For some time the licensee of the Hobgoblin, Broad Street Reading has
been looking for another pub. This isn't surprising: the pubco never
spend tuppence on the place [1] but keeps raising the managers' targets,
which is unrewarding for all concerned.
The regulars' choice to succeed him was a lad named Dom.
We can now reveal (since everyone already knows) that the current
management will be driving a van to their new pub in Cambridge on 30th
April, and they're taking Dom with them.
This put the pubco into a flat spin, since the shabby [2] Goblin brings
in Loadsa Money and the loss of its faithful clientele would hit them
where it hurts.
The pubco rang the chairman of the local CAMRA branch (who is also
thought to be looking for a pub) and asked if he knew anyone who might
be interested. He told them a complete pubco attitude transplant would
be a prerequisite to anyone who knew the Goblin touching it with a
ten-foot pole.
So it seems likely that a pubco rent-a-manager will arrive on the eve of
its busiest weekend of the year. If they can get one [3].
<shrug> There are other real ale pubs we can go to. They'd have to
spend a fortune to get the place into a state where any other clientele
would consider drinking there.
[1] Nor, apparently, do they spend a penny in it.
The drain from the ladies' loo collapsed so female customers had to use
the Gents' and nothing was done about it until said customers re****ted
the matter to Environmental Health, who forced the pubco to act. The
Gents is now almost as bad.
[2] The skull that used to grin down at you from the corner of the bar
gantry has apparently already left. Its place has been taken by a
customer service award, made from a chunk of glass but already beginning
to look tarnished.
The glass-wa****ng machine was working when I last saw it but the
mechanic says it's beyond economic repair. The bar has a tiny sink
where staff can kneel to wash gl***** by hand when the machine breaks
down.
The electric supply is unreliable. And shouldn't switches be fixed to
the wall?
The cellar is reached from the bar, by a trapdoor which has a wooden
baluster round it by way of a safety rail; one of the banisters has been
broken for years.
[3] Although the drains don't let water through, I understand the roof
does. Also that the licensee's accomodation is worth seeing, and has to
be, to be believed.
With sympathetic restoration it could be charming. The rear of the
building was part of a timber-framed mediaeval house, while the brick
front was added around 1798, when the opening of the Kennet and Avon
Canal brought prosperity to the town. The two parts are held together
by a vast iron staple in the licensee's bedroom. Each part has its own
concept of "upright".
A steep narrow staircase without handrails forks into two similar
staircases: bijou, but not very practical if you're carrying anything or
if you're not quite sober.
--
Sue ]:(:)
It's hard to imagine life without the Goblin, unless you're a manager
dreaming of a life somewhere else.
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