{"id":1263,"date":"2006-05-23T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-23T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2006\/05\/23\/the-end-of-an-era\/"},"modified":"2006-11-28T13:50:36","modified_gmt":"2006-11-28T13:50:36","slug":"the-end-of-an-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2006\/05\/the-end-of-an-era\/","title":{"rendered":"The end of an era"},"content":{"rendered":"

Norman Balon, landlord of the infamous Coach & Horses in Soho, has retired<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shame. Shame, I say. For those unfamiliar:<\/p>\n

“Mr Balon, 79, has told more people to drink up and leave than Jeffrey Bernard<\/a> drank large vodka-ice-and-sodas at his barside during the decades he wrote Low Life, his celebrated Spectator column… [Bernard] had to compete in conversation with, among others, the unshameable Daniel Farson<\/a>; Tom Baker<\/a>, popping in from a voice-over; Conan Nicholas, the man who invented cat-racing; or with David Wright<\/a>, the poet…”Norman Balon was really invented by Richard Ingrams<\/a>, when editor of Private Eye, from which William Rushton<\/a> and Peter Cook<\/a> and the rest came over the road for lunch each day… For 40 years, Private Eye has held its fortnightly lunches for informants and prominent people in a chill room upstairs… Immortality came in 1989 with Keith Waterhouse<\/a>‘s play Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell<\/a>, a sell-out with Peter O’Toole<\/a> in title role and the pub interior as the set.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Coach has been the hub of some of the most fascinating fringe characters of journalism and the arts for decades – there can be few who have aspired to a bohemian lifestyle who have not drunk there during Norman’s tenure. Me? Yep, I aspired. I went for a job there once while I was a student – was offered a pint during the interview with Norman, but nerves were such that I spilled it all over his suit. He was, shall we say, unimpressed. I left forthwith, and didn’t dare return for three years…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Norman Balon, landlord of the infamous Coach & Horses in Soho, has retired. Shame. Shame, I say. For those unfamiliar: “Mr Balon, 79, has told more people to drink up and leave than Jeffrey Bernard drank large vodka-ice-and-sodas at his … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nosemonkey-news","category-the-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}