Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Feeling Themey And Supping At Ye Olde Blogger


Well maybe it's the time of year or maybe it's the time of man .... but I am feeling themey. Themes are like filaments along which worthwhile thoughts can form. Think about a candy floss machine (that's cotton candy to our American cousins): I know about the mechanics of making candy floss because my friend Edwin bought me a candy floss machine for my birthday a couple of years ago. You start with a bit of sugar in the centre of a centrifuge and as it spins sugary filaments form. These filaments then become the sweet superstructure of the finished delicacy. What I am trying to say is that themes can become the superstructure of finished thoughts - or, there again, perhaps I am just demonstrating that candy-floss thoughts can be made out of practically nothing.

Anyway, I thought that I would make one of my February themes, pub names. Pub names are interesting in the way that book covers are interesting; they encourage you to seek within, to imbibe. There is probably a word for people who collect pub names - it will be something like a wastrel or a toomuchtimeonhishandsoligist. Whatever it is, I am one. It is the same with whatever it is that I collect, be it banknotes or old postcards, I am driven to categorise them, file them, store them away in a plastic box. And so my first plastic box has a label on it marked "occupational pubs".

The Old Bookbinders is in the Jericho district of Oxford, not far from the headquarters of the Oxford University Press. It's a fine old pub full of wooden tables, dusty old books and overflowing pints of beer. I have a feeling that I would have quite liked to be a bookbinder, there would be something satisfying about packaging knowledge and thoughts and stories. Perhaps the modern equivalent is a blogger - the bookbinder of the digital age. Now there's a pub I would be attracted to : "Ye Olde Blogger"

15 comments:

  1. Hm, methinks you've hit upon your second career here, Alan ...proprietor of a wired pub.

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  2. It's just a matter of time, Alan, just a matter of time.

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  3. Alan, supping at 'Ye Olde Blogger' is a fine idea, but be careful not to emerge Google-eyed!

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  4. Off-topic Alan but check my next blog post (up tomorrow?) It's connected with Sepia Saturday and a meeting I am having in a Halifax pub next Wednesday (8th) getting info+photographs.Have A Read & ,if you can,your welcome to join us .I think you might find it interesting.As it's to do with both themes&pubs, perhaps I am not off-topic after all!

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  5. Sounds a good theme. And a good excuse.

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  6. Hello Alan:
    The 'Old Bookbinders' certainly sounds like our kind of place. Will you be looking at the clientele as well as the name of the pub in your themey posts? We have a theory that people who frequent certain places look like them after a while, rather like owners and pets.

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  7. I wonder if anyone's walked into The Old Bookbinders yet, and asked them what the name meant!

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  8. Interesting Theme; pub/bar names are always fun. I can't wait to see what you can find.

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  9. Go on - it was the ‘four-pint pitcher' that really attracted you.

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  10. I think it would be fun to make up some pub names. Here's a few of the top of my head:

    The Stinky Badger

    Ye Olde Bottom of the Barrel

    The Pit and Olive

    Scrivener's Tavern

    The Mollusk and Maggot

    Sherlock's Pipe


    Carry on!

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  11. Can I give Martin's comment a GOLD star? That's brilliant!

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  12. I like your theme idea! ...and this pub is one I'd sure stop in...and it's funny the name would grab me even before I knew what it was! Very cool!

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  13. I think you've given many bloggers a cool idea for topics. Names of zoos, bands I got it!

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  14. Ooooh...I'd love to spend a few hours in there!

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  15. Anonymous12:54 AM

    I've always loved how Martha Grimes named her books after pub titles.

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