Tanya Gold reviews The Churchill Arms, London

The Churchill Arms in Kensington is a sort of Winston Churchill fetish bar, full of every conceivable piece of Winston Churchill memorabilia, or toy. Relics of his actual corpse may lurk, loitering behind a decorative mug or a Plasticine bust of his head. There is a three-quarter-size cardboard cutout of the Queen, photographs of every other British prime minister looking confused or disappointed, and what I think are the ‘scores’ from the Battle of Britain.

I am here because it is seasonal suicide week and who needs to be near Richard Caring’s event napery or log styling in seasonal suicide week? There has been a Thai restaurant inside the Churchill Arms for many years although no one seems to know exactly when it opened; the mid-1980s is my best guess, until a Thai pub historian intervenes. It claims to be the first London pub to serve Thai cuisine, but this may only possibly be true, because the Churchill Arms also claims, on a blue paper disc, that Churchill made his wartime broadcasts here, and laughed at Hitler’s watercolours while drinking banana daiquiris and farting.

It is the pub of a madman. There are maybe 40 Christmas trees on the roof. Gerry the Irish landlord is obviously a sort of Radagast the Brown figure. (Radagast had a chariot pulled by atomic rabbits in Lord of the Rings). And he decided that what the Churchill Arms was lacking was a garden sitting on its head. It was once Evening Standard pub of the year because it is within crawling distance of the Evening Standard and its co-tenant the Daily Mail. (They call this newspaper factory the Death Star, even if it is above what is supposed to be a health food shop, but what I know is a portal).