The first Stationlink journey itself was fairly uneventful, and we were surprised at how few passengers there were. This was probably because it's quicker to do the same journey on the Bakerloo Line; but Stationlink would be a better choice if you needed to continue on to Victoria, and it's a low-floor bus which means it's good for wheelchair users.
Once we'd travelled the few minutes to Paddington, our pub of choice was the Dickens Tavern. With a name like that, and an address like London Street, London, you'd think this might be an establishment steeped in faux history aimed at the tourists. However, to assume that would be to assume that any tourists actually visit Paddington, rather than passing straight through or perhaps stopping for a quick trip to a brothel.
In any event, the Dickens Tavern turned out to be one of the longest pubs in the world. Walking from the entrance to the back of the pub, I was reminded of some of the scenes from Das Boot which travel along the length of the submarine – except that in the case of the Dickens Tavern, you are surrounded by dirty sports fans rather than dirty sailors.
In addition to "real sports", in the form of TV screens showing various men running around various fields to the cheers of various other men, the Dickens Tavern also featured "pub sports", in the form of a couple of pool tables. We decided to play a quick game, drawn by the very redness of it all: not only was the baize red, but the lights were red and even the chalk was red. Unfortunately, once we'd put our money in and started to rack 'em up, we noticed that there was no black. Playing pool without a No. 8 ball presents something of a challenge, but I think we rose to it well.
Having exhausted ourselves with pool, we relaxed with our beers in some hazardously decrepit armchairs and put some music on the jukebox...
...and decided that overall it was a reasonably good pub.
| Robert | 6.5 |
| Pad | 7.5 |
| Simon | 8 |
| Tim | 5.8 |
| Alan | 7 |
| Average | 6.96 |
Before heading back to the bus stop – which is in that small road running alongside Paddington station, next to Eastbourne Terrace – we remembered that we had to take a picture of the group standing outside the pub. For some reason (no doubt something highly complex to do with light levels and perspective) it wasn't possible to get one of the front of the Dickens Tavern, so instead Al decided to take one of us in the alleyway next to the pub.
The next part of our journey, to Victoria Coach Station, was probably the longest section of the Stationlink route. At this stage we were still safely on schedule, so things were looking good.