The Colton

I have been an irregular 'regular' at The Colton Arms in West London for, I suppose, a dozen or so years now. It is the local of an old Oxford buddy 'James the Nags' (or Billy Joe Jimbob, as the British Cowboy [alone] insists on calling him), who is usually kind enough to put me up on my occasional visits to the city.

It is directly behind the Queens tennis club, and opposite an upmarket apartment complex called Queens Club Gardens (a collection of elegant Victorian red-brick mansions surrounding a small private park), and is thus the sole high-tone enclave in what is otherwise a rather grim area of run-down council housing estates.

It is also what I call a Nexus Of Coincidence. Sure, everybody from The Gardens goes there; and they are mostly quite well-heeled, professional, University-educated types (like myself); and the number of friends and family visiting them casts the net even wider. But that does not adequately explain the experiences I've had there.

In that pub - I have run into a former Law School classmate (in fact, my partner for a major client interviewing competition); one of the kids I used to teach several years before in a private school down in Taunton (suddenly being called 'Sir!' in a crowded pub is a discombobulating experience); another old college chum, utterly unconnected to James; and a former girlfriend (who had subsequently 'gone over' to lesbianism - I swear it was nothing to do with me!). This is bizarre. It's not as if I go in there very often. And I think, for each of those chance encounters, it was their one and only visit to the place. Strange, strange.....

Disconcerting coincidences aside, it is a good pub (if fearfully expensive), and James - a bar prop there most nights - has been one of my most dependable friends for many years.

Also..... the canny landlord, John, has a shrewd eye for a barmaid. For a while he was recruiting them from the Medical School at St Mary's Hospital. Latterly, it's been all Polish girls (love the cheekbones!). Pretty, vivacious, and full of interesting conversation.... and they serve you beer. I have been 'in love' there many times!