At Last, A British American Pub

Dear England, Washington DC has a multitude of Irish pubs - from Ri Ra to Murphy's - but after four sad years of hunting for a taste of home, I am pleased to add a second British pub to my list! The Elephant & Castle, named no doubt after the London district of the same name, with its 24-hour roundabout and its very own Elephant & Castle pub on said roundabout (my pal once had a pad looking over that ever-revolving circle of lights), has miracously been transported to Washington, DC. And the results ain't half bad, mate: http://www.elephantcastle.com/content/locations/washingtondc

With a view of the Capitol a step from the door, hanging round the Elephant & Castle DC-style makes for a surreal experience: franchise or no franchise it does resemble a London pub, fake wall-decor is kept to a minimum. The bar looks like an old pub and the beer stretches beyond Guinness and Bass Ale to the more US-uncommon Boddingtons to three (count them) Fuller's ales, the London Pride bringing it all back home. It only took half a decade for me to find this place! But then again I did get distracted by Union Jacks in Bethesda, Maryland, an Americanized British pub with all the fake paraphenalia you'd expect from red telephone boxes (cue the Telephone Bar, New York City http://www.telebar.com/ - a good joint) to white plastic directions to Picadilly Circus and Clapham Common, Sarf of tha Riva!

Union Jacks http://www.unionjacksbethesda.com/ is clearly a dedicated

follower of fashion, and a loud night on the tiles. But if you want a decent pint and a flavor of the old country while trying to look all District bleak and chic then it has to be the E & C for you, my son!

Land of the Delta Blues, or the other LA

Dear trusty Englanders, I am completely overexcited about re-visiting New Orleans two years on. Back in May, 2005 I trooped it the hundreds of miles with my cohort of fellow Brits - 5 to an "SUV" - into the sweltering heat, edgy atmosphere and faded elegance of the Vieux Carré, the old French-Spanish quarter, home of Mardi Gras mania, Hurricane pints and live music to drown for...

This time it's different though. Catching CNN this morning in the "food court" of GW, I watched the strange sight of GoogleEarth floating over the destroyed wards of New Orleans, making the overwhelming point that little has changed. The houses are still flattened, families fled, the city poorer than it was two or ten years ago. So if you really want to bring it all back home to this wonderful European-American foolish-hearted city of delight and plug up the tiniest of holes in the levée, check out Bring New Orleans Back http://www.bringneworleansback.org/, the musicians fund at http://musicmakerstore.stores.yahoo.net/neworre.html and Spike Lee's requiem documentary When the Levées Broke http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whentheleveesbroke/







The music will go on!