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The Duke

Pub review

They say:
"We came for a skittle on a Saturday night and they were very welcoming but you know how you hear about lizards ruling the world, the barstaff had a very lizardy look. Make your own mind up!" --Craig Savage
4/5

I say:
'The place where everybody knows your name' The claim is painted onto the wall and doesn't seem so outlandish on this chilly Tuesday night as there is no-one in the pub to know my name or not. Dry January? I can't imagine that's a thing around these parts. You don't keep over 30 pubs in business with virtuous gestures like that. It might be a Tuesday thing. Per usual I try to find a quiet corner with my beer, surely an easy task in an empty pub? Not so. Speakers hang from every nook and carpet the space in a thick fog of sound. It isn't even the usual autotuned pop/R&B dirge being vomited into my ears. That stuff I can confine to a background hum. Instead it's the pre-match commentary for the Brighton-Chelsea game and you try and ignore Joe Cole's incisive analysis when it's being bellowed into your ear. 'All people smile in the same language' That's another banal saying on the wall rather than some Cantona-esque surrealism from Joe. The interior is generally tasteful if you can ignore the fridge magnet philosophy. Dark teal walls sit comfortably against red leather banquettes and oval-backed dining chairs. Old pictures of Bridgwater in more prosperus times dot the walls. The carpet is splendid. It's of a floral style but the flowers jostle for space in a vigorous dance. As soon as your eyes alight on the biggest and brightest, the flower head that has forced its way to the top of the tangle, then it seems its nearest neighbours are nipping at its petals and dragging your attention to them instead. Like a hundred firework displays in an inky black night or a map of human inspiration through history or one of Amy's dresses circa 2010 it is verdant in its pride.
'Please mind the step' Less profound than the other statements but probably more useful. From my window seat I can see across the road the rippling greens and pinks and blues of The Gallery's disco lights. It's not on the list of pubs to visit because even on a Tuesday night, as I can see, it leans hard towards club rather than pub. Perhaps when the parochial thrill of going into these local boozers has dulled I'll spend an hour bathed in sensory horror in The Gallery. All in all this is a functional establishment with little to offend or to make it memorable. 'Exit'.
3/5

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