The Maundy Hounds of Borough...

Various pubs in Borough but culminating in the usual Purley Arms, Croydon
2nd April 2015

The collective Hound is a curiously contrived beast - several parts relentless tradition and virtually equal measures of 'innovation' and the breaking of new ground.  And so this last Maundy Thursday the Hound was to be found in fine and full force - ALL core hounds present and correct - making good on this year's traditional chapter of Maundy Thursday extended quizzing escapade.  Strict observance was honoured by the midday start and the (almost entirely pointless) participation in a quiz at the end of it and 'adventure' was provided by a tour of new pubs in a new area.

I say 'new pubs in a new area' but the truth is that the Borough area outside of London Bridge station is not exactly 'new' and for anyone who's ever had any sort of business in our fine capital the multitude of drinking establishments in and around the place are very probably very well known.  But, no matter - the Hound hadn't done collective business here before and so it was deemed high time that it did...

We convened via our various routes in what is possibly the area's biggest and most frequented pub - the Barrow Boy & Banker - a personal favourite of mine and the one in the area I've probably spent most time/money in but today, and rightly so, it was serving merely as an initial staging post.  We arrived over the space of 20 minutes or so, quaffed a pint with varying rapidity and moved on...

Next up The Globe - another traditional boozer of similar age but it struggled against the fact that Hound thirsts were high - both for liquid and exploration - we lasted a relatively rapidly downed pint and moved swiftly to The Market Porter, bigger than The Globe and more spread out and rambling than The Barrow Boy, the Hound filled it's glasses with Gloucester Gold (Robson), Amber Ale (Lord Peterkins) a Guinness for G-Force and 3 x 'numbers' for D2, Green and yours.  Three pubs in and we were clearly settling to our task - conversation was becoming more earnest and by the time we finished our pints and moved on we all agreed that 'Politics' had been thoroughly covered and wouldn't need revisiting...

Shortly before departing The Market Porter...

Next stop was a literal stone's throw away, The Wheatsheaf - in the absolute heart of the food market for which Borough is most famously known.  Cracking pub seemingly specialising in local brews - even The Hound's usually hopelessly unadventurous lager drinkers were tempted to experiment and went for pints of Camden Pils and Camden Hell - both of which were lovely.  We settled in a covered courtyard kind of area and supped well.  Lord Peterkins had detoured into the market itself en-route (for a handsome looking Malaysian chicken curry) and provided the inspiration for a quick trolley-dash expedition round the market whilst the second round of beers was procured.  The shopping resulted in a selection of bread, brie and saucisson to be literally torn into and shared around - D2 also chose this at the venue to unleash the day's only 'piece-de-resistance' in the form of some impressively, but not fatally, hot chilli chocolate...

Dig in - focaccia, truffle-brie, venison saucisson and chilli chocolate...

 

With all comestibles rapidly going the same way as the tipples we vacated and headed for The Southwark Tavern where the main topics of discussion were how good that brie had been and what a lovely backdrop the Shard would make if only someone could get a photo of it...

 

 

Some Hounds in silhouetted relief against the Shard, as spotted earlier...

 

After one pint we were up and off again to The George Inn which is found down a side road off the approach to London Bridge in a courtyard setting.  Several of us had been here before together so we quickly settled in, to the extent that a deck of cards was quickly cracked out and, as during last year's Maundy Odyssey, we did joue-au-tete-de-merde...  G-Force was unfamiliar with the game but picked it up quickly and we stayed for a couple of pints worth of games.  D2 received a phone call which necessitated his departure but the rest of us supped it up, sucked it up and stumbled off in the direction of whichever London Bridge platform could deliver us directly to Purley Oaks.

 

Despite the proximity and our alleged intelligence we pretty much all managed to lose each other on the stroll to and through London Bridge - some bought food, some didn't, some bought booze for the journey, some didn't, some managed to sit together for the journey, some didn't.  Never the less we all coalesced on the platform at Purley Oaks and yomped avec plus vitesse to the Purley Arms for the day's lengthy denouement.

 

As a creature of habit The Hound is usually in situ for the Purley Arms quiz by shortly after 7pm - favourite table, favourite seats - sad but true.  After all the nonsense detailed above we were somewhat later than 7pm and nowhere near being able to secure our preferred vantage point, so we perched on high stools around a small round table and tried to tell each other that we weren't already eight pints into it and this was just another normal Thursday quiz.  That didn't last long though 'cos the first round of pictures was handed out - all images of popular (board) games from the 70s/80s/90s - despite them all looking familiar we were untypically but totally understandably hazy on the details and only managed 6/10.

 

My notes tell me that round 2 was on 'TVs, Pubs & Bars' but I've nothing more written down than that.  To be honest, as per last year, there isn't really sufficient to build any sort of worthwhile narrative on - the connections round was drinks related - it looks like we got the three ten point questions - the jeopardy round was not to our liking, all themed around Disney songs - and the Top Ten round was highest paid footballers - music round seemed bang-on-average with us missing one entirely and not recognising which Duffy song it was we'd heard twice.

 

No mention of the chocolate-box question so who knows what happened there.

 

At the end of a very long day The Hound was good for 140 points which, to be fair, is not a bad effort - but on the day there were three scores better than that with the winners clocking up 172 - probably somewhere around the number of collective units the Hound had knocked off in the previous ten hours...

 

Another messy Maundy marathon - back to normal with a couple of straightforward quizzes next week and then looking onwards to The Oaks...