Right then, it's beginning to sink in now that this is going to happen. I had a bill in the post today for over two grand, legals and taxes. And that is far from all the legals and such that I shall have to pay. I definitely need to start getting my act together. No more staying in bed 'til noon, then ambling along at a snails pace. I have done a mental assess of what I actually have, and it brought it home to me that I need to do this right, because I don't really have a lot to fall back onto. My mental stocktake revealed to me that I have a strong idea of what the best pubs in the world should be like, a large amount of junk in my house with which I am going to fit out this pub, a surprisingly small sum of money in my bank account in which to buy stock and all else that we shall need, and hopefully the experience, energy, knowledge and vision to turn an empty building into something quite special.

Time to put my running shoes on and get into those starter blocks.

Speaking of piles of junk, here is one of mine. This is a pile of picture frames that I have  collected mostly from charity shops over the last six months or so. The picture at the front gives a good clue to one of the themes that I intend to follow re- decorations. 

Pictures and Music

As I expected I was not exceptionally good, playing music at the Hilly the other day, for a variety of unnamed reasons. I did stick to weak beer for most of the night in an attempt to stay sober, but it’s didn’t really work. The beer that I was drinking was Dawkins Milkmaid Mild coming in at only 2.8% abv. The Milkmaid Mild is surprisingly tasty for such a low alcohol content, with a creamy and malty taste. For me it has a warm, subtle bitterness that makes it very drinkable. After I finished playing music I moved onto something stronger which was a Bad Idea. I can’t remember what I drank after and I stayed for far too long. Yesterday was a write off. I can’t afford to do this kind of thing in the mid-week for a while at least.

The Bag of Nails is going to be a pub that reflects my character, and thus I am going to put a lot of myself into it. One of the most important things in my life is music, and I mostly choose to play music using tiny diamonds and little discs of vinyl. This photo shows the Technics 1210 deck that we shall be installing into the Bag somewhere. This is the same record player that I had famously put into the ‘Nubia and delighted so many customers during my tenure. It’s slightly knackered, but still keeps a good speed, and the sound will only cut away if you move the deck around too much. Initially it might have to sit on the end of the bar in the Bag until we find a permanent site. The thing that people loved at the last pub we ran, was the ability to pick and choose the next record, and the tangibility of handling and changing the records. The extra sound quality is a bonus of course. Unlike the ‘Nubes, there isn’t that much storage space downstairs there, so I may not be able to have all of my records available to play at once. I might have to employ a rotation scheme. I have been buying a lot more singles this last year and now am beginning to have a respectable collection. As long as you like old pop music that is, as most of the singles I find come from charity shops.

I have pictured another acquisition, which is an antique painting with a lovely gilt frame. The painting is around a hundred years old and by a Scottish artist called Sam Pope Jnr, 1881–1940. The painitng is quite nice, but it is the frame that I am actually interested in. I am happy that I only paid twenty five pounds, as the lady initially wanted ninety five for it, not long ago. I have been collecting these style of frames for a while and now I might just have enough. I will reveal what pictures I intend to put into them later. I do intend to make the walls of the pub very interesting to gaze upon. The two singles alongside the frame are Beats International, which was not as good as I had remembered it to be, and a Sam Cook classic, Wonderful World.

The weather was disgusting again today and I think our media ought to focus on the important aspects of our society. Not about newspapers shutting down, but why has the weather been so much less pleasant since the Tories got into power ? It cannot be just me that has noticed the link. How did they manage it ?