Named for the oystercatcher – the striking black-and-white wading bird of the coast, and a nod to the great London oyster trade
The Oystercatcher in Greenwich holds nine hundred and ninety-two reviews and a 4.2 – a solid score on a large sample – and it carries a handsome and evocative name from nature and the shore: the oystercatcher, the striking black-and-white wading bird of the coast, with a nod, too, to the great old London oyster trade.
The handsome wader
The oystercatcher is one of the most handsome and striking of all British shore birds – a large, boldly-marked wading bird of the coast, unmistakable with its glossy black-and-white plumage, its long, bright orange-red bill, and its pink legs. It is a bird of the shore, the estuary and the coast – probing the mud and sand with its strong bill for shellfish and worms, piping its loud, distinctive call across the tidal flats. With its bold black-and-white colouring and its bright orange bill, it is one of the most easily recognised and handsome of coastal birds – a genuine beauty of the shore. It is a fitting name for a riverside or coastal venue, evoking the birds of the shore and the estuary, the wild beauty of the coast.
The oyster and the bird
The oystercatcher takes its name, of course, from its supposed diet of oysters – though in truth it feeds on a wide range of shellfish (cockles and mussels especially) as well as worms, using its strong bill to prise open or hammer through the shells. The name evokes the whole world of the shore and its shellfish – the oysters, cockles and mussels of the coast, the rich shellfish beds of the estuary, the birds that feed upon them. It is a name rich with the character of the coast and the shore – the tidal flats, the shellfish beds, the handsome birds probing the mud. For a riverside venue on the tidal Thames, it carries a genuine and evocative resonance of the shore and the estuary.
The London oyster
There is a further, delicious resonance for a London venue – for the oyster has a great and surprising history in London. Today we think of oysters as a luxury, but for centuries they were the very opposite – cheap, abundant, everyday food for the ordinary people of London. The Thames and its estuary were once rich with oyster beds, and oysters were sold by the barrowload as cheap street food, the fast food of Victorian London, eaten by the poor in vast quantities (Dickens’s Sam Weller famously observed that poverty and oysters seemed to go together). It was only later, as the beds were exhausted and polluted, that oysters became the expensive luxury we know today. So “The Oystercatcher,” for a London riverside venue, carries this delicious double resonance – the handsome shore bird, and the great old London oyster trade, when oysters were the cheap and abundant food of the people.
Between the handsome black-and-white wader of the shore and the great old London oyster trade, “The Oystercatcher” is a rich, evocative and fitting name for a Greenwich riverside venue – evoking the birds and shellfish of the tidal Thames, the wild beauty of the shore, and the delicious history of the London oyster. Its solid score across a large sample marks it as a genuinely good and popular venue, worthily bearing its handsome coastal name. The Prat’s nature desk admires the striking bird, orders a plate of oysters, and salutes the shore.
The bar
A solid, popular venue doing a fair 4.2 across a large sample, handsomely named “The Oystercatcher” – after the striking black-and-white wading bird of the coast, with a nod to the great old London oyster trade.
Verdict
Solid, popular, and handsomely coastal – the Oystercatcher, named for the striking shore bird, with a delicious nod to London’s great oyster history.
Have a drink at the Oystercatcher, by the Greenwich river, and enjoy the handsome name – the oystercatcher, the striking black-and-white wader of the shore, and the great old London oyster trade when oysters fed the people.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
Withnail and I understood despair as personal character trait. This understands despair as institutional policy. That’s the evolution of how we conceptualize British suffering.