‘PISS OFF RAMSAY’
I have never had a problem with Gordon Ramsay before. In fact, one of my guilty trash TV pleasures over the last couple of years has been watching Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Beyond the banality of all celebrity culture and the barrage of f-words that are part of his well-crafted media personality, it is clear Ramsay is a great and passionate chef, savvy businessman and the type of man you would be happy to have in your corner. Anyone who can transform themselves from a Rangers’ hopeful to the driving force behind his current £70 million empire is a man to be reckoned with.
However, now I have a problem with Ramsay. He has moved onto my patch and bought The Warrington. For those of you who do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of London watering holes, I need to tell you a little about the place.
It is a beautiful pub. Physically beautiful. Easily up there with the likes of The Crown Liquor Saloon in Belfast. It deserves more than its grade two listed status. Originally a hotel and possibly a brothel, (despite being nominally owned by the Church of England) it was built during the mid-Victorian period, but given a fabulous fin de siècle refurbishment.
What this means today is that the main entrance, guarded by two fantastic oversized lamps, is a glorious shout of tile-faced columns and a mosaic floor that seems to come from a visionary dream where William Morris caught a glimpse of an Art Nouveau future. Inside is a riot of decadent marble used on everything from the curved bar counter to the fireplace and interior columns. What is not marble tends to be mahogany and everything is finished off with flourishes of Art Nouveau glass and plasterwork.
The reason for this extravagance was that the owners at the time of the refurbishment thought only through a convincing display of opulence could they persuade the licensing magistrates of the establishment’s respectability. This makes the fabulous state of The Warrington the only good thing to happen as a consequence of the turn of the 19th Century temperance movement and the anti-pub backlash it inspired.
Architecture alone never makes a place a community nexus. Most people do not choose to drink in a bar on the basis of it being the winner of a beauty contest. You tend to judge a pub primarily on the ABC – the Atmosphere, the Beer they serve and the Crowd who drink there. The Warrington gets good marks on all three counts.
The Warrington is filled with a gentle buzz, you can get a good pint of Caledonian Deuchars IPA and as for the people who drift through its doors… When you drink there, you knock shoulders with punters ranging from David Soul to Polish builders who think the height of fashion is a lime green Adidas tracksuit. You get on nodding terms with the bodyguards to Russian oligarchs who live in the surrounding area’s mansions whilst vying for a table with Maida Vale’s obligatory contingent of American Embassy workers and highly punchable public schoolboy tossers. Hang out there long enough and The Warrington's proximity to the BBC radio studio in the area guarantees that one night you will see Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney* drinking at the bar.
One additional benefit of the pub is that if you go up the generous staircase, you can get a decent meal at Ben’s Thai Restaurant – one of the few reliable, non-poncey and reasonably priced places to eat in Maida Vale. Over the last few months, I have spent several wonderful hours within the walls of The Warrington. From its tiles to its tipples, punters to Pad Thai, it is a great spot to head out to on a quiet night or end of day spent walking in the woods.
Now this place with such a fantastic past is about to be ruined by Ramsay. He has bought the establishment for £5.2 million and is going to turn it into a gastropub as the first link in a new chain he is hoping to create. There is even informed speculation he will probably even make a TV show about the conversion of a brilliant pub into a poncey, high gravity restaurant that will only serve the oligarchs of Maida Vale – not the bodyguards, builders and impoverished cult authors of the locale. As if Maida Vale needs another bloody expensive place to eat…
On my patch I want a place where I can enjoy a couple of great pints and some affordable, good food and that is never going to happen with the prices a Ramsay gastropub is going to charge. The man’s cooking is rightly celebrated, but I do not want to lose such a special place to the vapid public school pricks and the obscenely oil rich of the area.
Given my background in lobbying and the dark arts of spin doctoring I am half-tempted might to run some sort of campaign against the takeover. At one level it is pointless – I know nothing I do is going to stop Ramsay turning the magnificent Warrington into a bloated, soulless gastropub, but sometimes campaigns are about more than achieving what you want. It can be good to raise your voice against the odds. If there are 100 protestors outside The Warrington on the night of its gala reopening to an invited assortment of food critics, celebrities and journos it will not alter anything. However, it will let Ramsay know that he faces opposition, it will piss on the parade and it will make the papers. It also lets others elsewhere know that they are not alone in opposing the poncification and loss of their special pub – that alone almost tempts me to do something.
Quite what the something will be if I decide to act, I am not sure yet. I wonder if seasoned campaigners like Mark Thomas ever get people suggesting hoodoo curses as an opening gambit. I am fairly certain the only reason one other suggestion that has been made to me – spray painting ‘PISS OFF RAMSAY’ on the pavement outside The Warrington – has not already been done is the amount of CCTV in the area.
However, if Ramsay damages one element of the fin de siècle grandeur of The Warrington, nothing is going to save him from more than graffiti abuse from me. If he hurts the building on top of ruining a bloody good pub, everything I ever learnt from successfully slapping down Jo Moore and Greenpeace will be brought to bear and I will go into battle mode.
* I know Paul McCartney drinking there should count against any establishment, but as he does not pop into The Warrington every week I am inclined to overlook it in this instance.
However, now I have a problem with Ramsay. He has moved onto my patch and bought The Warrington. For those of you who do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of London watering holes, I need to tell you a little about the place.
It is a beautiful pub. Physically beautiful. Easily up there with the likes of The Crown Liquor Saloon in Belfast. It deserves more than its grade two listed status. Originally a hotel and possibly a brothel, (despite being nominally owned by the Church of England) it was built during the mid-Victorian period, but given a fabulous fin de siècle refurbishment.
What this means today is that the main entrance, guarded by two fantastic oversized lamps, is a glorious shout of tile-faced columns and a mosaic floor that seems to come from a visionary dream where William Morris caught a glimpse of an Art Nouveau future. Inside is a riot of decadent marble used on everything from the curved bar counter to the fireplace and interior columns. What is not marble tends to be mahogany and everything is finished off with flourishes of Art Nouveau glass and plasterwork.
The reason for this extravagance was that the owners at the time of the refurbishment thought only through a convincing display of opulence could they persuade the licensing magistrates of the establishment’s respectability. This makes the fabulous state of The Warrington the only good thing to happen as a consequence of the turn of the 19th Century temperance movement and the anti-pub backlash it inspired.
Architecture alone never makes a place a community nexus. Most people do not choose to drink in a bar on the basis of it being the winner of a beauty contest. You tend to judge a pub primarily on the ABC – the Atmosphere, the Beer they serve and the Crowd who drink there. The Warrington gets good marks on all three counts.
The Warrington is filled with a gentle buzz, you can get a good pint of Caledonian Deuchars IPA and as for the people who drift through its doors… When you drink there, you knock shoulders with punters ranging from David Soul to Polish builders who think the height of fashion is a lime green Adidas tracksuit. You get on nodding terms with the bodyguards to Russian oligarchs who live in the surrounding area’s mansions whilst vying for a table with Maida Vale’s obligatory contingent of American Embassy workers and highly punchable public schoolboy tossers. Hang out there long enough and The Warrington's proximity to the BBC radio studio in the area guarantees that one night you will see Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney* drinking at the bar.
One additional benefit of the pub is that if you go up the generous staircase, you can get a decent meal at Ben’s Thai Restaurant – one of the few reliable, non-poncey and reasonably priced places to eat in Maida Vale. Over the last few months, I have spent several wonderful hours within the walls of The Warrington. From its tiles to its tipples, punters to Pad Thai, it is a great spot to head out to on a quiet night or end of day spent walking in the woods.
Now this place with such a fantastic past is about to be ruined by Ramsay. He has bought the establishment for £5.2 million and is going to turn it into a gastropub as the first link in a new chain he is hoping to create. There is even informed speculation he will probably even make a TV show about the conversion of a brilliant pub into a poncey, high gravity restaurant that will only serve the oligarchs of Maida Vale – not the bodyguards, builders and impoverished cult authors of the locale. As if Maida Vale needs another bloody expensive place to eat…
On my patch I want a place where I can enjoy a couple of great pints and some affordable, good food and that is never going to happen with the prices a Ramsay gastropub is going to charge. The man’s cooking is rightly celebrated, but I do not want to lose such a special place to the vapid public school pricks and the obscenely oil rich of the area.
Given my background in lobbying and the dark arts of spin doctoring I am half-tempted might to run some sort of campaign against the takeover. At one level it is pointless – I know nothing I do is going to stop Ramsay turning the magnificent Warrington into a bloated, soulless gastropub, but sometimes campaigns are about more than achieving what you want. It can be good to raise your voice against the odds. If there are 100 protestors outside The Warrington on the night of its gala reopening to an invited assortment of food critics, celebrities and journos it will not alter anything. However, it will let Ramsay know that he faces opposition, it will piss on the parade and it will make the papers. It also lets others elsewhere know that they are not alone in opposing the poncification and loss of their special pub – that alone almost tempts me to do something.
Quite what the something will be if I decide to act, I am not sure yet. I wonder if seasoned campaigners like Mark Thomas ever get people suggesting hoodoo curses as an opening gambit. I am fairly certain the only reason one other suggestion that has been made to me – spray painting ‘PISS OFF RAMSAY’ on the pavement outside The Warrington – has not already been done is the amount of CCTV in the area.
However, if Ramsay damages one element of the fin de siècle grandeur of The Warrington, nothing is going to save him from more than graffiti abuse from me. If he hurts the building on top of ruining a bloody good pub, everything I ever learnt from successfully slapping down Jo Moore and Greenpeace will be brought to bear and I will go into battle mode.
* I know Paul McCartney drinking there should count against any establishment, but as he does not pop into The Warrington every week I am inclined to overlook it in this instance.
12 Comments:
Is there anyway you could find out the intentions of Mr Ramsay as far as redecoration , I mean you know quite a lot of people in the media. I would hope the guy is sympathetic to the need to preserve this wonderful place but if this is going to be the flagship of his gastro pub lets hope its only the food and not the decor and prices he's changing..
Hes in Dublin scouting for a pub/restaurant at the moment and his intention is to find one and open it asap. Maybe if you write the letter I might be able to deliver..
Destination Dublin? Given some of the beautiful watering holes in Dublin you must be worried. I am not against Ramsay as a person, I am against great pubs having their hearts ripped out and being turned into over-priced, ponce palaces – especially those that are actually quite special such as The Warrington.
I have to agree that anyplace that is affordable, has a warm and inviting atmosphere and is complimented with a rich variety of clientel is not only to be respected & cherished but also preserved & maintained as much as possible.
It is a pity that a building only gets to become "grade listed" after a certain amount of time and even then it does not offer enough protection to its interior.
It may be miles out of my way, but god damn it, there is a principal involved here and I'm behind THIS ONE 100%.
I think the opening gambit of a hoodoo curse makes a lot of sense but it comes with a few caveats. Ramsay is smug enough, but he's not quite as punchable as certain other TV chefs that I could think of. If you're going to take out Ramsay, I think you need to get the rest of them as well. J***e Cocking Ol***r. Gary Rhodes. Ainsley Harriot. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Do them all. Just f**king finish it. It will be like the closing sequence of the Godfather, but with TV chefs and Voodoo. Nobody will attribute any blame to you for such a thing.
I think the opening gambit of a hoodoo curse makes a lot of sense but it comes with a few caveats. Ramsay is smug enough, but he's not quite as punchable as certain other TV chefs that I could think of. If you're going to take out Ramsay, I think you need to get the rest of them as well. J***e Cocking Ol***r. Gary Rhodes. Ainsley Harriot. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Do them all. Just f**king finish it. It will be like the closing sequence of the Godfather, but with TV chefs and Voodoo. Nobody will attribute any blame to you for such a thing.
Your protest should go forward. We in Chicago have been giving an uppity little CEO from Cincinnati an ulcer by continuing to protest the homogenization of the nation's heritage by renaming local department stores of great history and heritage with the Macy's label. The Red Star shopping bags are a perfect symbol for the Sovietization of America, only this time under a capitalist cost-cutter. See how, several months, after Macy's took Marshall Field's away from us, the protests continue to hurt:
http://fieldsfanschicago.org/blog/index.html
http://www.suntimes.com/business/168719,CST-FIN-retail12.article
You can do it and you should! Money shouldn't always win.
I am SO sorry and angered to hear this. If you start some kind of petition, i will sign it. I hate seeing this modernization. it's destroying america, which is bad enough, but to destroy europe, "where the history comes from," is blasphemous. one of the reasons i moved there was for the architecture.
I love reading your "travelogues". has it occurred to you that you'd be a terrific travel writer? your passion for london landmarks is fantastic.
p.s. i love macca, don't diss him.
At the moment – in the absence of a petition – what I would urge anyone interested to do is send an email to Gordon Ramsay via info@gordonramsay.com telling him that turning The Warrington into a ponce pub is wrong and urge anyone you know who will feel the same way to email him as well.
As for travel books… well both books I am planning at the moment are travel books (albeit very unconventional ones) though whether I can get them published is another matter.
Let’s save the full McCartney discussion for another day. He does deserve some diss.
You do make it difficult, David. The lost Soul of England rips through almost everything you write. Even when you're railing against a ludicrous cock-jack like Ramsay. I read your pieces, and find myself transported straight back to the England of my dreaming... The fierce throb of the city's voodoo filling you so hard it pulls your skin tight, whispering of strange wonders and urgent places... Storm-tossed winter evenings, when the night sidles up close beside you as you hurry through through sodium streets, and every building seems a temple to ancient arcana if only you could explore... Ancient hilltops, threaded through with a faceful of stone piercings, buzzing so hard with power that even the rolling woodlands and plains beneath lose their glory... Forests dripping with spirits and ghosts of long-dead legends, reaching out to caress the wary...
I fear my England is a twitching corpse at best, those things I cherish rotting away -- if they ever existed at all -- so I bounce around the world, looking for somewhere that can offer some of the lost life I crave, and true, everywhere has its consolations and awe, but oh sweet goddess, my brother, you do make it difficult.
Tim, I do not know what to say except thank you. I am not half the writer you are – as you comment clearly shows – but if the blog makes you want to come back home then I guess I must be doing something right. Now get off your arse and write the bloody novel you promised Bill Hicks because I want to pen your Booker Prize acceptance speech.
*grin* Only a total idiot fails to honour a promise to the snarkily departed :)
I'm up to my eyeballs in Jap-style logic puzzles -- the deadline is mid-Jan, and I still have 450 of various kinds to generate, so it's going to be an evil Xmas -- but as soon as that's done, I'll be on it. God help us all... :)
Thanks for the kind comment David, I have really enjoyed reading your blog too, and like Tim, it has made me think about home in the best kind of way. :-)
I think us ex-pats tend to fantasize and rose-tint England, and idealise it all, but you remind us of the Real England, in the best sort of way, and that's a real gift.
Maybe one day I'll get more than a brief 2 week panic-stop tour of half-days with much loved friends and relatives, and be able to be in England long enough to complain about the Ramsays, rain and railways.. sigh.
Here's to 2007 kicking some ass, in the best kind of way, for all of us sons and daughters of Albion, wherever we are.
Much love
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