Manchester

The Metropolitan
2 Lapwing Lane
Modern bar

The classic MET, like the MET of police fame, 20 years ago, full of corruption and criminals and cocaine, when it was the Midlands, but then something changed, the MET got invested in, got cash to spend, new management, and the place changed. Now you are more likely to be bumped into by a Porsche Cayenne (god I hate those monstrosities) rather than bumped off by a gangster. No bad thing, but just as deadly, but for there credit the met pub does have a traffic controller. Now the home of the wealthy non Manchester types of Didsbury and the surrounding villages the MET is the shining beacon of contemporized Clapham style drinking, accountants and lawyers talk about shares whilst the complete lack of music allows them to wallow in their overly loud conversations of rugger scores and house prices, both happily increasing (see blog Manchester…..london) Drinks prices like the height of the clientele steadily rising ever year on the year end (so very Didsbury) and now towering above the reality of the rest of the world, with Guinness at 3.40 you do wonder who pays these prices. The answer is the nova riche and under, in there thousands…. The more they increase the prices so I am told the more people want to drink there. But they do have champagne at £5.50 a glass so they have some sensibilities to their own kind. Their own kind as well are particularly healthy, with the smoking area (not the non smoking area) now taking up 75% of the available drinking place, not ideal if you are a smoker, or have friends who do, as you suddenly realize why they might be bringing this law in after all as you enter the smoke clogged smog of the place the hardcore people hang out. Everywhere else the bar staff don’t have to tell the smoking few about such restrictions, which is a good job as they are understaffed as it is, as every new confirmed converted none smoker, in that way only the drunken posh can get away with, tell you ‘if you don’t mind that the smoking area is over there, not over here’ with a glaring eye and a healthy lack of coolness, back in the days of the midlands people would have killed for less. Age wise the MET is similar to is police type, around mid 30’s and doing well for it, and like the police not too many blacks and Asians (more the pity, but I stand out and look good so no worries there) but unlike the police there are a fair number of women here too. Mainly the ¾ length coat and scarf wearing fitness of the office variety, but slightly more stuck up and according to several men in there mainly gold diggers, which I found very hard to believe, one lad from Liverpool joked the girls were like the plants in there, kinda fake and with no talking points. Three conversations later, when the only questions had been ‘so what do you do then’ and amazingly ‘what do you drive’ I had to agree with him. With so many Porsches outside I can now see why. We went on St Burns night and thanks to Ross I learned that Tam O Shanter was actually a poem about being wasted and a lie to his Mrs. at the time. Very apt for the MET I feel. (3.5)

One Lounge
1 Lapwing Lane
Modern bar

One lounge: the place on the corner, which I am sure was much smaller before. It was, the owner informs me, a former hairdressers that has been extended, and didn’t they do well. What once was a clothing store, for the very strange and then a video store, for the slightly less strange, is now a bar, for the very non- strange and I mean this in a good way. The one lounge with its leather fashioned seats and its stylish but plain décor is the kind of place, where normal people go for a drink, its not somewhere like odder, but this isn’t the southern, northern or for that matter any quarter of town, this is Didsbury darling where things are done a little differently. Its not got the pretentiousness of the MET with its library and fake books and extraordinary high prices, but its not got the coolness and party vibe of the M20 with its retro look and people wearing sunglasses and neon lights. It’s not a cocktail bar and it’s not a place you would take your retired parents to either. It’s the 3rd way, the middle ground, but one that I think it lives in well. Beer is on draught (most of the flavors) and so not just bottled beers which I can find insulting on the wallet midst of a really good blowout. But they do, do cocktails and champagne cocktails (or sparkling wine) but good ones at that, which the youngish crowd of attractive lawyers and accountants, seem to enjoy no end as their male counterparts vie for a more traditional approach to their inebriation. The seats are comfortable (a prerequisites at my age) and movable, and changeable to you can create large groups with intermingling and social horseplay. The place is flexible and so is it music policy which they seem to have spot on, without the conversation inhibiting nature of the some of more music driven bars, but the place still has a lot of party atmosphere. Often allowed and wished for by the owners who help out of the bar and get involved in the spirit of things. The place like the security is warm and friendly and a prefect place to take someone for a second date, just after stopping by the assembly to show that ‘you really aren’t that type of person and were checking to see if they were’. The one lounge is the one place in Didsbury, (Westside) you can have a pint and still wear a jacket without thinking you stand out, it’s young and modern but as the jacket of our metaphor, it needs something a little crazier to really stand out, the attaching of a tape measure perhaps or an attractive polish waitress, ok the One lounge bar has one of these without the twatty pretensions of the other. With nice toilets, nice staff and nice music the One Lounge is a nice place to go to: the question is can they make it a little more than that, and do we want just nice… I don’t have all the answers but it’s a question which needs one. 4 / 5

Slug and Lettuce
651 Wilmslow Road
Cheap and Cheerful bar