The Moon Under Water
The Moon Under Water
AKA The Wetherspoons next to the TGI Fridays in Leicester Square
Welcome to the first edition of In Moderation (formerly Ads That Go Hard). If you didn’t catch it, I explained the name change in last week’s newsletter.
I’ve also (very unprofessionally) recorded the post as audio so you can listen here:
The Moon Under Water
Wetherspoon’s pubs are known for cheap drinks. My round of three costs £17.55 which is, sadly, not bad for London.
It’s 12:15 and already pretty full in here. A table near the front frees up, we move aside the stack of menus and sit.
Our fellow punters seem older, British and not-from-London. I go to say that it’s like we just walked into a seaside town - but I stop myself. It’s not that I’m above making rude observations out loud, I just feel more comfortable making them about other Australians.
So instead of talking I just sip my Guinness and make a satisfied “aaah.”
Besides, I’m with workmates, so there’s no shortage of conversation material.
Winter sun streams through the clouds now, warming The Moon Under Water’s glass front windows and the Leicester Square concrete.
We have a second, then a third, then we part ways. One colleague heads to the airport, another to school pickup. I go home.
Later that afternoon, Google tells me that The Moon Under Water was famously the name of George Orwell’s fictional, ideal pub - and there’s 12 other Wetherspoon’s pubs with the same name.
In the past I thought chain pubs were cold and devoid of soul.
In the present I’ve had three pints and don’t care.
The Moon Under Water in Leicester Square is probably not my ideal pub. And, I doubt it’d be George Orwell’s either.
I do love the idea of George popping in for a mid-afternoon pint in 2024, though.
Maybe it’s because he’s stressed about a deadline or had a fight with his girlfriend. Maybe he’s celebrating a good review. Or maybe George Orwell’s just pumped because it’s Friday, Dry Jan’s over and there’s a little wedge of blue sky hovering over London’s west end.
In my imagination, he’s shaved off the pre-Hitler moustache and is blending into the present day with a Superdry jacket and Yeezy knock offs.
And there, on a stool by the window, among the laminated QR codes and M&Ms World shopping bags, sits the historic writer - sipping his Madri, gambling on his Android - warm and alive in one of the world’s great cities.
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