Thornton Heath Tour
This tour took place on 18th September 2004, accompanied by Alex.
We'd been to see Croydon Athletic get beaten by Slough in the FA Cup
first qualifying round. Afterwards we wandered up the road to Thornton
Heath train station - these 3 pubs are all within around 5 minutes of
there.
Railway Telegraph
Fairly typical by-the-station grim beer pub. I didn't drink all of mine
because it had bits of sediment (I hope) floating in the bottom. Full
of Palace fans, so obviously pretty innocuous.
Lord Napier
It turns out that this is the 'best jazz pub' in the UK. There's an
entire room dedicated to jazz (and pool). Quite nice but not typical
Young's.
Fountain Head
Aha! This is what you want in a local South-London Young's pub.
Everyone in there seemed to know each other, apart from me and Alex,
but we felt completely welcome. They even put up with Alex's 'barelling
arms' celebration, usually employed to great effect after a double 6 at
backgammon, in this case used to express delight at Karaoke song
choices (for instance, 'Never gonna give you up' by Rick Astley). We
kept bawling "More Rick Astley" but they were polite enough to tolerate
such nonsense.