Serendipity is finding a bar named after your
favourite steam locomotive and passenger train just a block from Kings Cross Station in London, a couple years after the place in Washington D.C. of the same name closed.
Chagrin is finding out that not only does the joint in question
not serve real ale, but........ well,
you can read it for yourself, if you please.
Or here.
The sex industry may be a £30 billion a year business, but this demoralising dive shows how the chink of coins fuels the bottom of the barrel realities. As one girl writhes on the tiny, raised stage, the next turn is circulating with the collecting pint pot. It's simple. The more that goes in, the more that comes off - and the more gynaecological the presentation. And that's the routine all day long. The range of drinks? God knows, or cares. But clearly methods are in place to transfer substantial quantities of alcohol into the bloodstream of transfixed punters - be they nervy looking little clerks, local pimps or lost souls from Hades. The floor, we are told, was one of the last in London to be sawdusted. Now a carpet of fag ends cope with any spilled fluids. The Gents', it is said, was the inspiration for the surreal nightmare of the worst toilet in the world from the book and film of "Trainspotting". We didn't check. If you're into watching someone's daughter, someone's sister bump and grind for handfuls of cash to feed either her child or her habit, then you must live with that. But be ashamed. Be very ashamed.
I now understand why, when a bunch of fellow rail enthusiasts were online discussing meeting up at this place during the layover of a rail excursion from Preston, they were met with both a very enthusiastic and decidedly
unenthusiastic response.
For the approvers, there's this:
The Flying Scotsman Pub Appreciation Society on Facebook.
And directly next door? The Beano Cafe. No, seriously. Is that what they serve, or is that what you take before you eat there (with good reason)?
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