Travels and Thoughts
Our last pub was the most famous - "Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese." This pub was rebuilt after the great fire of 1666. It is famous for the number of important people who frequented it. These include Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conon Doyle, Dr. Samuel Johnson (he lived but a few streets from this pub), the Rhymer's Club, a club for poets established by Yeats, met here. It is specifically referred to in Tale of Two Cities.
Agatha Christie wrote that her fictional detective Hercule Poirot dined with a new client at the Cheshire Cheese in her 1924 story The Million Dollar Bond Robbery, adding a description of "the excellent steak and kidney pudding of the establishment.
I had to make this photo large enough for you to see the parrot cage above the bar. For around 40 years, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese was associated with a grey parrot named Polly. On its death in 1926 around 200 newspapers across the world wrote obituaries, while the news was read out on radio stations in Great Britian. According to our guide, the parrot died at a city-wide celebration involving many cannon firings. It was just too much for polly to take.
Below the pub are two more floors both of which are used for drinking and dining. In 1962, the pub gave the Museum of London a number of sexually explicit erotic plaster of Paris tiles recovered from an upper room. These tiles strongly suggest that the room was used as a brothel in the mid-eighteenth century. No wonder the British mums wanted their boys to stay away from the pubs!
After many pints of local beer, I returned to the hotel to clean up for the theater. The play, "Bitter Wheat" with John Malkovich, was absolutely brilliant! I love the acting of Malkovich anyway, and David Mamet whom I really like wrote the play. We saw his play Glengarry Glen Ross at the theatre in Wilmington a few seasons ago. He has written many books, short stories, film scripts, tv scripts, etc. Bitter Wheat was written this year and is loosly based on the Weinstein saga. It is about a depraved Hollywood mogul, Barney Fein, who is a bloated monster! Malkovich made the evening!
Garrick theater, only theater in London named after an actor. David Garrick was a famous actor in the 18th C who performed many of the lead characters in Shakespeare's plays.
Futura Light is a much loved font inspired by elements of Bauhaus design. Ideal for headlines, banners, logos & more, it will make your words stand out.
I asked the man holding the programs for one, and he said that will be five pounds ($6.25). Also, during intermission the man with the stand came down to sell ice cream at 3.50 pounds or nearly $5! The ice cream was about the size of a dixie cup!
Left: the Garrick Pub was right next to the theater. Above is a picture of the pull beers offered. They, of course, had many taps with other regular beers. The metal thing with the holes was placed in front of every patron to hold the pint. I guess to catch spills?
Above is the menu at the Garrick Pub. On the menu is listed a "Philly Cheese Steak." The meal to the left is that cheese steak! Good, but not a Philly Cheese Steak!
After the theatre, I took the tube back to Charing Cross station and my hotel. After a warm shower, I was readyh for bed!!