Shepherds Bush

Posterity will, no doubt, say 'What!', or something very much like it, regarding this post. Who has something to say about Shepherds Bush?

Well, it is where the BBC comes from. That's it, really. Let's see, shall we...

The center-piece of Shepherds Bush is the green.
On a pleasant evening, the locals rub shoulders with the winos and street crims.
But there is a Walkabout Downunder Pub - a little bit of Australia in London - whos owners are just as cheap as those bludging gits, Sydney Airport. 2 quid to get in! And that's before you buy a drink. Earth to Australia; you don't charge people to get into a pub.
Shepherds Bush Empire - premier music venue and, judging by the predominatly black audience, it looks like soul night. That and it's what written on the door.
There's only so much blog you can wring out of Shepherds Bush. Looks like curry time.
Not forgetting the post-curry pub-crawl. Sorted.

Sadly, there are things that happen which are unphotographable. That last pic was of a pub called the Mother Black Cap - no doubt a reference to some sort of mushroom, possibly of the magic sort. This place could be a whole lot better. It seems to be trying to be all things to all local trendies. A couple of scenes of the movie 'Whithnail & I' were filmed here and the pub has been dining out on it ever since - it was made almost 20 years ago, guys, get over it. But the real problem with this place is their approach to music. On Thursday nights there is a live band - well, more of a number of musos than a band - and they are all just bloody awful. Can you say; whiney, whiney, Jamie Bluntey? I'm not sure if it is intended to suppliment the depressive effects of alcohol but it certainly works that way. The night we were in they had a DJ. I've got nothing fundamental against these guys - other than the pretention; you're a DJ, you play other people's music, that's it, you're not important - but, in this case, the place was almost empty at 10.0pm on a Saturday night! Something very wrong, methinks - and time to move on.

So we sauntered off to the Market Tavern but on our way found, to our delight, one of life's great joys. A new pub! The Pelican. And it's very nice. Great decor with a seedy underbelly. You could live in a place like this. And I took a few piccies for the blog; 4 to be precise. 3, sadly didn't come out at all. They always look great on the camera but, until you upload them, you never know. And the 4th, well, we'll never know for other reasons. I had just taken a pic of the bar with the great big chandelier thingy when some greasy git sidles over. It is impolite, it seems, to take photos without asking. Not of the bar, you understand, but of his 'friend' who was sitting at it! So why didn't his 'friend' come over to object? I never got a real answer to this but can only speculate that said 'friend' was either an unusual looking member of a long lost Papua New Guinean tribe who was afraid that I had stolen his soul or, far, far more likely round here, he was a D-list celeb (probably an early Big Brother evictee) who's new-found 'celebrity' status has gone straight to his common sense.

After that, we went home.

That's how you get an entire blog post out of Shepherds Bush - don't write about it.