No. 89 The Greyhound

Visited on 15/9/11. Heading into the centre of Saughall village we soon reached ‘the Greyhound’, a pub with a depressingly familiar recent history – landlord builds a healthy business and is rewarded by the PubCo ‘upping the rent’ to a ridiculous level – landlord then packs it in. The new proprietors clearly have a different business model in mind. An ace old pub has in effect become a restaurant. From can o’ peas to canapés. Drinkers are ‘allowed in’, but the sight of place settings and twee little tea lights on every single table doesn’t exactly create the right kind of environment if you’re just after a few bevies and a bit of craic with the lads. Quite frankly, I found it a little bit weird. Almost ‘Lynchian’ * in fact. In addition, when we arrived there appeared to be a 'tena lady' convention going on - about 15 middle class shrews all drinking chardonnay from over-sized glasses and cackling uproariously. I’m fairly certain there’s nothing sufficiently funny in existence that would justify the volume of such laughter. On the plus side though, the ale was absolutely spot on – Weetwood Cheshire Cat, Fuller’s London Pride, Timmy Taylor’s Landlord – all in perfect condition. Quite splendido.

*surrealist film maker David, not z-cars desk sergeant Bert.