please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
By the way, as a member of the ruling class, yes, I went to a public school, and qualified in the professions, (much bloody good it did me!)
I would just like to make the point that these guys you all like i.e. Farage, Martin, Sunak et al, were the dropouts from that system. They may have Plummy voices, and a nice taste in suits, but they were /are despised by us.
They were the sort of bods who got a good wedgie or a bogwash periodically at school to try and teach them their place, but they just didn't listen.
Rather than take those lessons onboard they became bitter and decided to to curry favour with you by advocating Brexit and various other muscle flexing bullshit.
Don't trust em.
Jay28 - 30 Mar 2024 01:56 |
I referred to the chairman of Wetherspoons PLC as the "owner" because he acts like it.... However, it appears that he sold his company on the stock exchange (presumably to make wads of cash$$), so it seems that you and I own it!!! through our pension contributions/ our private dabbles in the stock market etc.
So what gives this gobshite the right to preach his views to us? He acts like he owns the company, but he doesn't, we do.
Maybe I should be able to have a poster on the bar advocating a rise in staff wages, or free pints for refugees? etc. I could go on....
Maybe we could have a vote on what gets said in these posters... oh, we do, it's called the Company AGM, and we all get a say. How marvellous. Just what Maggie Thatcher wanted us all to have.
So why do we allow these posing twerps to pretend they own companies that they don't, and to use them as political wrecking balls for their own ends?
Might the Brexit vote, for example, have tilted a bit the other way if we had not had the "owner" of Wetherspoons spouting, what we all now know to be nonsense, in our ears, while we happened to be pissed up in the pub!
Maybe, Maybe, Maybe not.
Jay28 - 29 Mar 2024 23:38 |
Hulots-hat, Thomas Paine knew a thing or too. I wonder if what riled him up so much that he crossed the Atlantic and wrote the US constitution was something like them putting up a billboard in his local pub forcing you to read the squire’s view on an issue of the day?
I was once caught reading “The Rights of Man”. In a pub not far from the one we are posting about now. It was a masonic evening and a lot of older gents in smart black suits were lingering around. I got engaged in conversation by a gaggle of them… what are you reading?…. Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man… isn’t that all a bit simplistic for the modern age?… no…. Oh, so you think you are smarter than all of us then?… no…that’s all been discredited now and it’s a bit left wing isn’t it…. I don’t think so…backs were turned and more important conversations were attended to about the relative merits of the new Jaguar, and how Fred had recently landed a contract for houses to be built etc. etc.
Your comment is pertinent.
Jay28 - 29 Feb 2024 21:47 |
It was Tom Paine, I think, who said "The English will fight to the death for the right to have no rights" Jay.
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Forget the food, forget the drink. This pub’s primary function is as a political billboard.
It always had that in-house magazine where the owner spouted his political views on the extended op-ed pages. The mag also contained reviews of his own pubs and reviews of his own products. Guess what, the consensus was that they were pretty good. Who would have thought it?
The beauty of the mag was that you didn’t have to read it.
However, this pub has now decided to up the ante and has placed a billboard on the bar explaining how the owner triumphed over the evil gutter press who dared to print something about his policies towards staff during COVID 19.
So now when I go to order a pint I am faced with this nonsense. I can’t escape it. I asked the bar manager whether the poster reflected her views (after all, she was probably at the sharp end of the thing, and might know what the truth was about those allegations of a PLC constructively dismissing its staff because it feared for its profit?). She said “we have to put that up there”
Well, indeed.
Having brought our Country to its knees fighting fascism in 2 world wars for the principle of being able to think, do and say what ever we bloody well like, we now have to face the ugly truth of fascism from New Zealand!!!
Wow. I could see it coming from the Germans and the Russians, but the Kiwis? That one blindsided me I have to say.
Next time you swill your pint in wetherspoons, reflect upon this. The beer may turn sour in your mouth and a bilious reaction set in, building to a strong feeling of resentment. Don’t worry, this is quite natural and simply happens to any true bred Briton when he or she is taken for a fool.
George Orwell, stated in his book 1984 that the future was a boot stamping on a human face… forever. That is starting to sound like a relatively benign prediction. After all, the boot stamping thing might at least have been done in private. Nowadays, it would be on social media, and displayed on the top of the bar in your favourite watering-hole.
Jay28 - 14 Feb 2024 18:57 |
If I get asked “anything else” in here after giving my carefully considered order I am going to blow my stack and go on a Michael Ryan style rampage.
Do the staff assume that:
A. I am too old to remember what I need to order
B. That I am so thick that I have got my order wrong
C. I am too pissed to remember what it was I wanted (entirely possible actually!)
Or is this some management technique from that moon faced antipodean dingbat that owns this chain to try and get people to buy more products against their better judgement?
Just pack it in.
I know what I want. I don’t need prompting to buy more stuff.
I like this pub, but if I get one more “anything else” I am voting with my feet.
It always reminds me of the barbers who used to ask “anything else”. I.e, rubber johnnies when I was a young chap and used to go for a haircut. That was at least useful, and sometimes necessary (but not as often as I would have liked!). The “something else” at Whetherspoons is just bloody annoying.
Jay28 - 25 Jan 2023 17:46 |
I don't go there regularly because it really isn't very nice but was in on Saturday night for a friends birthday.
Thugs on the door were so unpleasant and aggressive that we all left.
A complaint has been made to Weatherspoons !
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Decent selection of real ales the day I was there. EvanEvans Golden Ale, Bishops Finger, Cambridge IPA, Adnams Broadside plus a couple of others.
Light and airey which is more than can be said for many Wetherspoon pubs. TV with the volume down which doesn't matter too much when sport is on!
The barstaff could be a little quicker off the mark when serving. Otherwise an ok pub.
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Highly regimented, repressed bar-staff who appear more focussed on following Weatherspoon's operating manual (e.g. performing "busy" tasks) when priority should be given to customers who pay their wages and shore up the share price. Staff appear to be expressly forbidden from interacting with customers apart from dispensing beer and taking money? Why take the time to smile and make polite small talk when you could be swabbing the decks?
May I suggest compulsory away-day visits with regular refreshers to busy City centre pubs for ALL staff, so they may experience at first hand, excellent, friendly service by staff who are competently serving several customers at the same time?
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To any regular users of the Ivory Peg I would recommend you download George Formby's "Blackpool Prom" and then adapt the words accordingly...
I queued for lager, I queued for ale, I queued for a sandwich which was stale...
I queued for a table, I queued for a chair, I queued for a view of the barmaid's pair...
...and after 60 minutes there, I queued in a queue for the loo.
Jay28 - 23 May 2014 17:23 |
Went here with my family for a meal, found it so expensive did not get change for £10 for four main meals plus dessert and drinks.
did have lots of nice beaver flashing there bits but thats the only good thing about this place.
I was also sick on the floor and they did not clean it up for 45 mins
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Plus points: cheap.
Negatives: Ever smaller ale choice as they give more and more pumps over to strong cider for students, the slowest service in the known universe, dirty and a bit tired.
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I never particularly enjoy a pub where I have to clean my own table. Staff are particularly bad in this Wetherspoons, which compares badly to most I've been in around the country.
That said, it's cheap and the beer selection as with all Spoons, is pretty good so all told, it's average. Plenty better, plenty worse.
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Fairly standard Wetherspoons pub, fairly lively on Friday and Saturday nights. Service is very bad. Frequently takes an age to get served and last time I went in there we had to clean our own table.
On the plus side, the beer is cheap and the selection of both ales and continental lagers is superb, as with most Spoons outlets.
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Well, this place is cheap. get what you pay for though
Cheap drinks, cheap clientele.... Mostly the same sort of people I used to see in there when I was a student (I'm only assuming they've been home or to work, and not stayed in there for the last 6 years frinking continuously)
never know though! :)
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Potentially good spoons, but beer selection can be hit and mis in quality and variety.
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It's cheap and an example of getting what you pay for, known in Chelmsford as 'The Park Bench Arms'
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Good choice of well kept real ales and ludicrously cheap. I have spent many a happy hour in there sampling their selection.
Service can be very slow at busy times.
There is a clientele of hard-core drinkers who are a bit unsightly at times but mostly harmless.
But don't eat there unless you're not fussy and have a strong stomach.
Jay28 - 26 Mar 2008 17:09 |
Usually a good range of real ales often a pound a pint cheaper than some other nearby outlets.But bar service so slow maybe they should introduce a queing system like the post office!... "NEXT!"...
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It Wetherspoons, if your happy waiting for a drink with no service then okay. Not for me!
anonymous - 7 Sep 2007 00:35 |
It does exactly what it says on the tin.
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Don't do it. Another beer factory devoid of atmosphere. The prices are cheap but you might as well turn the telly up and drink at home.
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very cheap and often a good range of real ales if you can stand the customers all Chavs and mental patients
food is disgusting and tables filthy , very few bar staff so takes an age to be served !
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Rough & ready, staff and food OK though. Just don't leave anything on a table for a second.......
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Very nice place, a modern style Wetherspoons yet they serve a great range of beers including a few guest beers on hand pump, which were Old Speckled Hen, Independance (scots real ale) and another a couple of months back.
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not my kind of ambience but the totty can be nice to look at for a swift pint.
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Despite being populated by 'the usual suspects' at times, this has a better atmosphere to it than most Wetherspoons' pubs. Service is quick, tables are tidy.
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First port of call for ex-cons leaving Chelmsford Prison. Worth a visit to see all the dregs of life. Not even cheap beer from around the world can make it tolerable for more than a swift half before catching the bus home.
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Good place to go for a lunchtime Drink. Food served quickly and with generous portions. Usually a good selection of guest beers from breweries such as Cotleigh. Does the best pint of Old Bob for miles!
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Truly a worthwhile renovation. The food is great, it's a relatively good atmosphere and a fantastic place to just chill out before clubbing out on the town. Wide range of beers on draft and bottled, and to top it off are a range of friendly bar staff who always smile and make you feel welcome. Give it a try.
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