3 St Helier's Road,
Leyton,
London E10 6BH
"IT WAS 20 years ago today that Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play," has
been the intro on almost every documentary on radio for something like
the last three weeks but it was in fact 20 years ago today that the
Sergeant Pepper album came out (mono version). I heard Paul McCartney
on the radio today who said that when all the fuss about the anniversary
started a few months back he got out a tape and listened to the old
record and he said "I liked it". I think he's trying to follow John
Lennon's comment "I've never been a knocked out Beatles fan". Paul
McCartney, by the way, is talking about going back on the road again.
But the really big news is that the pubs are now open until
ll p.m. Monday to Thursday which probably means the death of the Prince
of Wales. It also gives you a new insight into Redbridge pubs. The other
day a friend and myself went to the Eagle down by Eagle Pond (you know
near Snaresbrook Crown Court) and the pub shut at 10.30p.m.. They seemed
such a backward primitive lot. The trend is now definitely towards more
liberal licensing laws. If you go and have a meal in some of the London
restaurants you can now drink until pub opening time. The restaurants
are allowed to serve drink to people who have had a meal all afternoon.
Pretty soon there won't be a pub left in London. They'll all be restaurants
unless the licensing laws are liberalised to allow the pubs to open
all afternoon as well. Then some of the cafes that serve breakfast will
want to serve drinks all morning. The licensing laws are on their way
out.
Regrettably the Tories don't seem to be going out with them
though there is some slim chance that they may lose an awful lot of
seats perhaps enough to cause the political demise of Thatcher. But
it seems pretty likely that they will still have some sort of majority.
In a pub the other day I bumped into a bloke called Phil Mellows who
said he used to know you. I think he worked on one of the Newham papers
years ago but now he works for the Morning Advertiser. In fact we didn't
just bump into each other. We were covering the CAMRA pub awards presentation
which is a good piss up in anybody's language. He said he remembered
me but I'm damned if I remembered him.
See you sometime.
Jo