Grass roots entertainment in Hammersmith
My first foray into forum contact....I love living in Hammersmith because it has all the diversity of the big city - but it can also have the comforting familiarity of being a member of a village community.My contribution to 'village' life was to run a weekly blues evening at the Brook Green Hotel. Over 3 years it established itself as a place to drop in after work on a Friday for the locals, and a destination place for people who love early acoustic blues. Brooks Blues Bar was the only place in London where one could hear this genre of music. There was a great atmosphere and the bar was perfect in every way - good music, good pub food and good beer. The cellar bar also hosted jazz and a comedy night during the week, plus salsa and world music as weekends. So what happened? A new manager and area manager decided they wanted to change this Edwardian pub into something more 'upmarket???' and banished all advertising of these local events. Within a couple of months this policy killed us all off. (She said she wanted to replace us and hire out to cellar bar for organisers of speed dating/kareoke/disco/'schoolkids' evenings).So this month Brooks Blues Bar has relocated to new venues, one in Notting Hill and one in St Margarets Twickenham - Hammersmith's loss. The comedy has moved to another venue and the jazz has vanished for the moment. Ths salsa may have returned, but the soul has gone out of the place.So if anyone knows of a basement bar in Hammersmith where it would be possible to continue with our Friday blues nights - we would love to return to our roots - let us know.And on the subject of mice - I had colonies of them, plus 5 cats who had great fun hunting them. So the combination of keeping all food in containers and the cats, eventually made them leave...I could not bring myself to kill them, although I condoned the cat's carnage, when the mice came out to feast on the cat food. So before resoring to poison, try keeping all food in plastic containers or tin, and so remove their food source(especially chocolate). During the worst of the colonisation one mouse casually strolled onto the coffee table and started to nibble at the chocolate in a dish, oblivious to its human audience. That was when I bought the tin! No mice now, and the cats are bored.
Ann Rosenberg ● 6862d2 Comments