'huge, queer and tawdry' but 'much admired by the public'

Mark Twain wrote that "Dollis Hill comes nearer to being a paradise than any other home I ever occupied", and given I like exploring the far reaches of this great city anyway, that mandated a visit. augstone fancied some daytime drinking - so let's combine the two, we thought, and go for a Dollis Hill pub crawl!
First problem: Dollis Hill has no pubs. Seriously. At its heart, Gladstone Park, and around that, pleasant London suburbia, not dissimilar to the quieter and less exotic regions of Highgate, but less spooky. Gladstone Park, likewise, is a sort of Waterlow or Alexandra Park disrupted by a railway through its midriff - perhaps absent in Twain's day. Maybe those other lands of which Dollis Hill reminds me were also as yet unbuilt, and learned from Dollis Hill's example? My historical sense of London's expansion is patchy, given I tend to regard anything which belongs in London as having always been here*. There are pubs near Dollis Hill, but always just over a road into industrialisation, proletarianism or Irishness. Our original plan was "meet in the pub nearest the station" but, under expert advice, I had checked Fancyapint, just in case, while worrying that Aug might feel this compromised the expeditionary spirit. Thank heavens I did. Its favoured suggestion was full of old Irish soaks, which is fine, and in the midst of some carpentry, which is allowable, but was also playing 'The Wind Beneath My Wings', so we didn't stay. Everything else the web had suggested would be heading back down towards Kilburn, so instead we investigated the Ox & Gate, which had nice leather chairs. The gents here had a huge stash of empty sleeves for hooky p0rn DVDs; clearly these are purchased alongside boy films the mrs would never think to investigate, and then secreted inside the actioner's sleeve. Cunning. We cross the North Circular a bridge too early, passing a supplier of sex equipment on one side and a purveyor on the other. This doesn't seem a particularly libidinous area, but perhaps there's nothing else to do? The reservoir is unusually birdless, having fewer than the tiny pond in Gladstone Park; maybe the ducks really like the naked statue in the park pond, Maybe Mark Twain did too.
We head back via Willesden Green, hoping that not being Dollis Hill proper, there may be pubs. We pass two carpet shops and two auto parts shops before we see anything even faintly resembling one, instead contenting ourselves with Crazy Cock - a Bulgarian restaurant rather than another fleshpot. They have folk music TV playing - does Britain, with all its music channels, have anything of the sort? There are forests and fine jackets, and Aug wants a residency. I knew nothing of Bulgarian cuisine before, in spite of an ancestor helping to underwrite the country's foundation, but can now tell you that they do very fine things with cheese.
Then, via a brief stop at a gastro affair which is at least visible from Willesden Green station, back to the centre. I have always steered clear of the Old Blue Last before, suspecting that anywhere owned by Vice magazine would probably be full of tossers. I am slightly wrong, in that the crowd are not so much hipsters as their larval form. I am reminded of the old moral dilemma - if you could go back in time and kill Bloc Party when they were as yet innocent of their crimes, would it be justified? Not that I could ever see the dilemma, mind. Even in the version which substitutes Hitler, the only worry is the practical consideration of whether that might have given Stalin a freer hand. Anyway, the Old Blue Last still manages its own spot of Pub Fail; they have at least three draught pints off with no glasses over the pumps, the felchratchets. First act on is one Kit Richardson, who looks like Imelda Staunton dressed as Little Boots, and sounds like a third-rate Tori Amos. Do Not Want. The 18 Carat Love Affair, however, are excellent as ever even in this terrible place; there's a song I don't recognise called 'Eleanor' which is every bit as good as the rest of their material. Aug says he doesn't really know who to compare them to, sound-wise, and I know what he means, and I think that's a good thing.
The next band on feature a former member of Special Needs. We don't stay.

Undecided on nu-Skins as yet, though given how much more the first two series were than the first episode let on, I'm certainly planning to keep watching. The new male leads seem more irksome, though, consisting as they do of a lout, a hairstyle and the OCD kid who appears to have escaped from The Big Bang Theory. Still, we have lovely lovely Effy (and I believe I'm now allowed to say that without going on the Register), and scatty Pandora, and the twins and Naomi Campbell seem promising. As does the new teacher, although having Ardal O'Hanlon playing a cross between Roy from The IT Crowd and Dylan Moran strikes one as a sort of mad science experiment in concentrated Irishness.
(Am also watching the third series of Oz, and idly wondering whether there's any possibility of a crossover)

*For instance, that scene in A Knight's Tale with the Eye revolving beside the mediaeval Thames? Perfect.