As the year comes to an end, the infamous PubSpy launches his first-ever awards for the best and worst boozers reviewed in the past year.
WINNER
BASED on the eccentric furnishings of The Montague Arms in Queens Road, New Cross, you’d be forgiven for thinking its landlord was either a criminally insane scientist with a fascination for sewing unwitting tourists together to form a human centipede or an alcoholic kleptomaniac.
Decorated with stuffed animals, a penny farthing and a skeleton above the bar, manned by a team of eccentric geriatrics and featuring karaoke with a blind pianist this is more than just a pub, it’s an experience.
Without a doubt, this is the best pub in the News Shopper area, if not London. No, no, the world. OK, you’re right, the universe.
It is with a lump in my throat that I am pleased to award this truly original and completely barmy boozer with PubSpy’s first ever Golden Pint.
After endless soul destroying visits to other pubs, eavesdropping on the banter of offensive bigots, this kooky little gem neither made me hang my head in despair for the future of mankind nor want to dump stray cats in wheelie bins.
And with a great selection of ales and lagers on tap, as well as plenty of wine, alcopops and the usual spirit selection, all at a fairly reasonable price, what’s not to like about the Montague Arms?
Those of a sane disposition may find its anarchic eccentricity a bit unnerving.
But to anyone with a sense of fun and a healthy curiosity for the intriguingly odd, this boozer is a veritable cave of wonders.
LOSER
IF THERE is one thing you can be sure of in life, it’s the universe certainly has a wicked sense of humour.
Puking distance from this year’s deserved winner for best pub of the year is dingy dive The White Hart Hotel, in New Cross Road, New Cross.
Perhaps its existence is simply a cosmic equation balancing itself out, with The Montague Arms as the ying to The White Hart’s yang.
We may never know. But to avoid any cataclysmic paradox resulting from the creation of the Golden Pint, it is only right this seedy cesspit is given an award of its own.
A round of applause please and three cheers for this year’s winner (or should I say loser?) of the dreaded Grotty Toilet award for mediocrity.
Marred by controversy because of the landlord’s plans to transform the pub into a strip club last year, this decrepit hole looked and smelt like the gateway to the devil’s armpit when I popped in for a pint in April.
Its dark carpet and walls, coupled with a musky, stale stench, gave it the feel of a seedy back-street brothel.
And I found the murky lighting only added to the threatening atmosphere.
After the furious landlord called the News Shopper, threatening to sue, I maintained a wide berth from the place until recently.
Like a revoltingly ugly caterpillar, bloated after gorging itself on a steaming heap of dog mess, the landlord claimed The White Hart was in the process of metamorphosis, gradually transforming into a heavenly butterfly.
However, having peered through its window recently, all evidence points to the contrary.
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