Butchers Arms

I find pubs fascinating.
Full of all sorts of humanity, they provide an insight into other folk's lives which would be difficult to achieve by any other means. You can walk in, do a bit of chat and walk right out again if you have met an axe murderer. Easy, no worries and a good kidney flush at the very least.

A decade or few ago I frequented a pub in Glasgow populated by a quite varied spectrum including journalists, musicians, actors, students and Spanish Civil War veterans plus a smattering of local manual labourers which completed the mix. It all worked fairly well, at least up until 10pm on a Saturday night at which point it was best to make excuses and vacate the premises before the inevitable football rivalry came to the fore and the glasses began to fly. I have often wondered in the intervening years why they sold wine by the pint. White Tornado it was called as I recall.
Glasgow also had a pub in Pollockshaws by the name of "The Office" which was very handy indeed if you required an excuse for coming back late from work.
Then there was the Foundry Bar in Arbroath. I lived there for a while. Lovely place, by the seaside with an unheated open air pool and a sit in chipper where you had to use an old fashioned pre-metric penny to use the loo. Bingo on a Saturday night in the hall above Woolworth's, boats in the harbour full of fish and a great big lighthouse flashing a few miles offshore just to keep you awake at night.
The town in those days had a mix of townsfolk, farm folk, fisher folk and Royal Marines. Each had their own public house and god help those who dared to mix and match. The local harbour still holds some dark secrets I think.
The Foundry Bar however was different. Anyone could walk in providing they could sing, play a fiddle or simply enjoy the impromptu music. Brilliant place indeed!
No fights, no hassle and an old tea chest to sit on if you got there early enough.
There are some pub's however that I am not fond of. Not because they are bad pubs or difficult establishments though. Simply because of their names.
I can cope quite happily with The Kintore Arms, The Black Bull, Filthy McNasties and even The Ploughman's Lunch as long as he has not eaten it already.

Sadly the Butchers Arms has never quite done it for me. Connotations of those Esco's horse burgers perhaps or simply an uneasy relationship with raw bloody meat? I don't really know for sure.

I often wonder if the management of this public house and the other 1200 similarly named establishments in the UK would consider a name change to something like My Lovely Cow or even Aren't Horses Great Ted.
But that's just a personal preference.