317) Gill's (James) Corner House of Gill's Corner, North Circular Road, D1

My heart sinks at the thought of Gill's. We had passed by it once or twice before and had always reckoned it was closed – not surprising, since they only open the odd time, mostly during matches. When finally one day we saw the door was ajar and blundered in, no seats had been set up, and our serving was the sheerest happy accident (they very likely had not even intended to open that day in the first place, and gave us what we wanted only to offset any potential squirming embarrassment).

The ceilings are high and one wall is dominated by a large (and slightly shit) drawing of local legend Brendan Behan, uniquely depicted unaccompanied by a pint, beneath which are framed copies of all of his books, including the later dictated ones which were mostly assembled by his long-suffering secretary, struggling to sort her boss's dribbling ramblings into a semblance of coherence. (Still, at least the memorial lays all of its emphasis on his writing and none on his drinking, making it something of a one-off in that respect.)

Behan is exalted in Gill’s as a writer, not just as a drinker

The barman of Gill's is the grandson of the pub's founder. An amiable man, full of anecdotes and eager to chat, but somewhat desperate and pitiful withal – he is especially proud of his back room, which hosts an encyclopedic collection of framed video game covers, painstakingly assembled over many, many long years – a strange and haunting hobby. Since he was in the process of cleaning the Guinness taps, he offered us a second free round, though he warned us that it could not really be counted as a treat, compounded as it was of the pipe's last disgusting discharge, and thus spat into the cowering glasses a gag-inducing substance so noxious that we could not finish but instead turned tail and ran. He pursued us out the door, keen to invite us back inside. We pleaded the pressure of business elsewhere. Alas, poor Gill's! Your doors may not be swinging open much longer and the sun shall set on thee sooner than elsewhere...

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