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I featured the pub on here on a previous visit to Oxford and Cropredy in 2022. They affectionately called it " The Bird and Baby". It still looks empty and it's shame it's not a pub at the moment.
Immediately across the road is the Lamb and Flag.
This was open but we didn't visit because we presumed beer prices would be like Bournemouth and they would be charging seven pounds a pint.
I never thought I would reach a time when an ordinary man like myself could not afford to go in a pub and buy a pint or seven.
Refreshingly there is a chain over in England that lets me charge my phone, gives me a Freedom breakfast for 4.44 and a pint for 2.74. It begins with W.
Over here rural pubs especially are dropping their shutters like flies.
5.50 a pint is too dear but they won't drop their prices and the government won't subsidise taxis or provide public transport.
I buy my beer from the supermarket and my social life is on here most days!
Any road:
When I got back here to Hibernia I Googled the pub and learned that Jude The Obscure was wrote here by Thomas Hardy.
Some Inspector Morse episodes also were filmed there.
Oh well. Perhaps I will visit the pub some other time?
I found this video of the pub on You Tube.
Is it Tish time tonight? Go on open that can or bottle and the ingredients will say "Tish" to you!
I wouldn't pay £7 a pint either.
ReplyDeleteI would pay £7 for a pint of Irish whiskey.
DeleteThe government adds 11 Euros tax on it YP.
DeleteNope. Have you been to Oxford Tasker? Not many chip shops but a very nice place.
ReplyDeleteThat bloody video! An hour of my life wasted. Thanks a lot Dave!
ReplyDeleteIt's like going out to a pub on your own. Perhaps they will turn Sky News on?
ReplyDeleteDamn those pubs prices. It would be nice to see inside them too. Boy you had a great trip . You've not left much unseen
ReplyDeleteYes pub prices are very expensive in England and Ireland. We did have a good trip and visited some great places and saw some great bands.
ReplyDeleteA couple of my relatives have kept pubs and found it fairly thankless. They loved the social side and had regular customers who became friends, but financially it was unrewarding, to say the least.
ReplyDeleteIt must be very difficult running a pub Jabblog. Especially rural pubs where there is no public transport or taxis. We only go out when we are on holiday or if I go to a rock festival in England.
ReplyDeleteYou know, Northsider, I spent a lot of time re-acquainting myself with the Joy and CS Lewis saga, and something that I never knew (or if I did, I forgot that I knew) was that Jack and Joy married secretly, in a civil union a year before the marriage by a priest. It seemed that her visa had run out and the only way she could stay in country was if they married. Since it was not said in a church setting, they did not regard those vows as actually being married and continued to live in separate homes. How quaint that all seems all these years later, and how tragic given that she had so few years left to her.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Debby. All churches and registry offices are licensed by the local government. So legally they would have been married if not in the eyes of God. I suppose people would just live together today? Joy came from a Communist and Jewish background and eventually became a Christian. It's a fascinating and tragic story.
DeleteI haven't been in a pub for years. My sister's pub was in Blakeney and my niece's (her daughter's) was in Letheringsett, both in Norfolk.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been in a cinema for over thirty years.
ReplyDeleteAHH... Oxford pubs - I last visited over 40 years ago and didn't have a chance then to catch up with any that had been regulars when I lived there 10 years before. The Bird and Bastard (as we knew it then). The Lamb and Flag. Turf Tavern, The Grapes (Iffley Road, not to be visited unless you were desperate)., out of town to the Trout when on the river in a punt ... Such memories
ReplyDeleteThanks Will. Great name for the "Bird and Baby". 😊 Didn't you tell us on here once that JRR Tolkien was one of your lecturers Will? You should write all down your Oxford pubs stories. You have got a very interesting book there. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteIt was my sister in law who had Tolkien as a tutor, she subsequently went on to become a successful children's author many years later.
DeleteExcellent Will. No doubt your sister in law had a great mentor in Tolkein and he helped her gain her vivid imagination like his?
ReplyDeleteWe noticex on a recent break in East Dorset and in New Forest that there are boarded up pubs all over the English countryside. A defining part of Englishmess is under threat. Friends of our are publicans at a tied pub and have drink prices dictated to them. They make no money on drink - only on food which is the only bit the brewery doesn't stitch them up on.
ReplyDeleteThanks Tigger's Mum. It's a similar situation in Ireland. Taxis and public transport are poor or don't exist. A lot of pubs do not serve food and are only open at night or weekends.
ReplyDelete