Wetherspoons

[swee'pea99]

a pun crawl

Now there's an idea!

 

[BoldonLad]

More research confirms my idea that the Yates Wine Lodge pics I saw were from the excellent Martin Parr exhibition, return to Manchester.

Booklet here

https://manchesterartgallery.org/wp...04/MAG_Martin-Parr-Large-print-16pp_Print.pdf

but also reminded me, which I had forgotten or maybe could scarceley believe at the time, that the pics were from the 80s!

excerpt from the text here:

@@

Yates’s Wine Lodges are the oldest pub chain in the UK,
founded in 1884 in Oldham by Peter Yates. Within 20
years there were nearly 20 lodges around Lancashire
and whilst they spread nationwide, they retained a
stronghold in the North of England. Yates’s marketed
themselves on being open all day and providing good
value food and drink. Parr decided to make a series
documenting every branch of Yates’s at that time which
were mainly in the North West but also further afield in
Leeds, Newcastle, Nottingham and Wakefield. He was
interested in the rituals around drinking and socialising
and the people who frequented them. The day in
the life of a pub is captured, with people drinking
on their own or with friends, the queuing system of
drinkers forming an orderly line behind a rail and how
the atmosphere changed whether the pub was full or
empty. Parr said “the unspoilt, original wine lodges,
with their high ceilings and bare floorboards, their
pillars and rails for propping yourself upright, seem
clearly designed for the determined and joyless business
of taking the quickest route to oblivion.” The images
aren’t posed and show Parr’s interest in gestures,
glances, movement and composition, which prefigures
his more familiar contemporary colour reportage work.
On loan from The John Rylands Library, The University
of Manchester.

The Yates in Newcastle has closed too. Being turned into a Slug and Lettuce.

 

[Oldhippy]

The one in Herne Bay is completely devoid of any atmosphere. Some are tastefully transformed I think, but I do dislike the political background of the owner and the carpet bombing approach of one in nearly every town and sometimes more.

 

[Blue Hills]

The one in Herne Bay is completely devoid of any atmosphere. Some are tastefully transformed I think, but I do dislike the political background of the owner and the carpet bombing approach of one in nearly every town and sometimes more.

Not overly surprised about the one in Herne bay,I swerved it on my cycletour that way a few years ago.
Never mind, a pic from my table at the Margate one round the coast. Nice quiet lounge upstairs, handy for recharging stuff as well.

 

[Oldhippy]

I cycle through Margate reasonably regularly. Lots of opportunity for photos in back streets and old shop fronts and doorways.

 

[Blue Hills]

I cycle through Margate reasonably regularly. Lots of opportunity for photos in back streets and old shop fronts and doorways.

An interesting town, have the idea that it maybe benefited in a way from its period of decline in that it wasn't "improved". I gather that it's now quite arty. I must go back (including to the spoons if they have something interesting on). I really like Thanet.

 

[Oldhippy]

An interesting town, have the idea that it maybe benefited in a way from its period of decline in that it wasn't "improved". I gather that it's now quite arty. I must go back (including to the spoons if they have something interesting on). I really like Thanet.

Or as the locals I know call it, Planet Thanet.

 

[swee'pea99]

Or as the locals I know call it, Planet Thanet.

The only thing I know about Thanet is that Ian Dury rhymed it with Janet.

 

[Blue Hills]

The only thing I know about Thanet is that Ian Dury rhymed it with Janet.

apparently TS Eliot wrote part of The Wasteland in a Margate shelter.

Turner also painted Margate - mind you Turner seems to have painted pretty much everywhere.

Thanet has a nice semi-cut-off feel - lots of unspoiled coast and beaches.

And its shape meant by that by choosing a strategically located campsite a bit inland I could pedal off in lots of directions to lots of different bits of coast sampling the wares of a different spoons every day.

It also has lots of other arty associations.

Gabriel Dante Rossetti, famous pre Raphaelite, is buried in Birchington - I actually managed to find his grave in between gulps of fresh sea air and spoons pints.

 

[swee'pea99]

Whilst Wetherspoons have saved the facade of many buildings that may otherwise have changed significantly, they have ripped the heart out of many. There are a few exceptions though which is about the only good thing I see they do.

As for visiting any. Their clientele are not generally characters I tend to mix with.

Wetherspoons doesn't have clientele; it has punters.

 

[Dirk]

Wetherspoons doesn't have clientele; it has punters.

I beg to differ.
Check the definitions of the two words.

 

[Tenkaykev]

I visited the one on Poole Quay a couple of years back ( pre plague ) It gets quite busy with tourists and has more than its fair share of local "characters " One friend remarked that it looked like the Mos Eisly cantina in Star Wars had been modelled on it.

 

[swee'pea99]

I beg to differ.
Check the definitions of the two words.

'definitions'? Wha's all that abaht then? D'you spill my pint? An anuvva fing...

 

[Tenkaykev]

'definitions'? Wha's all that abaht then? D'you spill my pint? An anuvva fing...

Oi! you lookin at my bird?...

 

[BoldonLad]

Whilst Wetherspoons have saved the facade of many buildings that may otherwise have changed significantly, they have ripped the heart out of many. There are a few exceptions though which is about the only good thing I see they do.

As for visiting any. Their clientele are not generally characters I tend to mix with.

I am deeply hurt and offended