Brixton pubs

The Elm Park Tavern, 76 Elm Park, SW2 2UB

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13 years ago, when I first moved down to London, this was my local. I used to while away the afternoons nursing a solitary pint of Guinness, watching Countdown on the small portable TV in the corner and listening as the old Jamaican guys sat around arguing and playing dominos. It's a memory that now clearly belongs to a different age; almost a cliche as much as a recollection, and almost as meaningless. Change has rippled through the whole area, mending the cracks in the plaster facades, scrubbing up the brickwork, bringing in bigger cars and wealthier people, often at the expense of the old community (it no longer feels like the sort of place where my neighbours could be a penniless Columbian couple). What has happened to so much of Notting Hill is quite clearly happening to Brixton as well. Windows without net curtains blaze out Habitat and Heal's furniture, once-empty roads clog with parked cars, everything's quieter, more circumspect. The pub has lost it net curtains too, and the mottled glass that used to disguise its interior, now boasting huge clear windows and stripped back furniture - the same central bar and baroque victorian ceiling just about the only remnants of its earlier incarnation. Plenty of tables have been crammed in, it's busy, and it retains its erstwhile cheerful atmosphere - thankfully, as I remember the barman all those years ago telling me how empty the place was now, and how it could be about to go bust. It hasn't, and has been saved by the very elements that have so indelibly changed it.The mostly white clientele have picked up a fancy for posh foreign lagers and the invariable army of Magners bottles, and a large plasma screen blares out the usual football, cricket etc. It's not a bad place, by any means, just a sign of the times. I'll get my pipe and slippers.

The Prince, 469 Brixton Road, Brixton, SW9 8HH

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Having dropped the ‘of Wales’ as not being groovy enough, the Prince has metamorphosed from a not-bad boozer into a curtain-shrouded gastropub-nightclub. Doubtless this means one can now talk to the vegetables whilst being serenaded from the stage by a bikini-wearing Camilla, all in a top quality after-hours environment. Brixton’s transformation into a vapid idiotdrome is almost complete.

The Telegraph, 228 Brixton Hill, SW2 1HE

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I was looking forward to returning to this pub after an absence of 12 years, and heading up Brixton Hill I was pleased to see that the side of the pub hadn't undergone any drastic renovation. After the earlier disappointments of Brixton, it felt like I was about to meet up with an old friend. Coming closer, however, it soon became apparent that the front of the building had been defaced by enormous letters in a wacky font, which is usually A Very Bad Sign. And indeed it was. I went inside, and quickly realised that my old friend had undergone a sex change, done botox, chopped a leg off and grown a second nose. Things have rather altered in this part of the world. The interior was a bad pastiche of a fin de siecle Parisian boudoir, steeped in shadow and strong colours, complete with faux Oriental curtains flopping down from the ceiling at random intervals, botched attempts at lush furnishings and, er, balloons. Great big bunches of balloons all over the place, like the prelude to a Happy Meal birthday party in MacDonalds. At the time we arrived (7pm on a Friday night) this whole effect seemed to be for the benefit of several White Van Men who had stopped for a crafty pint before heading home to the missus. Given a choice of lager or lager we opted for lager, and retired to a table to enjoy some nude pictures of David Hasselhoff that had been thoughtfully provided as promotional material for a club night here. It struck me that perhaps the Hoff would arrive later, naked, and perform an erotic balloon dance for our undoubted pleasure. Having to relieve my bladder, which had become over-excited at the thought, I found myself in a nightmare toilet environment that appeared to have been decorated by a four-year-old on acid, and upon exiting the loo it appeared the LSD had somehow contaminated my bloodstream, as an unearthly rhythmical grinding and shouting had suddenly started up, emanating from behind the sinister door at the back of the pub. Picturing an exotic hareem of dancing girls gyrating for some sinister drugs overlord, or maybe twelve Hasselhoff clones grooving making out like E17 whilst clad only in balloons, I was sent to investigate. I found a large room containing some sofas, a fake flaming brazier and a band onstage squawking disharmonically to an audience of two people. It was time to leave, before I grew a mullet, leather underpants and a thick rug of chest hair and started joining in.

The Trinity Arms, 45 Trinity Gardens, SW9 8DR

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On approaching this pub I wondered whereabouts on my journey from Brixton tube I had fallen into the wormhole. It just didn't add up, one minute I was fighting for space with enormous West Indian ladies on the pavement beside Brixton Road, the next I was walking up a leafy street flanked by period houses and executive cars. This was a very odd sensation and I was finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that I was still in Brixton. This feeling soon melted away on approaching the pub, which occupies a fine looking Georgian building on a street corner. The terrace outside was awash with professional types who looked like they'd popped in for a lunchtime drink and still hadn't left. The inside was equally full, although the clientele here seemed to be dominated by locals. The bar staff were friendly and efficient and after choosing from the selection of Young's beers on offer, I headed for the beer garden at the back in search of a seat. The beer garden was bathed in evening sunshine and was the ideal spot to contemplate the journey up Brixton Hill that awaited us.

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