The Black Horse (Bar)

Lively, festive, a bit mad, but not manic, this is the perfect spot to instill some cozy Christmas cheer. Slighlty dodgey looking on the outside, we were suitably impressed with what greeted us within: cheap drinks, friendly bar staff and an exceedingly high ratio of men to women - all good.

The clientele are mainly young, up and coming media mogule types, there to wash away a hard week's work, but there are no pretentions and anything goes: a drag queen from Thailand and Barry White also graced us with their presence.

Reflective of the narrow, Dickens-like street it is on, the room is long and thin with standing-room only in the front, though there are tables and chairs to the rear and in the room above the rickety staircase. A dark wooden bar is adorned with Christmas decorations and fairy lights and as a finishing touch, bricks with wax matches. The victorian cream stuccoed ceiling and subdued lighting complete the picture - peering in through the window, passers by could be forgiven for mistaking it for a scene from a Christmas Carol.

Fortunately it is Scrooge's alter-ego who features, in the form of a huge dart board embellished with a laughing horse. This is the pub's trademark: `Spin the wheel to get the deal.' The barmaid was happy to fill me in: Although there is a happy hour every night from 6-7pm with all drinks (even a fairly decent bloody mary) being £1.50; at 8:30pm, the wheel is spun with the fate of the next hour's special determined by the horse. This ranges from shots to jugs of cockatils and lager, and carafes of wine. Ordinarily a pint of beer is £2.50 and on Monday's all drinks are £1.70 from 7pm onwards. I'm gutted this drinking den wasn't discovered in my college days when our Monday night ritual would find us prowling the streets of London in the search of cost effective pubs. There are also 3 pool tables upstairs which was just what we were after. Crestfallen.

A bit of cheese, but without the sleeze and all in the name of fun. Nice. Also perfect as a meeting point for getting tanked up before moving on to different pastures. But you might find it difficult to leave....read more