That place was never unfriendly, unless you turned up with an attitude and sat in Mouse’s seat. I miss having a place where I can drink five pints and eat my own bodyweight in peanuts without some tit offering me a cocktail or a copy of Vice. The true British pub should be just that, a place you can go and have a cosy pint like an extension to your own living room. The Am had the perfect balance, friendly enough, with locals who weren’t ready to lynch you for being a student from the home counties and yet it also wasn’t overrun with the pretentious nu rave type who look down on all the resident alcoholics like they’re shit on their gold high-top trainers.

First of all it’s a blog, which are best described as rants anyway, I wasn’t intending it to be high-end journalism. Secondly, I definitely agree, I LOVE the Montague Arms, especially their selection of board games and stuffed animals. It hasn’t however recently undergone a major renovation.

To get to my point, I find it upsetting that you think The Amersham was always shit and unfriendly. I never once had a bad experience in there, I’m sure many others would agree and that ‘ineptly managed’ pub has played host to some class music acts; Blur, Squeeze, The Blockheads…Chas ‘n’ Dave are still regulars, come on! The reason you found it unfriendly was probably the ‘millwall supporting holes’ attitude you seem to have cultivated. Apart from being a sweeping generalisation, it’s that attitude of looking down your nose at people that makes locals of the area frikkin hate and resent the students and middle-class arty types setting up home there.

Perhaps I’m being overly sensitive and, as I said in the article, I’m positive the renovation will prove to do nothing but good. Nevertheless, I reckon you’d be just as pissed off if you went to your favourite pub and saw no familiar faces, just the cast of Nathan Barley…or maybe you wouldn’t.