Agenda (St Johns Road Corstorphine, Edinburgh)

Commonly known as ‘Home of the Jakie’. Full of radges on Coke (and we’re not talking Cola!).

The Cuckoo’s Nest (Home street, Edinburgh)

A decent pub on 2 levels. Upstairs a quiet boozer where you can always get a seat, serves a decent pint and host a reasonable selection of whiskeys. Downstairs is a livelier affair at the weekend. Tip: If you are downstairs, though there is a bar downstairs, go to the bar upstairs and you will get served far quicker as the bar downstairs is not well staffed. Overall – a good place to relax, enjoy a pint and nip, and talk to randoms.

Slack bastard!

Keen readers of this blog may wonder why this entertaining and insightful pub review has not been updated recently. Well to be honest I’ve been too busy holidaying in Australia, keeping the government running, and going out drinking. Apart from that I couldn’t really be arsed!!

However I’m now back in front of the computer and am ready to recommend a couple of unforgettable watering holes from the land down under and yet more good and bad boozers from Edinburgh.

Seals – Maroubra, Sydney
This really is the premier attraction in Maroubra if not Sydney itself! An RSL (or social club) situated just across the road from Maroubra beach, this is the place for all your eating/drinking/entertainment needs.

You can rock up with $5 (£2.99) and get a hot meal at lunchtime at their canteen. The meal may not be 5 star cuisine (or a Winston’s pie), some may even say its hard to tell the difference between the fish and the chicken meals they are so badly cooked - but what can you expect for $5! All I can say is I enjoyed it. Should you want to, you can then work off lunch in the gym, or down a few schooners at the bar and hit the pokies.

In the evenings you pay an extra 50 cents for your evening meal (which is exactly the same as the food on offer at lunch time). However for that extra 50 cents you get entertainment; in the form of a live band playing classic tunes such as Dire Straits Sultans of Swing, and the meat raffle held on Thursday nights. This really is a quality night out and I’d totally recommend it - forget the Opera House bar, get yourself to Seals! The only downer on the evening was having to endure the Aussie piss which passes for beer.

Churchills (Anzac Parade Kingsford, Sydney)
At Churchill’s however, I was delighted to drink more Aussie piss beer, as they give it away free if you correctly answer a prize round at their weekly Thursday pub quiz. The quiz is general knowledge and is hosted by the lovely Amy – definitely worth turning up for. The bar itself serves a good scran and has a reasonable selection of Aussie piss beers and a massive array of pokies – if you like the gambling.

The Mitre (Royal Mile)

A typical Edinburgh pub, which is to say; it's a fairly average old man sort of pub, frequented by tourists, where you are charged over £3 a pint for the privilege of drinking a very average pint of beer, poured by an inexperienced and rude barman/barmaid, on the Royal Mile.

The Rainbow (Drumbrae/Corstorphine - sadly now closed)

The Rainbow (or the Bow, as it was affectionately known by its regular punters) was a Corstorphine institution! Beloved by local residents, underagers and radges, this pub was sadly shutdown after one fight too many.

The Corstorphine Inn (The Corrie Inn)

No room at the inn.

I was expecting to give this pub a good review. The lads have been going for regular TNDs (Thursday night drinks) at the Corrie Inn for well over 3 years and it has always satisfied. The drink is cheap, and poured by a man who some say is ‘the best barman in the world’. You can order a round of 8 different drinks from him, and then when you go back for the next round he will say “same again” and pour your exact order, without having to be reminded of what you want. I’m reliably informed that there is also a barmaid with incredible cleavage! While main meals are nothing to speak of, the bar does boast a good variety of bar snacks. On a Friday night there is young clunge a plenty. It is advisable to wear wellies as you will be knee deep. On a disappointing note the music quiz which they used to host on a Thursday night is no longer.

This was a standard local, with low key décor, booths, and a beer soaked carpet. They have recently redecorated and tiles now replace the carpet around the bar, while the toilets are now akin to those of a trendy wine bar even providing bottles of hand soap. However, with this redecoration the Corrie Inn has forgotten its core customers, the regulars that go every week.

On Christmas Eve the Corrie Inn advertised it opened until midnight, so the lads pitched up for an Xmas pint at 9pm. We were met at the door by one of the bar staff who told us it was too busy and they were not letting people in. Looking trough the window it didn’t seem that busy and the punters seemed to be the sort of people that come out of the woodwork only at Christmas, i.e. drunken families, and underage girls in tight dresses getting hammered before they go up town.

The lads went up the road to The Harp, a bar which was soon closing, then returned to the Corrie Inn an hour later at 10pm. On arrival, the same barmaid told us that the Corrie Inn was now closed, despite them advertising a closing time of 12 midnight. Through the window we could clearly see the bar staff were still serving drinks.

You drink in a local bar for years, supporting it with your custom, then try to go for drink at Christmas in said bar and are denied because they are busy and don’t need your money. In that case maybe they don’t need our money during January when there’s only a few people in the bar each night. Overall, a decent local, but one that won’t fill you with Christmas cheer!