Unusually Sensible

L's not happy. She ran away from my highly immoral clutches this morning so that she could be in work early to put together some urgent reports. Then once at work, she found out that they were no longer required. I'll make it up to her later, immorally.

The weather is still awful, so I guess I should be pleased that I’ve not cycled. Problem is it isn’t supposed to get much better for the rest of the week.

I cancel squash. I then find it very difficult to tell L this development because she always assumes I play things down and will therefore jump to the conclusion that the reason I’ve cancelled is that I’m so badly injured that I can barely walk. The reality is that I’m just being unusually sensible. I could of course not tell, and then pretend to go to squash, spending a few hours in the pub instead... but that would be a bit sad. So I confess all. ‘Oh dear’, she says, ‘things are bad aren't they?’ No. I’m just being sensible.

On ‘stylish’ Ilkeston Road near us they are in the process of turning The White Horse pub into yet another take-away come restaurant, of which there are already at least 400 along this stretch of road. Most of which appear to be empty most of the time, then again most of their trade probably comes at 3am in the morning. Despite this, the council merrily rubber stamped the change of use application.

It’s a famous pub, which featured in Alan Sillitoe's ‘Saturday Night Sunday Morning’. Where the main character worked at the (now demolished) Raleigh factory and drank heavily in the pub around the corner on Saturday nights, ‘one of 52 holidays of the year’. Ending up on Sunday morning, the worse for wear, throwing up, falling down the stairs, passing out and coming to in the arms of his married lover. Do they say binge drinking is a new phenomenon? The venue for this was of course the White Horse. It’s never been that exciting when I‘ve been in.

The pub hasn’t been popular for years and several licensees have attempted to make it work without actually thinking up any such of strategy to do so. Instead they’ve persisted in trying to hang on to their core trade of the last 20 years, even though I think a lot of them passed on years ago.

It’s a shame because it’s in an ideal spot for trade, as it’s surrounded by hundreds of student flats. Students don’t head into town every night and need somewhere with good food and drink deals, pub quizzes and the like. The nearby Plough have realised this and are tapping into this market but don’t have the great location that the White Horse does. The new owner kind of admits this when he says that the students ‘haven't got a great place to go for a meal’... hmmm, not sure about that but they certainly have hardly anywhere to go for a drink.

It’s all very sad that no one has the vision to take it on. It all smacks of an opportunist sale to cash in by the previous owners who clearly didn’t want to spend any money on it. The final irony will be that someone like local brewer Castle Rock will eventually come along, see the yawning gap in the market and open a bar in what used to be a take-away and make a fortune.



In the evening I abandon Doggo and take MD for a special ‘young dogs’ training session. He needs a cage for this, which is used to enforce a bit of discipline, which he desperately needs. I have to borrow one, as we don’t have one. To be honest, I’m sceptical but it works well. That is when he discovers he can’t dig his way out of it and works out that the only way to freedom is by being a good boy. After which I have a contrite little dog for most of the evening.