A People's Palace

 Tim Martin is a card. You've got to love a card. They liven things up. They stir the pot. They get up people's noses. They do things their own way.

Tim Martin owns Wetherspoons. He named his business after a teacher who once told him he'd never amount to anything. This jokey, larky, up-yours spirit runs through the company like a sparkly seam of fool's gold.

He has views. He funded Brexit, he objected to the covid lockdown. He says things like (I paraphrase) "I may not be right, but this is a democracy, innit!" From what I can winkle out he's a pretty good employer- as employers go.

The big Wetherspoons in Eastbourne town centre occupies what used to be a garage. This is a Wetherspoons trait. Martin buys up old buildings that used to be something else and converts them. I'm writing this post because yesterday we went to the Cornfield Garage (that's it's proper name though people just call it Wetherspoons) with the gang from the Meeting House- and I was intrigued. It was crowded and noisy- there's a lot of reverb on account of it once having been a garage- and many of the clientele were old and infirm. You order at the bar or through an app and the food is cheap- and surprisingly good. I should have paid attention to the carpet. Each one is unique and woven in Axminster at great expense, featuring motifs relating to the history of the building. I imagine the Cornfield Garage has a carpet with little old cars all over it (I like old cars. They're a minor passion of mine) but I need to go back and check. Every Wetherspoons is a free house (meaning not tied to a brewery.) I drank Abbot Ale which is brewed in Bury St Edmunds. 

Martin has created a chain of people's palaces. He's a one-off. I dig him. I dig his company.

Hooray.

A Good Friday Meditation

 Ailz was playing a medley of songs by various configurations of the Watersons- one of which was "There is a Fountain Filled with Blood" and I thought, "Of course, today is Good Friday: what a mercy I don't feel the need to observe it any longer."

Our mate, Keith- who like me is a former Anglican and an attender at the Meeting House but not a full member- said he might be going to the South Street Church today. The South Street Church- though they don't make a big deal of it- belongs to the Countess of Huntingdon's Connection- a rigidly Calvinistic off-shoot of Methodism. I expect they give good self-abasement on Good Friday. 

Rather him than me.

The Watersons do a line in evangelical hymns- some of which are damn fine with damn fine tunes. There is a Fountain isn't one of my favourites, though the tune is nice enough. The words are by William Cowper. Cowper had a hard life and a pet hare- and wrote good comic verse when he wasn't wanting to cut his throat and suffer eternal perdition. When I was a kid I was introduced to his ballad of John Gilpin- the city merchant who gets on a horse he can't control and has a "diverting" adventure. I just re-read it and it made me smile. Cowper was a dear man and his taste for good-natured silliness combined with a depressive nature makes me think of that other dear man, Spike Milligan.

My favourite Waterson pieces are the ones that deal with dying syphilitics and colourful criminals- like William Kidd and Dick Turpin- who- just like Jesus- wound up on the gallows tree.