I'm in trouble with the devil

Argh. Blogging has fallen out of the to-do list again. I went off to Whitby, like I do in April, and forgot to write about it. This time it was a double-length affair to celebrate the festival's 21st birthday.

Today I've been trying to produce the sensible, grown-up reviews which I (along with mrph) promised to davefish for some mysterious web project of his. Sadly, it's a long time since I've tried to write sensible, grown-up reviews and I've left it too long. (Also, I made notes only on opinions, assuming I'd be able to look up details like line-up after the fact. Bloody hell, bands write a lot of crap about themselves, but rarely give you the actual facts. One band had a Wikipedia page (I checked!) when I was in Whitby, but now does not. Bloody disappearing curated free encyclopediae with standards.)

Anyway, for my own reference in future, here is a table in hyper-abbreviated form:

( Review Table. Not printable. )

The list of text messages I sent and received in Whitby seems to divide neatly into two categories. First, logical information indicating which pub, cake shop or location someone was or was not in. Second, non-sequiturs about cheese.

This probably sums up the weekend quite well.

Do you still drink down the local? And is the local still the local?

Years and years ago I remember to chatting to timeplease here (I've never met him in person), and him recommending I visit the Pembury Tavern in Hackney (which I believe he ran/runs/owns/invented). It's very much the wrong side of London, and I never have, until last weekend when we were braving the perils of the East End to go to the Oddbox Weekender in Dalston.

Having failed to really consider what time pubs might open, we arrived at the Pembury just as its shutters were going up. I can now report it has a large array of handpumps selling excellent beer (and some cider, quality untested by me), serves good food from an interesting menu, has lovely graffiti on the walls and has a bar billiards table in quite unusually excellent nick. We drank, ate, and played bar billiards before scampering off to see bands. The posters on the wall advertise that it has a chess club, and zenithed tells me it's also board game-friendly. If anyone is in touch with TimePlease, tell him he was right, and it's a bloomin' excellent pub.

The Shacklewell Arms is slightly less excellent, but does have a moderately sized, muralled and only faintly damp "Dance Hall" at the back. And in it, we saw a number of bands which I will memorialise with mild brevity...

( Here )