CRAFT BEER * CASK ALE * GREAT FOOD

It’s an old man’s pub reinventing itself to appeal to a younger population. They’ve sanded the floor and most of the furniture but the major fittings - the windows, doors, bar and stinking toilets - still tell of the old place before anyone took an interest in the spending power of students. It’s a confused mess. The TV in one corner is tuned to Sky Sport. The other corner is showing BT Sport, which is also being projected onto the big screen on the (exposed brick) back wall. It’s a sports bar but at 5pm someone comes round and puts a little mixer bottle with a fake flower on each of the tables. Naturally, the cutlery is stored in an old distressed dresser. It's as credible as the Eastenders caff transforming from daytime greasy spoon to evening bistro.

George at the bar is short and stocky, with a white clipped beard, the bearing of a man who was in the services, and the height and attitude of a little cunt. You can hear it in his voice as he entertains and opines for the bar staff who show more signs of forbearance than enjoyment. He’s out of place here but he's been in the pub since 3pm or 2003 depending on how you look at it. Today, he came in at three as he does almost every day. He’s got his seat at the end of the bar where it meets the wall with the drinks menu and he sits there, with pints of Carling, propping up one and being propped up by the other until it’s time go home. That’s usually around 10. Or 11. Or later depending on who else comes in, how long his money lasts and how long that wall can keep him on his stool.

He started coming here in 2003, the same year Sheila left. They’d half-separated four years before when Eileen moved to Aberdeen to study. Sheila took Eileen's room and they functioned, not really as a couple but at least as two people who could coexist more or less amicably. But by 2003 Sheila had had enough of that, Eileen had graduated and when she moved in with her boyfriend, Sheila took her vacant flat in Aberdeen. So he comes here.