The Salisbury

A week or so ago, a now rare early evening outing to a public house, the Salisbury in St. Martin's Lane. An often busy public house which is also a listed building, freehold owned by descendants of the chap for whom it is named, full of brown wood, cut glass and other fittings of interest.

Preparation in the form of a snooze in the afternoon, following by much indecision about whether to cycle up from Waterloo. In the end, I decided against, settling for the tube up to Leicester Square.

Bearded indigent present outside the station. Out of date Metros in their box - new to me so I had one. What appeared to be a hawk sitting on a post a little before the train pulled into Wimbledon - a sparrow hawk or something like that - but unusual and hard to be sure on the strength of a fleeting glimpse. Was it really just a large pigeon?

While in the tube we had a very tall & slender person, some inches taller than me, dressed as a lady, dressed high with plenty of decoration, makeup and so forth.

First stop at the cheese shop in Shorts Gardens to top up on the Pitchfork.

An electric motor cycle near the cheese ship. Yours truly well and truly visible right. Very sloppy. About the same price as a high end bicycle and you can read all about them at reference 6. Can't see me going for one, despite being billed as heritage.

Second stop at Lipman's, the long established outfitter in Charing Cross Road. And yes they could do the right sort of braces, which would adapt to the keyrings I use for trouser attachment - and flying the Hunt & Holditch flag. Seemingly identical to the pair I was wearing. But running them down to reference 2 this morning, Edge pulls up some advertisements suggesting that I paid about twice as much as I could have got them for offline. But then, Lipman's is a fine, old-fashioned sort of shop and I would be sorry to see it go the way of so many of the heritage shops in the area.

Third stop was to have been a public house a bit further down the road, but after a short wait for service I pulled out. A Greene King house which went in for reserving tables. 

And so quickly on to the fourth stop, the Salisbury. Which I now know is another Greene King house. A brewer from East Anglia who seems to have taken a lot of London pubs. While I had been reminded just the day before of the days when there were lots of Courage pubs in London by being passed by a Courage delivery lorry - but I think that they pulled out of public houses years ago. Reference 4 suggests that the brand still exists - what now seems like a long time ago, I used to like a good drop of Directors' bitter - but that it is no longer an independent, rather a member of the Marston's beer family. The suggestion being that Courage was bought up as long ago as the early 1970's, passing through various hands to those present.

Lots of interesting people in and around the Salisbury. So, for example, outside we had an older lady, perhaps nearing retirement age, wearing a light weight, mid-calf length skirt, with two splits to mid-thigh. Not very alluring. While inside we had a couple of young, nursing mothers. Can't remember when I last saw such a thing. Luckily we were stood near enough to grab their fine circular seat when they vacated it.

Having taken some interest in ChatGPT, I was interested to learn that it would have a fair stab at writing a job application, given the job title (of something in the city) as a clue. Email sort of thing and one couldn't send it as it stood, but it did give one a framework on which to build a decent email. Perhaps that is how one applies for a job these days. An application which it seems that the NYT has explored, resulting, inter alia, in the snap above. Without investigating, one wonders whether someone has faked it up as an example of the sort of thing that a ChatGPT might do, rather than what it actually has done.

I also learned of a very large building in Bishopsgate, complete with wall art inside, and number art on a pillar outside. Just around the corner from the flashy building with the art balls, noticed at reference 7.

Note the line of black bollards, which I believe are sunk deep into concrete below and are proof against fairly serious vehicular attack. In which connection I might say that I wonder about the very slender columns holding up the sides of the Shard across the water.

Needing a snack by the time I got to Waterloo, I took a cheese and tomato baguette from Upper Crust, a chain I used to rather like when I was still at work. Pleased that I could get a cheap and simple roll without goo, but I have to say that both cheese and baguette have gone downhill since my days at work, although one should make some allowance for the time of day.

Three females of interest on the train. The first, a young lady sporting a grey hoodie and very expensively decorated hands. Lots of nails, lots of big rings. The second and third being very young ladies got up as goths. They did look terribly young, possibly not even of drinking age.

PS: perusal of the archive suggests that I last bought braces at Lipman's back in 2017, as noticed at reference 5. So I got a fair amount of wear out of them.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salisbury,_Covent_Garden.

Reference 2: http://huntandholditch.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://www.lipmanandsons.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://couragebeers.co.uk/.

Reference 5: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/12/braces.html.

Reference 6: https://maeving.com/.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/02/southwark.html.