Fox & Anchor

We went to the Fox and Anchor on Wednesday evening for a meal and a few drinks with our friend Mrs. T______. The F&A opened about a month ago in the premises of what was formerly a nightclub. It is the third English/Irish-style pub to have opened in the town where we live, which now seems to boast more such establishments than it does Swedish bars. A good deal of money had evidently been spent in creating a quite convincing simulacrum of English pub decor: with dark wood, brass lamps, stained glass skylights, and old prints and plates on the walls. If an English pub-goer were kidnapped, blindfolded and brought there, it would be a few minutes, perhaps, depending on how much he or she had had to drink, before an uncanny realisation that something was not quite right might begin to dawn. One such false note that registered with me only in retrospect was that the lighting was slightly too bright.

Wednesday being the main weekday drinking night in these parts, the place was busy, and the atmosphere was good. The food was nothing special, but there was an impressive range of draught beers, virtually none of which are available elsewhere in town. After starting with a German weißbier I switched to Krušovice Černé, a delicious dark Czech brew. I had another few of those before wandering off, ready for bed, at about eleven, leaving Mrs. T______ and my wife, chips in hand, at the poker table in the gaming room. The very presence of a gaming room offering blackjack, poker and roulette, would be in itself, of course, a strong indicator to our notional abductee that he or she was not in England anymore...