What makes the perfect pub?(1)
A roaring open fire. The bartender knows your name. Your pint of draught stout comes in a china cup. Did George Orwell have the recipe for the perfect pub?
Though perhaps more famous for novels like 1984 and Animal Farm, Orwell was also a superb essayist and journalist.
Who knows who you might bump into in the perfect pub |
In an article written for the London Evening Standard in 1946, he produced a detailed description of his ideal watering-hole, The Moon Under Water, which "is only two minutes from a bus stop, but it is on a side-street, and drunks and rowdies never seem to find their way there, even on Saturday nights".
One pub chain that literally pins Orwell's advice to its walls is JD Wetherspoons. Fourteen of its establishments are called The Moon Under Water, named after a journalist in 1986 suggested a similarity between the Orwell's ideal drinking establishment and a Wetherspoons pub.
Orwell's essay picks out the essence of what a pub is about, says founder Tim Martin, and is "very similar" to what the chain is trying to create, although he admits that the writer might not have been impressed by some examples.
"He'd probably say we do very well in getting near to his idealised pub in some and we've got some more work to do in others," Martin adds.
In the heart of Cambridge stands The Cambridge Blue, current holder of the local Campaign for Real Ale's award for branch and county pub of the year.
