Tuesday 12 May 2009

Taking the Mickey


This there here is a picture of the bar at the ‘English pub’ in Disneyland, Florida, where my wife was recently on a press trip (you can read about it here) — if you lived in the bubble that seems to be Disney then these hideous looking artefacts are presumably seen as the height of drinking style over here. It’s like a vision of an alternative history of UK pub life, a steampunk version of what would have happened if craft brewers in the UK (and in the US) hadn’t decided that they wanted a bit of variety in their drinking lives — and, of course, we drinkers also decided to give them a chance. Given Disney’s concern with wholesomeness (one of my wife’s fellow trippers wanted the name of her blog — Dulwich Divorcee — on a Disney t-shirt and was told that Disney didn’t like to be associated with such a word as divorce), then does it know it is selling wife-beater? When you come to think of it, it is slightly sinister to think of a mouse in trousers and a duck wearing a hat. It’s Dr Moreau gone mad.

5 comments:

  1. Absolutely frightening... did anyone on the trip try to do some re-education?

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  2. Let's see... Swap the Strongbow for Bulmers, the Harp and Stella for Heineken and Bud, the Bass for Smithwick's and the Boddington's for three more crap lagers and your alternative UK is revealed to be, in fact, present-day Ireland.

    We've got variety aplenty in our drinking lives. Hectolitres of yellow, fizzy variety...

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  3. Beer Nut — I thought the same thing when drinking in a lovely looking bar on the west coast of Ireland several years ago.

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  4. That's one frightening sight - I'm please I went to Carowinds instead

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  5. Sorry all, no re-education - was too busy sinking the strawberry daquiris! The place was heaving btw....

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