I noticed this on the floor of the entrance to our studios for the first time today and it cleared up any doubts I’d had about the former purpose of the building. When exactly did people stop doing awesome mosaics and start gutting pubs? This is not progress.
The former pub I’ve been working in the past days shared a name with my local back east. The Albion I know is a strange affair set in a Mock-Tudor corner-house. The owner has successfully covered most surfaces in flags and football references centred around his idols: the Baggies. Look up and you’ll notice a strange array of air conditioning units, redundant since the smoking ban. Ceiling greebling. They’ve got some decent ales and if it’s not too busy they’ll serve cups of Bovril: a welcome rarity. There’s also a guy who comes round selling fresh pots of winkles with salt and vinegar for 50p. Winkles and Bovril, that’s what you’ll have when you’re redundant. Winkles and Bovril.
I seem to remember a few of us making a pact, that if it ever went up for sale, we’d buy it together and run it. I hope we’d be organised enough to act on those words, because if that Albion were ever gutted and sliced into studios it would be a shame.
