East Beers - Wednesdays - The Chesham Arms E9 6DU

you should spot the LFGSS and LCEF hats.

Look out for this:

in real life

or this

Guess I'll try make it as I haven't seen you lot in ages, and I do like the JB

oh depends on jet lag of course

I don't know if they have Jet Lag. You could ask Joe to get some in.

I could bring some beer from SF...

good to see this thread active again.

yeah but why is it only when we go north it's active...

Basic physical geography really, isn't it? After all, what is East London?

For the purposes of this thread anything south of the river doesn't count (you'd go to the Roebuck) so we only have north of the Thames.

And does anyone really come from east of the Lee/Lea? It's a bit of a hinterland isn't it really, the marshes, Stratford, the Olympic park, the reservoirs, all that industrial stuff. Beyond that is Beckton, Wanstead and so on. Let's be honest: Beckton smells of poo. That's a big sewage plant right there, full of shit, literally. A Carphone Warehouse surrounded by train tracks. The giant Woolworths has shut down. Even the gasometers look deflated. Nobody lives there. Do they?

EEI is keeping it real in Leyton for the moment of course: when the babysitter allows. I think cupcakes used to live in West Ham, the park is quite nice if I'm remembering it right, the usual small paddling pool and smaller children eating ice cream, but also a rose garden next to the tennis courts off Portway, a faded running track which, when viewed from the air, reveals an Olympic logo. It looks too faded to be post-millenial. It couldn't date back to 1948. Could it?

Either way, I don't remember cupcakes ever making it to easts, he was drawn to the Roebuck and eventually moved south of the river. Such is the cultural power of the Lea (Lee?) barrier, traversed only by A-roads, Toyota Previas, white vans and tricitybendix. A104/A12/A106/A11. Give each of the four a ring and you can hold your own (motor) Olympics: motorways masquerading as A-roads. Don't mention the Homerton road, the only B road across the divide, crossing the divide like a high wire, like the single string of a broken violin, like Matilda's bridge.

Matilda? In 1110, Matilda took a tumble while crossing the Lea at the ford at Bow, on her way to Barking Abbey (probably to do some shopping, you know how monks like commerce). This wouldn't have mattered normally, but she was married to Henry I at the time, so she ordered a distinctive bow-shaped, three-arched, bridge to be built over the River Lea at Bow. It was quite a marvel.

(I'm not going to patronise you by making the connection there, I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself).

I digress Kirth, but the thing is it's all about catchment areas. Leaving it where it was half the catchment area was this hinterland, this dead space, this mostly unoccupied geography (anyone want to buy an Olympic new build?) with the further barrier of dirty Father Thames to the south.

Filthy river, filthy river,
Foul from London to the Nore,
What art thou but one vast gutter,
One tremendous common shore?

Move it up a bit, to the north: north a bit, north a bit, north a bit, north a bit...

Nothing to do with me mate.

And west a bit too, just a bit, to 'Stoke Newington High Street': Pah! It's the Kingsland Road really, the A10, it goes all the way to King's Lynn! Forum ride to King's Lynn? It's very far away. Let's start a list:

1. Fox
   
   

Actually I did a ride from King's Lynn once, it wasn't an overwhelming success. Ask dropout about the sand. We saw a lot of mangel wurzels though.

But it's like a spine, isn't it, the A10, diving north from east. East on the right, north on the left. The east (right) side, that's where the Jolly Butchers is, just on the *correct * (right) side of the road, just in east London, teetering on the edge of north London like the coach at the end of the Italian Job (don't try that in Beckton, you might end up in something smelly). Plop!

But it's right, so that's alright. It feels right. S'aawight innit.

And the beer selection is excellent. You can find Redemption in a pint glass. Which reminds me, the rest of our poem:

*All her foul abominations
Into thee the City throws;
These pollutions, ever churning,
To and fro thy current flows.

And from thee is brew'd our porter -
Thee, thou guilty, puddle, sink!
Thou, vile cesspool, art the liquour
Whence is made the beer we drink!*

I'll drink to that.

Repped
(tl;dr)

Christy Moore & Sinead O'Connor sweet thames flow softly - YouTube

I'll drink to that.

Sounds like you already have.

csb

^^ Not a drop actually.

Well you surprise me!

I want to have what Fox is having.

Basic physical geography really, isn't it?

[snip]

Pah! It's the Kingsland Road really, the A10, it goes all the way to King's Lynn! Forum ride to King's Lynn? It's very far away.

It's actually the old Ermine Street, which is the old Roman Road to Lincoln, and from there to York:

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermine_Street[/ame]

That the A10 goes to King's Lynn is a modern distortion. :)

And for what? There's nothing in Kings Lynn.

Beyond that is Beckton, Wanstead and so on... Nobody lives there. Do they?

HoKe and dimi3 live out Silvertown/Beckton way don't they?

Ermine St is cool as an impressive Roman road, but its a bit horrid too, it's a barrier between me and a good friend who lives in a village just west of there, it's only 10 miles or so out of town (Cam), but not nice to traverse especially in the dark. I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to major/fast country roads though.

I live a sub 1 min cycle from the JB

Its not even worth bringing my bike.

Considering my first attendence this wednesday as i'm not working

Oh and very good choice in venue!

I live very East, East of Wanstead. Maybe during the Olympics when all the road closures are in place, we should have a very East beers.

We did go to Leyton or leytonstone one week. (was that the week we met?)
That pub with its own brewery.

Don't think I'd go there again.