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The Old Dog And Duck
  • Published: 3 January 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141929910
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 304
Categories:

The Old Dog And Duck



This is a book for everyone who has ever wondered why pubs should be called The Cross Keys, The Dew Drop Inn or The Hope and Anchor. You'll be glad to know that there are very good - strange and memorable - reasons behind them all.

After much research about (and in) pubs, Albert Jack brings together the stories behind pub names to reveal how they offer fascinating and subversive insights on our history, customs, attitudes and jokes in just the same way that nursery rhymes do. The Royal Oak, for instance, commemorates the tree that hid Charles II from Cromwell's forces after his defeat at Worcester; The Bag of Nails is a corruption of the Bacchanals, the crazed followers of Bacchus, the god of wine and drunkenness; The Cat and the Fiddle a mangling of Catherine La Fidele and a guarded gesture of support for Henry VIII's first, Catholic, wife Catherine of Aragon; plus many, many more.

Here too are even more facts about everything from ghosts to drinking songs to the rules of cribbage and shove hapenny, showing that, ultimately, the story of pub history is really the story of our own popular history
%%%This is a book for everyone who has ever wondered why pubs should be called The Cross Keys, The Dew Drop Inn or The Hope and Anchor. You'll be glad to know that there are very good - strange and memorable - reasons behind them all.
After much research about (and in) pubs, Albert Jack brings together the stories behind pub names to reveal how they offer fascinating and subversive insights on our history, customs, attitudes and jokes in just the same way that nursery rhymes do. The Royal Oak, for instance, commemorates the tree that hid Charles II from Cromwell's forces after his defeat at Worcester; The Bag of Nails is a corruption of the Bacchanals, the crazed followers of Bacchus, the god of wine and drunkenness; The Cat and the Fiddle a mangling of Catherine La Fidele and a guarded gesture of support for Henry VIII's first, Catholic, wife Catherine of Aragon; plus many, many more.
Here too are even more facts about everything from ghosts to drinking songs to the rules of cribbage and shove hapenny, showing that, ultimately, the story of pub history is really the story of our own popular history

  • Published: 3 January 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141929910
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 304
Categories:

About the authors

Albert Jack

ALBERT JACK is a writer and historian. His first book, Red Herrings and White Elephants, explored the origins of well-known phrases; an international bestseller, it was serialised by the Sunday Times for over a year. He followed up this success with a series of bestsellers including Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep and Pop Goes the Weasel, a book exploring the dark histories and little-known meanings behind nursery rhymes.

Fascinated by discovering the truth behind the world's great stories, Albert has become an expert in explaining the unexplained. He is now a veteran of hundreds of live television shows and thousands of radio appearances worldwide. He divides his time between Guildford and Cape Town.