When people come together to drink there is a change in them, a loss of inhibition, some call it ‘Dutch courage’. Conversation thrives, offering sympathy, empathy, and a good deal of humour. Ideas abound - art is conceived, businesses spawned, romance blossoms. But sadly, only misfortunes are considered newsworthy. The Warrington Hotel (1857) , an opulently decorated Victorian palace in Maida Vale, often used as a location for television and films, has endured many such misfo

When I moved to London in the mid 1980’s I was introduced by housemates and colleagues to many pubs in North London. The Island Queen was...

Thinking of one of the other officers in the Italian camp in which they were prisoners of war, novelist Dan Billany wrote:  "He is...

I often claim that London boozers are my natural habitat. Centuries of dramas, great and small, from just one pub can feed the...

Those who have read Until the Real Thing Comes Along and When Summer is Gone sometimes ask about Charlie Brown’s pub, which is heavily...