The Alexandra, Wimbledon

Can't say too much about the Alexandra, haven't been there for a while, but the Smart Alex wine bar thing next door. WOW!!!! It is THE ideal place to go if your idea of a great night out is for four drinks to come to about about 25 quid, to be spoken to like an absolute piece of shit and shoved around by over-zealous and inexplicably angry bouncers clearly upset that their miserable lives are going no where, and the finger a woman with no teeth in her sixties. If these things are not your idea of a great night out, avoid like a fizzing suicide bomber

21 Feb 2013 14:11

The Woolpack, London Bridge

I frequent this boozer a fair amount. It's a popular place in a great location and can get quite full. Good selection of grog on tap, great pub garden, large room upstairs for hire, and by and large, the staff are quite cheerful. The management also seem to have a policy of making sure at least 80% of the bar staff are young, buxom, attractive women in vest tops, which for someone who is ferociously heterosexual like me, always a good thing.

However, this charm fades at approximately 10pm if you are still in the pub, as it is like a switch where the staff just lose interest in what they are supposed to do, and would rather spend their time giggling or flirting with the one or two blokes they hire. I have been in here before with only five people waiting at the bar towards the end of the night, and seven people behind the bar, and not one of them serving, rather doing such vital tasks as looking at the coffee machine, turning a glass over in their hands, or opening and closing the door to the cellar. The layout is also a bit awkward, if you are standing, you always feel like you're in someone's way.

Still, I'll go back from time to time. Once the desire to throw the people that pay their wages out as quickly as possible at the end of the night goes so they can get on with some mild petting goes, it will be a great pub.

4 Jan 2012 16:37