering hole, since it nestles close to three other similarly-apppointed places.

It's more of a club, we would grudgingly suppose, and thus we are unlikely to grace it any time soon, and the only reason we mention it is that it has the same name as top Fort Greene Brooklyn Pennant and Soccer-pimping sh*thole the Alibi (pronounced Ah-Lee-Bee), and we suddenly felt a mite homesick. See, the Alibi on DeKalb Avenue is a proper boozer.

We would also like to wish Mig-Hell a speedy recovery. He picked up something ghastly in Atlanta, as best as we can tell. Can't say we're too surprised, given how unsavoury we've found the place, but it's still a bummer.