So, the Isis Farmhouse pub, just south of Oxford city centre, where we’ve been holding the Bastard English Session for years, where my boat-dwelling community would meet when in the depths of flooding, and where H and I got married just a few months ago, is on the market.
This is quite a big deal for me and many of my friends. And whilst we wish the landlord and landlady all future success, we’re all understandably a little bit wary about who might be replacing them. Because there really is nowhere quite like it: a riverside pub, with the double-edged sword of not having car access. Which means that it’s harder for everyone to get to, but strangely this makes it better for music events because once people have trekked all that way they tend to want to stay for the duration, and make damn sure they’ve enjoyed themselves. (There’s also the added fact that a mixup with the pub’s name at GCHQ might mean that we all die in a drone strike, so that always adds an element of danger.)
Certainly, without the Isis pub the Bastard Session would not be the same: so much of its character is defined by the shape of that front room.
So, basically, if you happen to know anyone who likes folk music who has a million quid or so lying around in loose change (and in Oxford that’s not as implausible as it sounds), could you maybe put in a good word?
