a good thing going

The Blue Lamp. So called because, yes, you guessed it - there's a fuck-off big blue-glass gas lantern outside (try saying that after a few!)

Now let's be clear; it's dingy, shabby, the barman can be quiet and odd, the drink prices are made up as he goes along, and candles offer a source of heat in the winter. You'd half expect to see a Hogwarts student huddled in the corner. So the Ritz it's NOT. Yet it's amazing.

Folk-sessions on a Monday and Celtic Society ('Celtic Sock') on a Thursday ensure it's got a good following in the wee group of folk-minded people I hang out with (about five of us). Just imagine the snow falling thick on the city streets - it's pitch black and speckled white outside. The windows rattle in the upstairs room and you alternate your hands from your pockets to the candle on the table. Sounds of a fiddle, guitar, a tin whistle, sometimes pipes and accordions fill the building and spill out into the glazed street outside.

It's times like that you don't care about anything too complicated.