By Harry Laventure
The Internet. Noun, “a harrowing whirligig of rot”. Defined by example: scroll, Lebron James’ smiling face transposed onto a pumpkin with a spectral version of the song ‘You Are My Sunshine’ playing from the digital wings; scroll, the grinch, coloured blue, enormously excited about a certain kind of patella-themed medical procedure on the following day; scroll, a small dog AI rapping in Chinese; scroll, a rotund young man now known to the world as The Rizzler; scroll, Ian Hawke; scroll, Hawk Tuah; scroll, Talk Tuah; scroll, Talking Tuah. Has the great gallery of gibberish ever had so little wall space? Certainly not.
After the pinted pretension of a Christmas quiz’s revelry, a friend of mine described influencers as our era’s answer to socialites. Having wept for Madame de Pompadour for a little while, I reflected on the sparkling offerings of the zeitgeist. Are we cooked? Perhaps, but it’s not all bad. I present the panacea: LondonDeadPubs. Real name, James McIntosh. Street, Jimmy Mac.
Sycophant that I am, it is a labour of Herculean proportions to pin down this cultural aficionado in but a few lines. He is at once a musician, an underwriter, and a journalist, alongside more serious endeavours. Published on Spotify, in the FT, and editing for The Fence, there are many strings to the bow of this Zythophilic Robin Hood of content. Above all else, punctuated by various homages and tips of the hat, one theme has been prevalent in his corpus: yes, the nominative determinism speakst true, his muse is the humble boozer.
LondonDeadPubs offers the premium service of criticism for every kind of public house, from the shop-conversion cavalcades of quaffage on the estate to the anachronistic debauchery dens of the Dorset village. Spliced between shots of sips and sips of shots, soundtracked by vaguely alienating ambience, Jimmy Mac has flown far and wide in search of the perfect place for a perfect pour. Adorned with a sartorial armoury of herringbone jackets and 70s collars, his quizzical insouciance has peppered pub after pub, pint after pint, with a narration that is at once lucid, referential, enjoyable, and directly informative. Structurally, his arenas of merriment are judged on four parameters by number: ambience, interiors, drinks, and the ever-delightful DPF (Dead Pub Factor). According to these barometers, each inebriation station is ranked and depicted in a fashion that is faithful to their identity, for better or worse.
From Moranos of Canons Park to Albert’s Schloss of Piccadilly, we meet no conceit or alcoholic martyrdom on this tour. Criticism is humorous but candid. The care and attention to detail of each review coagulates with the frothed collar coherence observable atop a well settled stout. The fact is, Jimmy Mac seems to me the perfect influencer. I sincerely know nothing about him beyond his LDP character. His content is consistent but enriching, niche but entertaining, and it stems from something sincere. This is a man who not only loves to drink, but knows and treasures the very English reverie that is a simple pint in a pub, whatever the context.
At the end of it all, we must concede the comforts in the anchor of a damp coaster. The concentration of a country’s attitudes to the seasons, bleak and golden; the shadows of sodden-boots on old stone floors post-countryside-walk, whisked away by the glowing fuzz of a cast-iron hearth; or the light chime of parasols in the creaky rattle of beer garden benches. That particular hieroglyph of the pump-badge, and the second sunlight of an IPA’s contents refracted and projected on a table of your choice… I digress.
At the risk of sounding like a git, he is one of the few actively positive things that I have encountered spontaneously through the algorithm’s radical wisdom. I implore you to find him on Instagram or TikTok.
On the mystical metric known as the DPF, it’s a ten from me.