Glean Review: Gleaning Was a Legal Right and It Was Taken Away | The poor could gather what the harvest left behind, it was written into scripture and custom, and a court abolished it in 1788
Walrus Review: They Wept While Eating the Oysters | Carroll’s Walrus cries with sympathy for the creatures he is eating, and holds his handkerchief up so nobody can count
Hinderworld Review: The Blackout Was a Public Health Disaster | More people died on the roads in the first months of the blackout than were killed by bombs
Bar at Temple Review: The Temple Belonged to the Knights Templar | A military religious order that invented international banking, and then was destroyed on a Friday
MOTH Club Review: It Is a Veterans’ Club and the Ceiling Is Gold Tinsel | Memorable Order of Tin Hats – a real ex-servicemen’s organisation, and the members still drink there
The Chelsea Bar Review: Twenty-Five Reviews and a Name Doing No Work | A bar in Chelsea called the Chelsea Bar, rated by twenty-five people, and a lesson in how not to name a venue
Ahoy Review: The Narrowboat Is Seven Feet Wide for a Reason | The locks were built narrow to save water and money, and every boat in England has been that shape ever since
104 Bar Review: One Review, and That Is How Mayfair Ends | Sixty-five articles in the richest district in Britain, and it finishes with a venue the system barely knows exists
Lower Review: A 4.9, and It Is a Shop You May Drink In | Buy the bottle at retail, pay a small corkage, and save thirty pounds – and the only thing you surrender is a chair
135 Bar Review: The Address Is the Name, and That Is the Eighteenth True One | Eighteen out of eight hundred and fifty, which is two per cent, and everything else is a lie
Play Dirty Review: 4.7, and the Activity Bar Wins Again | An experience cannot be delivered on demand. An activity can. It is the most useful thing this survey has produced.
Camden Town Brewery Review: A 3.7, and the Sale Is the Story | It started under a railway arch, it was bought by a multinational, and the word craft stopped meaning anything
Dingwalls Review: The Name Was Painted on the Wall | T. E. Dingwall was a timber merchant, and the venue is named after his sign because nobody took it down
Blue Moon Review: A Blue Moon Is a Calendar Accident | It is not rare, it is not blue, and the modern definition comes from a magazine getting it wrong in 1946
Players Social Review: Pool Is Snooker’s Rival and It Was Invented by the Army | Snooker was devised by bored British officers in India, and a snooker was a first-year cadet
Hawksmoor Review: He Built Six Churches and People Decided They Were Occult | A brilliant architect, a strange body of work, and a conspiracy theory invented in the 1970s by a poet
Howling Hops Review: The Beer Comes Straight From the Tank and the Hop Was a Preservative | No cask, no keg, no line – and hops were put in beer to stop it going off, not to make it taste of anything
Mother Kelly’s Review: She Is One of Only Five Women We Have Been Able to Name | A doorstep in Paradise Row, a music hall song, and thirty-two women with rooms named after them
Grow Review: The Meanwhile Use Is the Only Thing Keeping Anything Interesting | A temporary lease on a site awaiting development, and it is how most of the good things in this district exist
Boom Battle Bar Review: 7,949 Reviews and Axe-Throwing With Drinks | The competitive-socialising boom in one venue: darts, axes, and beer pong, with a 4.8 from nearly eight thousand people
TwoRuba Review: Eleven Reviews, and Rum Built and Ruined the Atlantic | A spirit made from the waste of the sugar mill, and the sugar was made by enslaved people
Boom Battle Bar O2 Review: A 4.9, and the Activity Bar Wins Every Single Time | An experience cannot be delivered on demand. An activity can. It has never once failed.
Union Social Review: The Unions Were Illegal and They Met in Pubs | Combination was a crime, and the back room of a pub was the only place nobody could prove anything
C’s Bar Review: No Rating At All, and That Is How Limehouse Ends | Eighty-six articles on the river, and it finishes with a bar the system does not know exists
Theatre Workshop Review: She Wanted a Fun Palace and Nobody Built It | Joan Littlewood’s real project was not a theatre at all, and it is the third place, argued for in 1961
Flight Club Bloomsbury Review: Darts, With the Maths Removed | A 4.6 from over three thousand people, and a chain that solved darts by getting rid of the one thing that made it hard
Space Bar Review: The Space Between Words Was an Invention and It Took Centuries | The Romans ran everything together, reading was done aloud, and the space made silent reading possible
Boom Battle Bar Liverpool Street Review: The Third One, and the Chain Is Consistent | Three branches, three enormous samples, and all of them at 4.8 or better – which is invisible and expensive
Electric Shuffle Review: Shuffleboard Was Banned by Henry VIII | A five-hundred-year-old pub game, outlawed because it distracted men from archery practice
Escape Bar Review: A 4.7, and the Escape Room Is the Purest Activity There Is | You will be locked in. You will get out, or you will not. And most groups do not.
