Blade Runner is one of my favourite films. It’s sci-fi, it’s got a great cast, it’s cult, seminal and influential, and the Iron Maiden album cover Somewhere in Time owes a lot to it.
Farnborough
The Sarsen Stones – Farnborough’s New Pub
Welcome to The Sarsen Stones – Farnborough’s New Pub. So we’ve lost The Tumble Down Dick, The George, The Queen’s Head, The Imperial Arms, The Potters Arms, The Old Courthouse and The Ham & Blackbird. One of our pubs was infamously turned into a fast food restaurant (a very sore point and a personal one … Read more
Back to College in 2017
So I went back to college in 2017.
Why? Because I wanted to “firm up” on a subject.
And that subject is? Marketing.
Save the Tumbledown
I need your help to save our pub, please. If you want to skip the preamble and just get on with objecting to the current planning application then go straight to
Clone Wars: Farnborough
On the 25th January 2012 I attended a meeting of North Camp residents, even though I live in the Fox Lane area of Farnborough (some might argue that it’s Cove, almost Hawley)
The most important aspect of that meeting, hosted by Andrew Lloyd, the Chief Executive of Rushmoor Borough Council, was that he said he did not want Farnborough to be another clone town, or words to that effect. As the CEO of this Borough, I expected that to apply to Aldershot too.
Then, on a trip to Aldershot one day, to visit Spinnadisc Records, which was forced to close due to the extortionately high rents, I saw atop a pole in Union Street a banner boasting of all the big names coming to Aldershot’s new Westgate “leisure” development: Morrisons, Nando’s, Toby Carvery, Harvester, Travelodge, Frankie & Bennie’s, Pizza Express, Subway…
Save the Tumbledown
At the tail end of this year’s summer time, a mighty oak tree came down beside the Tumbledown Dick pub in Farnborough. It didn’t fall, it was cut down.
That Oak tree had stood for hundreds of years and had a healthy, green leafy canopy – It was a pleasant part of the Farnborough Road and, as with all Oak trees, probably supported a large number of species of birds and insects.
So, to see the tree come down, one that had stood over the neighbouring pub for more generations than I’ve ever traced back of my own family, was sad to say the least. A little bit of England has been felled, biodiversity in that small pocket of land has been altered dramatically and the abandoned pub we all love is exposed even further to the elements.
So why was that grand old oak tree cut down?
The Tilly Shilling
When The Tumble Down Dick was closed in 2008 there were numerous rumours about its future. There was speculation that there may be a mysterious fire (as there was when the Duke of York in Camberley was torched, allegedly), it was going to be knocked down, turned into flats or a car park, or of … Read more
22i Design – 10 Years
When a little London agency tweeted the other week something along the lines of “Hooray – we’ve been doing business for 10 years!” it suddenly dawned on me… …22i Design, my little Farnborough web design business, was 10 years old on the 5th September 2010! I’d been so incredibly busy that the date plain slipped me … Read more
The Tumbledown Dick – 15 Months On
This post has been updated on Weds 6th May, Fri 8th May One of our local pubs, The Tumbledown Dick (The Tumble Down Dick), was shut down on 12th February 2008 for “environmental health reasons”. Whilst there’s no argument that the pub was in need of a serious renovation it’s a crying shame that this … Read more