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Shittest pub experiences

Started by madhair60, August 16, 2019, 03:08:25 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: bgmnts on August 17, 2019, 11:09:49 AM
Oh there was a shitty shitty pub in a tiny village of Varda in hungary. The tables had gingham tablecloths on them and it had a veey dodgy atmosphere. Even the diminuitive woman behind bar looked like she would glass you cos you're not form round here.

Unless it's the restaurant Borostyan Vendeglo it must not be on Google maps.

The gingham table cloths are quite common features of kocsma, further afield, you actually see them in Belgian pubs quite a lot.

alan nagsworth

The Boston Arms in Kentish Town is a fucking belter for bleakness. I've been in a few times as it's next door to two local gig venues and the pints are cheap as balls. It's a massive disconcertingly open space, and it's fight central. I remember one night when we went to see Andrew Jackson Jihad at The Dome and I got the dates wrong and they had actually played the night before so we just hit up the Boston and got lashed. A little old Chinese lady came up to us peddling bootleg porn DVDs, which I honestly thought was the stuff of rumour, made even more grim when my extremely lewd friend went through her catalogue and bought a few off her. Another time there was a fight between two blokes and it ended with both of them unscathed, both crying their eyes out, and exiting through separate doors. At weekends they have karaoke on and it's usually open till about 2am. I feel lucky that I've been there so many times and haven't randomly had my face twatted off the rim of a urinal yet.

alan nagsworth

There's a particularly grim Wetherspoons right by my house which we've not been to in ages but for a while we'd spend at least one night a week there, again because it's cheap and we aren't picky. There are so many regulars there who are each worthy of their own episode of ... I dunno, some sort of show that tells stories about peoples lives. The bloke who orders the cheap bottle of red, drinks about two glasses and falls asleep for the entire rest of the evening. The dapper tweed-wearing old dude who I swear is about 90 years old, comes in with some sort of wicker hamper (contents unknown) and very steadily drink pints of bitter on his own just smiling pleasantly. The hideous couple who drink spirit mixers together and spend the whole fucking evening necking on extremely vigorously with a lot of tongue. Never before has the term "hive of scum and villainy" been more appropriate to me.

Valentine's Day this year, my partner and I went to a classical piano recital in a church in Leicester Square. It was pretty shit because well noodly meandering romantic classical music is a load of crap and the wooden pews are so fucking uncomfortable, especially sat silently with a bunch of snuggling loved-up bellends pretending to enjoy the culture. On the way back to mine we decided to go "back with our people" and nip in for a pint in the Spoons. Hilariously bumped into my best mate and his girlfriend who had been in there all evening for the whole Valentine's menu experience and were quite pissed.

A couple of tables away from us was a woman furiously scribbling and striking out a load of what I can only assume to be poetry or journals into a notebook. She was drinking - I'm not even kidding - rounds which consisted of a pint of Guinness and three shots of cherry Sourz. All through the remainder of the evening she had three male suitors pursuing her in the bleakest fashion. One of them looked like the Bill Gates impersonator from Nathan For You, drinking only bottled water, wearing a wedding band and whom we overheard was there as part of his local bridge club meet. The second, who held her attention for the longest time, was a very bolshy bloke but talked very close to her - not sat at the table, but crouching down at her side like a dog - so not much was overheard. The third was pissed out of his fucking gourd and kept coming over interrupting the second man, much to his annoyance.

As the evening was drawing to a close, the third drunk man came over with a bunch of flowers, at which point the woman yelled "Fuck off! I've seen you try to give those flowers to two other women in here so you can fuck off!" and he went off dejected. Shortly after, the second man became enraged and was bouncing about saying he was going to kick fuck out of the third man. It became so heated, despite no actual violence occurring, that the police were called. Bill Gates and the woman both had to provide lengthy statements. For quite a long time, me and my party were not chatting at all, just observing the whole thing. That sort of shit happens all the time in that Spoons.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

The pub in Vilnius where me and my Lithuanian- speaking mate went in one cold, winter eve. Very dimly lit. The barman took one look at the pair of us, and kindly advised, in the Litho Lingo " I'll serve you, but I can't guarantee your safety". We left.
Might have also told the story on 'ere before about the pub , also in Lithuania, wherein dwelt a lot of skinheads , a very large representative of which kindly gave myself and the same companion ten seconds to get out, after which, if we were too tardy, he would kill us. This might have had something to do with the Benny Hill-to- Jackie Vyvvan head slapping thing I carried out on his lovely, inviting pate. Again, leave was taken . This is the same barmaid had said to me ( in English) " You think I can't understand what you're saying? If you don't like it, fuck off. "
Pubs in Vilnius, there.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Lisa Jesusandmarychain there. .com/lithuania/]Vilnius has very friendly nightlife, and I've had no problems on either of my visits even in scuzzy backstreet venues where the only other patrons were paralytic football hooligans. Don't heed this man.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Oh, there's decent enough drinking dens in Lithuanian capital, right enough, and, as I hinted, there's a possibility I was at fault in the skinhead situation, believing that yer man was maybe a Benny Hill fan, and would have appreciated the reference.Wasn't trying to suggest that all of the drinking establishments are like that in Vilnius.

alan nagsworth

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on August 17, 2019, 01:00:40 PM
Lisa Jesusandmarychain there. .com/lithuania/]Vilnius has very friendly nightlife, and I've had no problems on either of my visits even in scuzzy backstreet venues where the only other patrons were paralytic football hooligans. Don't heed this man.

I'll heed whoever I want pal. Fuckin heed you in a minute, right through that wall

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: alan nagsworth on August 17, 2019, 01:07:38 PM
I'll heed whoever I want pal. Fuckin heed you in a minute, right through that wall

Heed the ball mate

QuoteWasn't trying to suggest that all of the drinking establishments are like that in Vilnius.

It was the sign off "Pubs in Vilnius there" that through some twisted contortion of language suggested you were.

Ferris

Quote from: alan nagsworth on August 17, 2019, 11:42:46 AM
...A little old Chinese lady came up to us peddling bootleg porn DVDs, which I honestly thought was the stuff of rumour...

This has only happened to me once, and it honestly enhanced the pub experience because I felt like I was in a proper den of iniquity. Didn't buy one because I was with girlfriend at the time, alas.

MidnightShambler

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on August 17, 2019, 01:06:29 PM
Oh, there's decent enough drinking dens in Lithuanian capital, right enough, and, as I hinted, there's a possibility I was at fault in the skinhead situation, believing that yer man was maybe a Benny Hill fan, and would have appreciated the reference.Wasn't trying to suggest that all of the drinking establishments are like that in Vilnius.

Vilnius is the most boring city on the planet. Nice, just totally mundane. When you walk miles to see a Frank Zappa bust in a car park, for lack of anything else to do, you know you're scraping. I ended up in a Hooters watching snooker that night. Desolation.

Anyway, my nomination is seeing a prostitute wank a dog off in The Admiral in Rock Ferry, in front of a load of jeering bikers, who'd given her a tenner to do it. She tried to stop halfway through and go to the toilet, only to be blocked and told she wasn't going anywhere until she'd finished him off.

Birkenhead isn't a nice place.

Sebastian Cobb

I followed through in the Hen Hoose in Aberdeen. Then went to the bog to clean up and there was no toilet paper, so had to make do with the receipts in my wallet. Dumped my pants in a skip and carried on commando because I'm a LAD.

H-O-W-L

Possibly the worst pub experience I had was in Portsmouth though. I don't remember what pub exactly it was but I merely nipped in for a piss while dawdling about waiting for a train.

Big puddle of blood all over the floor in the hallway near the loos. Like, enough blood that whoever spilled it was in trouble.

Didn't dawdle much longer, I won't lie.

jobotic

My brother was bought a drink by a man in a pub in Portsmouth, who then told him he (the man) was a rapist.

Sebastian Cobb

Fair play, that's a pretty bold opening gambit.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Quote from: MidnightShambler on August 17, 2019, 02:33:30 PM
Vilnius is the most boring city on the planet. Nice, just totally mundane. When you walk miles to see a Frank Zappa bust in a car park, for lack of anything else to do, you know you're scraping.

I quite like the fact that the only reason they have that ( Eliot Gould Resembling ) bust in Vilnius in the first place is that most folk in Villnius like Frank Zappa's music. Otherwise, he has no connection to that country whatsoever. It's as if there were a bust of Stuart Staples in the middle of fucking Belgrade or somewhere, because most of the people who lived there liked nothing more than to cut a rug on a Friday night to the swinging sound of Tindersticks.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote
Vilnius is the most boring city on the planet.

It is short on tourist attractions that aren't climbing up stuff, but if you count Trakai, which isn't far away, you still have

- Two castles, a lake and many outdoorsy activities
- The 'Republic of Uzupis' which is at least diverting and a nice area
- City walls and bastion
- A semi abandoned stadium (nr the castle)
- Pretty much every denomination of Christianity represented, a little bit like Lviv in that respect
- One of the larger old town areas to enjoy architecturally
- The 3 Snekutis pubs serving farmhouse ales (and the Uzupis one in particular is one of the best bars in Europe)
- Aside one or two Estonian and Latvian craft breweries I think it has the best beer scene in the baltics
- The occupation museum (which has a bigger recreated prison area than the Terror House in Budapest)
- The cathedral catacombs tour is pretty good
- If it snows then you're in for a treat, it's one of the the most beautiful cities in the snow
- Loads of good walking routes, hills, parks, Tower climbs
- If you know where to go it's still really cheap, old Europe cheap.

Along with Wroclaw, Lviv & Nuremberg, I'd say Vilnius is one of the most undeservedly overlooked cities in Europe.

And just so it doesn't seem like I am constantly gushing about everything, I'd say, by contrast, Liege, Cluj and Debrecen, which I recently visited, are no more than OK, the former almost entirely due to the pubs and giant staircase.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on August 17, 2019, 04:00:46 PMWhat a sophisticated travelling type I am, eh readers? It's not only about me getting pissed up in foreign climes on me Terry Jones, y' know. D'you like the way I had a go at Lisa JAMC for ( justifiably) having a go at dodgy boozers in Vilnius in my benevolent, patronising Lonely Planet Guide writer's way, btw? After all, what does that schmuck know, he only lived in Vilnius for 18 months.

Sebastian Cobb

Love how every local on the planet has ab ex-services bore who never saw any action. The one in my local claimed 'teachers can't say blackboard these days' which is one on the bingo card for a start.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on August 17, 2019, 04:06:58 PM

Look back at your own post where you clearly imply that such pubs are the Vilnius pub scene, but no, fine I'll take some abuse.

Were you there on your Terry Jones for 18 months? I've been there twice, once in my own, once with friends and family.

That un-Lonely Planet enough for you?

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

No, I was working there, and having a grand old time of it. I take your point about my sign off generalizing line about pubs in Vilnius ( as small as Vilnius is ), fair play to yer.
What are you up to this evening? If you're not too busy, jump on a train to Hull,  get yerself down to the World- Famous Adelphi Club, and we can discuss this a bit more, Slaphead. 😉

JarrowMonkey

Havant 'Spoons



Fucking grim, it's a grim town anyway, how the fuck its a Tory  seat I'll never know, but Tory's are thick cunts by and large

PS

I'm from Hartlepool and live in Jarrow, so it takes a lot to make me think a place is shite

imitationleather

Quote from: MidnightShambler on August 17, 2019, 02:33:30 PM
Anyway, my nomination is seeing a prostitute wank a dog off in The Admiral in Rock Ferry, in front of a load of jeering bikers, who'd given her a tenner to do it. She tried to stop halfway through and go to the toilet, only to be blocked and told she wasn't going anywhere until she'd finished him off.

Birkenhead isn't a nice place.

Cor. If this is true it easily wins, not that I have read the rest of the thread.

Makes you wonder how long it takes to wank a dog off. Or if she just wasn't employing the correct technique. As usual.

Icehaven

The Square Peg in Brum (which is a Spoons after all) has never exactly been salubrious but in the last few years it's got worse than ever as the (also never great) area outside has declined into baghead central. It's got the longest bar in Europe apparently, and weirdly it is almost like two different places, as one end isn't too bad, but if you sit at the other end by the corner entrance for any length of time you'll see a revolving cast of the walking undead stumbling in to finish abandoned drinks, eat chips left on plates and ask for change shortly before they're wrestled out by the permanently on duty bouncers. It's all a bit grim.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

QuoteIt's got the longest bar in Europe apparently

You could probably make the longest bar in Europe by laminating the list of venues who all claim that feature and hooking a beer engine up somewhere along it.

One of those things that should probably be more impressive than it ever is when you're in the building itself.

EBGB

Not a single depressing experience, but a long term low level one = generally shit.  The Balaclava, Wadhurst, mid-90s.  Lock ins after the other three pubs (where the top rated entertainment all night every night was turning round to see WHO HAD JUST WALKED IN) had closed.  I was the only cider drinker in our group, & I think the only cider drinker in the Bally every week.  Dire, dire stuff that had gone rancid in the pipes given no-one had touched it since I was last there, but I'd be pissed, so DGAF, until queasy the next day despite having innards of steel.  Landlord was understandably repeatedly fucked off that we'd only show up around closing time.  It was a good mile's walk from the village in the pitch dark, so on the nights he was fucked off enough to refuse entrance, we'd be a cross between really hacked off & actually saved from our own stupidity.

Dylan Moran's "How Do You Want Me?" came out at precisely this time; I may have identified with it a little too hard.

imitationleather

The longest bar in Europe is actually in Tottenham's new stadium.

(y)

H-O-W-L

I'll probably show my naivete here, but do pubs do lock-ins much now?

Rich Uncle Skeleton

I thought lock ins just didn't happen anymore but got invited to come back for one a couple of years ago but had to leave for an hour or so while they closed up and cleaned. Naturally we went to another pub that was open later and came back steaming...mate ended up behind the bar trying to serve his own pint and the lock in was coincidentally over 5 minutes later.

As for other shit pub experiences , there was the guy who thought nothing of sitting in a Wetherspoons browsing fabswingers on his laptop .

MidnightShambler

Quote from: imitationleather on August 17, 2019, 05:27:01 PM
Cor. If this is true it easily wins, not that I have read the rest of the thread.

Makes you wonder how long it takes to wank a dog off. Or if she just wasn't employing the correct technique. As usual.

Unfortunately it's absolutely true. It's not even the the worst story I've got about pubs, dogs and Birkenhead, only that it's the worst one I personally witnessed. As I say, it's not a nice place.

Sherringford Hovis

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on August 17, 2019, 04:09:06 PM
Love how every local on the planet has an ex-services bore who never saw any action.

I seem to attract these Walts like I'm chips and they're seagulls. Remain genial while they keep the pints coming and you can get pissed for free.