The Moon Under Water - A Perfect Pub

Cold, smooth, creamy liquid pours down my throat rapidly before coming to an abrupt ending with a bitter finish on my tongue. It’s my first pint of Guinness in over four months. I’ve been away travelling, and one of my first ports of call upon returning is the pub.

I’m sat in Fagan’s, a well-known and much-loved institution on Broad Lane in Sheffield city centre. Recently changing hands from long-time landlords Tom and Barbara to a collective of Sheffield businessmen and creatives, including some famous faces. The change thankfully kept the pub largely as it was before. The traditional decor remains, the charm undisrupted and the warmth constant.

I have another gulp of the black stuff. No room for splitting the G nonsense here… It tastes like familiarity. A version of myself I’d not been for a while. I breathe a sigh of both relief and pleasure… I’ve missed this.

As I look around this beautiful traditional pub, I remember George Orwell’s essay The Moon Under Water, where he outlines his idea of a perfect boozer back in 1943. I wonder what that may look like today and how much of his essay still holds true.

It’s probably fifteen years, or more, since I last read it, so I remind myself of its prose and some key and surprising moments, for example the bar staff being “middle-aged women—two of them have their hair dyed in quite surprising shades—and they call everyone ‘dear,’ irrespective of age or sex. (‘Dear,’ not ‘Ducky’: pubs where the barmaid calls you ‘ducky’ always have a disagreeable raffish atmosphere.)”

I decide to revisit the idea of a perfect pub, realising everyone has their own perceptions of what good may look like. Nonetheless, here are my own.

Fagan’s - Sheffield city centre.

Another sip of Guinness as I glance around at the slightly imperfect décor of wood-panelled walls adorned with a mish-mash of artwork speaks to my version of a perfect pub. It’s eclectic yet harmonious without being over-designed. A pub with authenticity, not clichéd pastiche like the steady influx of themed “Irish” pubs that now seem to blight most towns and cities, where the proxy for being Irish is reduced to old beer barrels as tables and fake retro Guinness signs sitting alongside inspirational quotes featuring four-leaf clovers and leprechauns.

Many pubs in London in particular are renovated to be faux traditional and look shit. Other city pubs feel soulless despite the thin illusion of being “posh”.

A pub should have an original wooden floor, stone tiles and, depending on the location, a good old carpet. Curtains are a yes, even nets. Blinds absolutely not. Wall lamps, beer mats and banquettes elevate the look even further, as does a real fireplace. In fact, I don’t think the perfect pub can be so without one. It may not be in use, but it’s the focal point of the room. Something to stare at and ponder.

A pub should tread the fine line between calm and clinical, interesting without tipping into sensory overstimulation.

The setting and layout, I don’t believe, is as hard-fixed as Orwell outlines in his essay. Use of space is far more important. That said, a pub should provide space for large groups whilst also allowing room for peace and solitude, tucked into a comfy corner with just your thoughts as company.

Pubs should not be performative venues, but egalitarian spaces where anyone can come as they are.

My mind turns back to Fagan’s as some workmen from Wolverhampton enter, chatting to the barman. It’s their first time here, yet the conversation flows. A cheeky pint before they head back down the M1. Typical of any good pub is this openness and friendliness amongst strangers without being intrusive. We share some small talk with them as they keep coming to the window we are sat by, peering over the road to check their van hasn’t received a parking ticket.

All pub interiors should be eclectically simple

There’s no judgement in a perfect pub. Debate and open conversation, yes. But self-righteousness should largely be left at the door. There’s enough of that just over the threshold, in the real world. A pub is escapism grounded in a lived environment.

Of course, the elephant in the room (tap or lounge?) is that the escapism comes from the alcohol itself. However, and perhaps controversially, I feel that this is one of the least important aspects of a pub and something that’s often overcomplicated, particularly in recent years with the rise of craft beer.

Sure, a pub needs beer and it can’t taste bad. But I’ve drank in many pubs that pride themselves on having an amazing range and quality selection and had a bad time. Unless a beer has been badly kept, the opposite cannot be said. A good range is nice: a lager, an ale, a stout and a cider is really all that’s needed. There shouldn’t be any cocktails in a proper pub, unless a gin & tonic or a shandy counts. Wine is fine too. It’s quick to pour and doesn’t dominate the room like the sight of someone vigorously shaking a cocktail shaker in a backstreet boozer would.

In his essay, Orwell pointed out there’s a difference between country and city pubs. One real difference for me is food. In a town or city centre: no full meals, just snacks. Countryside and out-of-town pubs: yes, and in fact a necessity. There are few finer simple pleasures than a brisk countryside walk on a cold sunny winter’s day followed by a homemade pie or roast dinner. A reward for the hike and an undoing of the calories burnt is a rite of passage. Unless explicitly stated as a gastro pub, I don’t want to see any poor attempts at nouveau cuisine and definitely no balsamic-glazed salads, which in my view should be outlawed.

My temporary anger at food faux pas is interrupted by a loud laugh from the bar. I zone back into my surroundings at Fagan’s. There’s a hum of conversation taking place as the music of my youth, mid-2000s indie, plays in the background. Intentionally or ironically, I hear one of the co-owners musical prowess coming over the speakers as, I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, reminds me that I’m very much now back in Sheffield as well as very much no longer fifteen.

Music in the ultimate pub, if played at all, shouldn’t be loud or intrusive, but nicely there - how a pub should be. You don’t want to be shouting just to ask your drinking partner who they think will win the World Cup this summer.

Speaking of World Cups, these are the kind of moments where a TV can work in a pub, but generally I’m against it. Worst still when pubs seem to have TVs on silent in conflict with loud music and Coronation Street subtitles flashing away in the background. The competing stimulation removes the whole point of going to the boozer in the first place: to be social.

Being social can also mean a dartboard and/or pool table. But they shouldn’t dominate should you wish not to participate. Cards and board games are welcome for long and lazy afternoons cradling one ale too many.

The snug - Fagan’s, Sheffield.

Much of the vibe in a pub is, of course, a by-product of the staff. An arsehole landlord or mardy barmaid can take an otherwise pleasant pub and make it uncomfortable.

The ultimate pub should have service that’s friendly and warm without being overly familiar. Efficient too, with those standing at the bar (not queuing in a line, please stop doing this) duly noted and served in order.

I think back to the moment I walked into Fagan’s. Eagerly the first one there as it opened at 4pm. I tell the barman that I’ve just got back from months of travelling and have been Guinness-less throughout. The conversation is easy and natural and I ask him about the Exposed Awards that evening, an annual Sheffield event where people nominate their local “best ofs”. Being uncharacteristically out of the Sheffield loop now, I ask if they’re up for nomination. They are: Best Traditional Pub.

I ask if he’s confident and he provides such an unexpectedly brilliant answer full of humility - explaining that of course he’d love to win, but the real strength of the pub is the community. Not only those who visit and form part of the fabric of Fagan’s, but the surrounding pubs in the “Irish Triangle”, where they all help each other out. It’s a symbiotic relationship, particularly now where city-centre pubs are increasingly dependent on weekend pub crawls. Being part of this little network gives each other a leg up and provides a shared sense of destination and identity.

I reflect back on his words with glee at how this wasn’t something I’d even thought of. Orwell certainly didn’t. But then that was during a time when pubs were largely centres of the community and were full. Today’s landscape is much more challenging, of course, and widely written about. But the point of it not just being the pub you’re in, but the wider surroundings and neighbouring businesses, really struck a chord with me. He’s totally right. The perfect pub isn’t usually a standalone at all.

Fagan’s went on to win Best Traditional Pub that evening. Fitting really.

‘The Snog’ by Pete McKee - Fagan’s

I stand up to leave Fagan’s unsure when I’ll be able to visit again. I take a final look around the main room and realise that the real feeling to any really good pub is meaning. Not meaning as to why you’re there, but what the pub means to you.

Of course, pubs you visit for the first time can still wow, but it’s not until the second visit and beyond that they can begin to hold some true meaning. I’m reminded of time spent in here with friends. Persuading my mate Nick to buy a Fagan’s branded hat from behind the bar, after he said they looked cool. It was in the snug I was about to pass on leaving that I told my mum one Mother’s Day that I was going to propose to my now wife.

And that’s really what pubs are above all else: moments shared.

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Never Trust A Hotel Review

As most people probably do, we always ensure we check reviews before we book to stay somewhere. A bit of due diligence before parting with hundreds of pounds is surely a reasonable thing to do? 

However, one thing I’ve become aware of having stayed in such a large number of places, in a short period of time, is that you can never trust a hotel review.

One person’s idea of a delicious breakfast, was my idea of what you’d imagine getting served as an inmate in a South American prison.

A tropical paradise - surprising one guest who was shocked to find one insect.

Likewise, someone’s horror story 1 star review, just because they found an insect (in what is effectively a jungle), leaves me wondering why they wanted to holiday amongst nature at all.

Or negative feedback for a hotel, because the nearby sea, yes that natural force of nature, had too many waves.

These are extremes of course, but I’ve also seen many 10/10 booking.com reviews where people have then gone on to add some negative feedback and it leaves me wondering why some people don’t understand the concept of scale.

Surprisingly no mentions of the toilet being in the shower cubicle, for this hotel.

So here’s the part I’m meant to tell you what you should do to avoid any disappointments. A list of hacks. A top 10 list for guaranteeing a perfect stay every time.

The problem is that there is no magic formula. Travel inevitably involves discomfort, compromise and occasionally realising that your idea of somewhere doesn’t quite match reality.

The longer we travel, the more I realise people are often reviewing their own expectations as much as the hotel itself.

Hotel reviews tell you less about the hotel than the person writing them.

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One Last Push

My legs tighten. One last push. Over another bump in the gravel and the climb finally gives way, opening out into a plateau. A stretch of green rice fields ahead, the sun catching on the flooded plains. Zebra doves make their mechanical whirring sound overhead as a worker in a conical hat walks past.

It feels like I’m in a film. And yet, somehow it is exactly as you’d expect it to feel in a place like this. Early morning mist lifting above the tree line. Mount Rinjani sitting behind it all, fixed against a big blue sky.

Mount Rinjani looming large, Tetebatu.

We cycle through small villages where children run out to greet us. Smiling and waving with the kind of enthusiasm you don’t question at that age.

Back into the fields and another scene opens up. A narrow dirt path raised between paddies, water on either side. Palm trees line the horizon. A small thatched house sits just ahead. A woman walks along the path, and it stops feeling like a film set, to something lived.

The tempo is slow, meandering, but deliberate. Getting lost feels like the point. There’s always the sense that something might appear just around the next bend.

Tetebatu rice fields, Lombok, Indonesia.

Eventually, we reach Hideaway Coffee - a name that, for once, doesn’t overpromise. It’s tucked away along a narrow pathway off the main road. Past more rice fields, through the edge of someone’s yard, a hen and her chicks scattering as we pass.

We leave the bikes at the top of a steep hill. Where a sign announces we are at the Hideaway, yet it’s nowhere in sight (appropriately). Narrow dirt steps cut through thick greenery. A short walk, a bamboo bridge, and then it opens out into a clearing with terraced levels where the eclectically furnished café sits, blending into its natural habitat. It feels like a natural end point.

We sit with coffee and pick up a book from a nearby shelf about why humans evolved to have a brain.

I look up from the page for a bit and take it all in.

Hideaway cafe - living up to its name.

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The Third Space

Having a third space is having a place outside of your home, or workplace, to convene or relax. It might be purposeful, like a pub or a café. Or it could be something less obvious, like a park or a beach.

During my time in the Philippines, I’ve found it more difficult to write. That may well be natural - a trough, a kind of writer’s block. Then I was ill, which disrupted the best part of a week…Not exactly a fertile environment for creativity.

But even accounting for that, I think the biggest reason comes back to the idea of a third space.

CYC Beach, Palawan. A would-be third space?

Of course, the Philippines has many of the things I’ve mentioned before. But none of them have yet felt like mine in the same way they have elsewhere. The beaches, particularly around the more popular parts of Palawan, often feel utilitarian. Places designed to serve movement. Boats coming and going, ferrying people out to the natural beauty that sits just beyond, out at sea.

They are gateways, rather than places to settle.

A cafe in Coron Town - a perfect spot

This isn’t a woe-is-me reflection from a privileged position. It’s simply an observation. Our environments shape us more than we tend to acknowledge. What appears exotic and beautiful on the surface doesn’t always translate into creativity or clarity, if the conditions to properly be present, to reflect, aren’t quite there.

The third space is that condition.

It’s a kind of safe haven. A regular café at home, or a one-off walk through a park while travelling, they serve the same purpose. A temporary removal from the noise of everyday life, whatever that life happens to be.

A freeing of burden. An unravelling of thought. And, perhaps most importantly, a chance to be at ease with yourself.

The Bay of Bacuit

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Seen From Elsewhere

On a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Cebu, I look down and spot a cluster of small tropical islands off the coast of Borneo. All green jungle, ringed by white sand and clear turquoise water.

I wonder who is there, what it might be like. Within seconds I feel a pull towards them, stronger than anywhere else, despite having been unaware of them less than a minute before.

Tropical beach - Palawan, The Philippines.

The following day I’m lying still on my back in the sea. Clear water, white sand behind me, thick jungle beyond. A group of swifts circle overhead. Then a plane cuts across the sky, and I’m taken back to 24 hours earlier.

Here I am now, in a place not so different from the one I’d looked down on with envy, but on the other side of it. I start to wonder who is on that plane, where it’s going, what they’re seeing below. Whether someone up there has just added somewhere new to their list.

The view hasn’t changed. Only the position.

An aircraft above - a shift of perspective

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Sri Lanka - Beauty & Discomfort

The ceiling fans whip above our heads at an alarming rate, trying to keep pace with the mid-afternoon humidity as those of us sampling afternoon tea on the veranda at the Amangalla Hotel in Galle attempt to tread the fine line between refinement and simply keeping cool, all while downing cups of hot tea.

It is a slightly nostalgic afternoon for a period of time of which I have no living knowledge. Anemoia, to quote my musician friend Yarni.

The building itself has lived several lives. Once the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company, later Galle’s first hotel under British rule, and now a quietly polished luxury stay.

Like many places on the island, Sri Lanka still carries clues of its European colonial past.

Old world luxury - Amangalla Hotel, Galle

In Pettah, a red post box inscribed with GR for King George sits almost unsuspectingly beside a bald car tyre filled with concrete. Even the humble custard cream, that quiet mainstay of the British biscuit tin, is readily available in supermarkets.

But the story here is not solely British.

At Geoffrey Bawa’s Colombo residence and at his country estate at Lunuganga, outside influences appear in more considered ways. Less in your face Mini Cooper energy, more quiet synthesis.

Born to a Sri Lankan father and Dutch mother, Bawa began life as a lawyer before turning later to architecture. What he left behind feels deeply deliberate. There is no pastiche here. No attempt to impose European forms wholesale onto tropical ground.

Instead, Bawa allows the space itself to do the work. Clear sightlines. Considered light. A calm sanctuary designed for thinking and for living.

His trophies are different too. Murano glass. Indian artwork. Fragments gathered from across the world and absorbed rather than imposed.

Geoffrey Bawa’s Lunuganga residence

Sri Lanka today feels like a country steadily finding its own feet. After years of internal strain, a modern identity is forming, unevenly but visibly.

Nowhere is this more apparent than along the southern coast, where development and tourist appetite sometimes appear to be outpacing the infrastructure beneath them. Hastily built beachside accommodation sits beside small local shacks selling fruit, snacks, or lottery tickets.

And then an Ashok Leyland bus roars past, and the old world briefly returns once more.

Workers at the Dambatenne Tea Factory

Travel a couple of hours north of the beaches of the south coast and you reach the tea country at Uva. Another relic of the past, where the country’s first commercial tea bushes were planted by the British. By the early twentieth century, the vast estates that remain today were already in place.

A visit to Dambatenne tea factory, built in 1890 by a Scot, Thomas Lipton, furthers this feeling of the old world. Not only is the factory still standing, but much of the British-made machinery within it remains in operation. Our tour guide was incredibly keen to show these off to ourselves, from the UK.

However, here too, the stark contrasts of Sri Lanka loom large as workers tirelessly labour in questionable conditions for the equivalent of around £3.60 a day. A reminder that cosplaying with nostalgia has very real downsides for those in the thick of the reality of real life.

It isn’t only ornate architecture, beautiful design and tea-drinking rituals. There is a real human element at play, one where people are exploited today just as they were back then.

Tea plantation worker in the hills near Ella

It makes me think about how morally difficult it can sometimes feel being a tourist. The natural curiosity and delight of catching a glimpse into a time you didn’t experience; often via small, real-time moments, albeit in modern clothes and modern technology - sits awkwardly beside an awareness of the hardship faced by others.

The balance between bringing much-needed outside money and avoiding the temptation to turn a day trip into a photoshoot of poverty.

Most people don’t like to be uncomfortable when they travel, but perhaps discomfort is an unavoidable part of seeing the world honestly. Something to learn from, to grow from and to try and affect positively, in your own little way. An opportunity to appreciate beauty whilst also recognising and respecting the difficulties that others live with every day.

As Anthony Bourdain once put it:

“Travel is not always pretty. It is not always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you.”

Railway relics from another era

*All photos used were done so with the permission of those photographed*

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Paradise Isn’t Always Quiet

A loud rumble of a vehicle passes close to my right side as I walk along the dusty, dry street, narrowly avoiding uneven slabs of pavement and stepping over open drain covers.

Welcome to the hustle of southern Sri Lanka. A place where beautiful seas and beaches sit in uneasy tandem with the overcrowded coastal road. Where nature is in direct competition with humanity’s relentless pursuit of growth at all costs.

A simple walk to the shop for water often turns into an assault course for the senses. A Leyland Ashok bus hurtles through town at unnecessary speed, brushing the already heavy air across your body with even greater intensity, as a seemingly endless fleet of tuk tuks passes by asking if you need a ride.

After almost two weeks away, the prospect of returning to the beach brings a flicker of excitement.

It doesn’t last long.

Ashok Leyland Bus - A Sri Lankan menace

I’d read the beach would be busy with people drawn by the turtles, but I hadn’t expected quite this. Masses of people huddle around the giant animals at the shoreline, lured in by food bought from beach vendors and tossed into the shallows. Visitors crowd around, phones raised, inappropriate poses readied and edging closer and closer.

On one occasion my wife pulls a plastic bag (used for the aforementioned food) from the water, left drifting where a turtle might easily have swallowed it. Nearby, she gently but firmly tells a woman to stop pushing one of the animals for a better photo.

It feels wrong. Upsetting. A little hollow.

A circus, not the quiet encounter with wildlife I had imagined.

It reminds me that travel isn’t always soft edges and easy beauty.

Relaxation at Ahangama Secret Beach

Two days later we finally find a beach that ticks the most important boxes: quiet, safe and calm. We decompress almost immediately. Each sip of the chilled king coconut from the nearby beach hut a literal tonic to the heat exhaustion. 

The repetition of sea-sunbathe-sea-hydrate becoming a seductive mantra for relaxation and unwinding. The day passes slowly and upon returning to the main road, there’s almost a feeling of the outside world being one of calm. And then it hits you again - the offers of a tuk tuk ride, hurtling blue buses and weaving mopeds. The sea breeze is behind you and it’s a race back to the comfort of the air conditioned room for respite.

The cycle continues for a few days and we settle into a nicely compromised daily ritual. Morning light and walks. A cafe. Then to the beach before returning for a rest and then braving the busy streets once more for our evening meal.

Respite at The Kip, Ahangama

We depart the south coast and head to Udawalawe National Park and the following day take a safari. 

Our jeep crawls through winding jungle roads past tropical birds and groups of monkeys who look like that incredibly ugly bloke we all know. Over bumpy tracks into vast watery plains with colourful peacocks and gurning water buffalo (there’s the ugly man again!).

And finally, the king of Udawalawe. The elephant.

We see a few lone males and small family groups along the way, but nothing beat the final roll of the dice when we turned down a quiet back road and stumbled upon a small herd eating and bathing in the muddy water.

Total bliss just sitting in silence. The only sound being the spraying of water and mud onto their hot brown skin, watching these beautiful creatures go about their day peacefully from touching distance. 

And at that moment I realise just how much noise we had been carrying inside and what paradise really means to me.

Elephants bathing in the mud, Uduwalawe

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