You're Barred, You Bastards!
Author: Norman Balon
Publisher:
Published: 1991
Total Pages: 184
ISBN-13: 9780283997624
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Stop Bloody Bossing Me About
Author: Quentin Letts
Publisher: Constable
Published: 2021-03-18
Total Pages: 176
ISBN-13: 0349135169
DOWNLOAD EBOOK'The inimitable Quentin Letts dares to say in a new book what we've all been secretly thinking' Mail on Sunday 'Fuming and chuckling by turns' Daily Telegraph 'Underneath the jocularity of Letts's style is a lot of real anger' Roger Lewis, The Times Hands, face, space. Curfews. Don't drink. Bend your knees. Conform, obey, comply - surrender. British life has become infested by bossiness. Post Lockdown, Quentin Letts storms back with a vituperative howl against the 'bossocracy'. They tell us what to do, what to say, how to think. Letts gives them a prolonged, resonant raspberry. He names the guilty men and women: Dominic Cummings, Prof Neil Ferguson, that strutting self-polisher Nicola Sturgeon, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cressida Dick, Michael Gove, even the sainted Sir David Attenborough. Bang! They all take a barrel. And then there's publicity-prone plonker Matt Hancock posing for photographs while doing his 'Mr Fit' press-ups. Reasonable people have had enough of being bossed about. And when reasonable people stop respecting the law, society has a problem. 'Brilliantly critical, but always warm-hearted and fair' Rory Knight Bruce, The Field
The Old Dog and Duck
Author: Albert Jack
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2009-09-03
Total Pages: 304
ISBN-13: 014192991X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis is a book for everyone who has ever wondered why pubs should be called The Cross Keys, The Dew Drop Inn or The Hope and Anchor. You'll be glad to know that there are very good - strange and memorable - reasons behind them all. After much research about (and in) pubs, Albert Jack brings together the stories behind pub names to reveal how they offer fascinating and subversive insights on our history, customs, attitudes and jokes in just the same way that nursery rhymes do. The Royal Oak, for instance, commemorates the tree that hid Charles II from Cromwell's forces after his defeat at Worcester; The Bag of Nails is a corruption of the Bacchanals, the crazed followers of Bacchus, the god of wine and drunkenness; The Cat and the Fiddle a mangling of Catherine La Fidele and a guarded gesture of support for Henry VIII's first, Catholic, wife Catherine of Aragon; plus many, many more. Here too are even more facts about everything from ghosts to drinking songs to the rules of cribbage and shove hapenny, showing that, ultimately, the story of pub history is really the story of our own popular history
Musclebound
Author: Liza Cody
Publisher: A&C Black
Published: 1998-07-01
Total Pages: 258
ISBN-13: 0747538077
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA year ago, Eva Wylie was the biggest, meanest, ugliest female wrestler to disgrace a ring. Her name was on posters. People recognised her on the street. She was on her way to the top. But Eva's life is a game of snakes and ladders and now she's back at the bottom. Barred from the ring, she's reduced to guarding rich folks' cars and dreaming of yesterday's triumphs. With only her dogs for company and just a little booze to keep out the cold, life is bad enough to make a big woman angry - watch out. Musclebound picks up the story which the prize-winning Bucket Nut and Monkey Wrench began. It continues Eva's meteoric plummet through all the low life you could ever hope to meet - thieves, liars, wrestlers and Eva herself. She may not be ready to try for the heavyweight wrestling championship at the moment, but she's certainly a major contender for the most self-deluded narrator in modern English literature.
The Look of Love
Author: Paul Willetts
Publisher: Profile Books
Published: 2013-04-04
Total Pages: 588
ISBN-13: 1847659942
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFor almost forty years, Paul Raymond was one Britain's most scandalous celebrities. Best known as the owner of the world famous Raymond Revuebar, he was a successful theatre impresario, property magnate and porn baron. With his pencil moustache, gold jewellery and taste for showgirls, Raymond was both the brash personification of nouveau riche vulgarity and exemplar of the entrepreneurial spirit that enabled a poor boy from Liverpool to become Britain's richest man. 'Like 24 Hour Party People, we want to capture the life of an extraordinary man living in extraordinary times' Steve Coogan
The Pub
Author: Pete Brown
Publisher: Jacqui Small LLP
Published: 2016-08-18
Total Pages: 256
ISBN-13: 1911127012
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWINNER OF THE DRINK BOOK AWARD AT THE FORTNUM & MASON FOOD AND DRINK AWARDS 2017. Pete Brown has visited hundreds of pubs across the UK and is uniquely placed to write about pubs that ooze atmosphere, whatever the reason, be it food, people, architecture, location or decor. The best pubs are those that always have a steady trade at any time on any day of the week, and where chat flows back and forth across the bar. They're the places where you want to drink weak beer so you can have several pints and stay longer. Some are grand Victorian palaces, others ancient inns with stunning views across the hills. Some are ale shrines, others gastropubs (though they probably don’t call themselves that any more). A precious few are uniquely eccentric, the kinds of places that are just as likely to have terrible reviews on Trip Advisor as great ones, because some people don't realize that the outside toilets, limp sandwiches on the bar and really disturbing full-size mannequin glaring at you from the corner are all part of the charm. This charming collection of 300 pubs explores what makes each one ooze atmosphere, be it food, people, architecture, location or décor, and looks at the quirks of local history as well as different trends and types of pub. Full of pen portraits of punters or publicans, legends, yarns and myths, this entertaining book is the perfect gift for regulars of that well-loved British institution, the pub.
Tales from the Colony Room
Author: Darren Coffield
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
Published: 2020-04-16
Total Pages: 405
ISBN-13: 1783528176
DOWNLOAD EBOOK'Entertaining, shocking, uproarious, hilarious . . . like eavesdropping on a wake, as the mourners get gradually more drunk and tell ever more outrageous stories' Sunday Times This is the definitive history of London's most notorious drinking den, the Colony Room Club in Soho. It’s a hair-raising romp through the underbelly of the post-war scene: during its sixty-year history, more romances, more deaths, more horrors and more sex scandals took place in the Colony than anywhere else. Tales from the Colony Room is an oral biography, consisting of previously unpublished and long-lost interviews with the characters who were central to the scene, giving the reader a flavour of what it was like to frequent the Club. With a glass in hand you’ll move through the decades listening to personal reminiscences, opinions and vitriol, from the authentic voices of those who were actually there. On your voyage through Soho’s lost bohemia, you’ll be served a drink by James Bond, sip champagne with Francis Bacon, queue for the loo with Christine Keeler, go racing with Jeffrey Bernard, get laid with Lucian Freud, kill time with Doctor Who, pick a fight with Frank Norman and pass out with Peter Langan. All with a stellar supporting cast including Peter O’Toole, George Melly, Suggs, Lisa Stansfield, Dylan Thomas, Jay Landesman, Sarah Lucas, Damien Hirst and many, many more.
Suggs and the City
Author: Suggs
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2009-09-17
Total Pages: 180
ISBN-13: 0755319273
DOWNLOAD EBOOKRevelling in the off-beat and eccentric, Londoner Suggs takes us on a nostalgic adventure to explore the disappearing history of his extraordinary home town: from the sharp tailors of Saville Row to the sex traders of Bohemian Soho, by way of quaint and quirky habitats, brilliant but endangered boozers, unique eateries that have introduced the capital to the world's finest foods and a music scene that's dear to his heart.
Soho in the Eighties
Author: Christopher Howse
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2018-09-06
Total Pages: 297
ISBN-13: 1472914821
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA fascinating glimpse into 1980s Soho by leading journalist and writer Christopher Howse. In the 1980s Daniel Farson published Soho in the Fifties. This memoir is a sequel from the Eighties, a decade that saw the brilliant flowering of a daily tragi-comedy enacted in pubs like the Coach and Horses or the French and in drinking clubs like the Colony Room. These were places of constant conversation and regular rows fuelled by alcohol. The cast was more improbable than any soap opera. Some were widely known – Jeffrey Bernard, Francis Bacon, Tom Baker or John Hurt. Just as important were the character actors: the Village Postmistress, the Red Baron, Granny Smith. The bite came from the underlying tragedy: lost spouses, lost jobs, pennilessness, homelessness and death. Christopher Howse recaptures the lost Soho he once knew as home, its cellar cafés and butchers' shops, its villains and its generosity. While it lasted, time in those smoky rooms always seemed to be half past ten, not long to closing time. As the author relates, he never laughed so much as he did in Soho in the Eighties.
Liquid History
Author: John Warland
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2021-10-07
Total Pages: 240
ISBN-13: 1473592119
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTHE PERFECT GIFT FOR THOSE WHO LOVE LONDON. A RADIO 4 BEST FOOD AND DRINK BOOK OF THE YEAR. An illustrated guide to London's best pubs and their extraordinary history, presented by the founder of the world-famous Liquid History Tours. Pull up a stool for a thirst-quenching trundle through London's liquid history in search of the city's greatest pubs. We raise a toast in Shakespeare's local, pop in for a pint at Jack the Ripper's bar and push open the bloodstained doors of the Bucket of Blood. Liquid History is a beautifully illustrated love letter to London's finest hostelries, written by the city's leading pub tour guide and host of the celebrated Liquid History Tours. Profiling over 50 timeless boozers, this book tells the story of London's history and the taverns that have hosted, harboured and refreshed its leading characters. Exploring the watering holes of London's writers and artists, its most notorious criminals and celebrated figures, we move from architectural marvels to secretive backstreet boozers to join the dots for London's ultimate knees-up.
