Bermondsey Beer Mile: Slight (many happy) Return(s)

Twenty years ago today, I pressed a single button on a computer keyboard and UNLEASHED HELL. (Well, I say it was a single button, it was probably more like a messy FTP upload, but you get the idea.)

July 14th 1998 - Bastille Day, no less - was the day that I launched The Unpleasant Lair Of Spank The Monkey, the Demon Internet website that eventually migrated over to this thing on Typepad. So, I've been spouting off on the internet for twenty years today. As I usually do most years, I'd like to thank all of you who've been reading this nonsense, no matter what proportion of those two decades you've been here for.

Still, the question remains: how do I best celebrate the anniversary of the creation of a website?

And the answer is: with the help of The Belated Birthday Girl, I've created another one.

Back in 2014, The BBG and I went on the hipster pub crawl that they call The Bermondsey Beer Mile. I documented it all at the time, because this site needs content, and also because most of the other descriptions of the route on the internet were a bit out of date. Of course, four years later, that post is equally out of date itself. Curiously, nobody seemed to be trying to maintain an up-to-date list of the bars on the Mile. Equally curiously, the URL www.bermondsey-beer-mile.co.uk appeared to be available for purchase.

It isn't any more. Today, The BBG and I are proud to announce the launch of www.bermondsey-beer-mile.co.uk, our unofficial guide to the dozen or more beer halls you can find under the railway arches of south-east London. We've plotted out the full route, complete with maps, pictures and a short description of each stop along the way. And unlike the one-off blogposts that are currently your main source of information on the route, if bars open, close or move location then we'll update the site as soon as we hear about it. (Comments will be left open throughout in case readers want to do some of that legwork for us.)

The Bermondsey Beer Mile site isn't going to be updated as frequently as this one, but hopefully it'll help some people out along the way. Consider it my birthday present to you all, even though that's not how birthdays are supposed to work.