I had the pleasure of performing at a pub called the Camden head last night. A nice little room above a big bar on Camden High Street. Only on route to the gig did I discover that there are two pubs in Camden called the Camden Head. Yes, that’s right, the pub on Camden High Street where I was performing, previously known as Liberties, despite what any sensible person might consider the obvious downsides, has recently renamed itself with the name of another bar which stands only about half a mile away. This might be more understandable if the name of the establishment was the Red Lion or the White Horse or the Black Bull, but let’s face it the Camden Head does appear to be a quite specific name, not a generic British pub name that could appear on any high street.
The correct Camden Head yesterday.
So, I was booked to perform at the Camden Head. I advertised this fact on my website with the aid of a Google maps link. On being asked to find said establishment Google maps, not surprisingly, gives the address of the original Camden Head, so named since 1899. So, unfortunately, that’s the address I put on the site for the show. It wasn’t until I was en route to the pub that the penny dropped. It just so happened that earlier yesterday I had ridden past Camden Head on Camden High Street, so when I used Google maps on my iPhone to locate the place I realised that it was directing me not to the pub I had seen earlier that day but to somewhere quite a distance away. Naturally alarm bells rang and I went to the Facebook page for the event, only to discover, as you’ve probably already worked out, that the gig was on the high street, not at Camden passage as I had advertised.
The incorrect, yet original, Camden Head yesterday.
It only remains for me to apologise to those who turned up at the wrong bar. I know some of you have been in touch via e-mail this morning, sorry to you and to anybody else who hasn’t yet been in touch. I hope you will forgive me for what I think you will agree was a pretty easy mistake to make.
Of course it’s not the first time a unique name has been used by a business in the same trade, Sunderland’s football club famously decided to share the same stadium name as Benfica. At least when Sunderland gave their ground the same name as an existing club they had the decency to avoid confusion by making sure they were in different countries, as opposed to the same fucking neighbourhood.
Simon, as you know the Sunderland Stadium of Lightcwas a brand new building when it was named thus, it being one of the top stadiums in the country totally dominating St. Hotch Potch Park ( or should thst be Fat Ashley’s chav emporium@St. Hotch Potch Park) The reason given for naming it the Sunderland Staduim of Light was that the town was the place where the lightbulb and Davey Lamp were invented and that the entrance to the ground was were the miners at Wearmouth Colliery would cone in to the light after a hard shift underground. I think it reflects our city and the pride that we have in being County Durham’s biggest football team ( and at present also the north east’s). Anyway fuck off and do some more surveys. I’m loving your work Simon, good luck with it, see you soon I hope
Mark
Pedants’ Corner:
The lamp is called the Davy, not Davey, and was first tested at Hebburn. Credit where credit’s due, it was used a year before Stephenson’s lamp.
On the lightbulb:
Joseph Swan, a British inventor, obtained the first patent for the same light bulb in Britain one year prior to Edison’s patent date. Swan even publicly unveiled his carbon filament light bulb in Newcastle, England a minimum of 10 years before Edison shocked the world with the announcement that he invented the first light bulb. Edison’s light bulb, in fact, was a carbon copy of Swan’s light bulb.
Oh, and Sunderland’s not been in County Durham since 1974.