Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

A vital text message has just informed me that the dreadful ‘Deez’ restyling which afflicted Hunters, then was almost killed off, has finally been properly dispatched to the unwise pub makeover shelter in the sky. The uninitiated may not appreciate that I have been charting the saga of a Belfast pub, known in its various incarnations as the Ashley, Hunters, Vaughans and then Deez. I bemoaned its rebirth as Deez, hankering after the original Hunters. Deez did indeed shut down for a period of months, but just weeks ago it appeared to have reopened without any rebranding. Now, I’m pleased to announce Deez is dead – long live the rather oddly named ‘Hills: the Best’. The newly opened pub apparently features a picture of George in his Northern Ireland top (although as far as I’m aware without any IFA wank wipes) at its door. Obviously as this news has only just reached me I have yet to visit this establishment. Watch this space!

Regular readers of Three Thousand Versts will remember my preoccupation with the future of a bar on the Lisburn Road, which has been known variously as the Ashley, Hunters, Vaughans and Deez (yes, with a ‘z’, exactly). The previous exciting instalment had Deez reverting to its old management and purportedly reinstating the much superior Hunters moniker. That seemed to be a happy ending of sorts. Alas, more than two months later, the gaudy yellow and pink colour scheme was still there, deafening music was still rendering conversation in the bar difficult, the bloke who apparently ran Deez was spotted drinking at the bar and to add insult to considerable injury, Sky Sports and Setanta were no longer available. Bringing things right up to date, the bar has been shut for the past week or so. This is, to put it mildly, unfortunate timing. Northern Ireland play the Czech Republic at home on Wednesday night and Hunters is easily the closest pub to Windsor Park. The most benign int

A follow-up to Beano’s post on Hunters / Vaughans / Deez (which an anonymous commenter informs us below , was originally known as the Ashley Arms) I have been asking a few questions and have got to the bottom of what’s currently happening with the pub. Apparently the place’s owners are a company known as the Dual Group. Hunters’ incarnation as Deez was not an initiative of this group who instead had leased the premises out to whichever genius conceived the gaudy colour scheme and '600 capacity venue' marketing nonsense. Clearly Deez was every bit as unsuccessful as this blog predicted initially and its lease has now reverted to the original owners. The manager I spoke to last night says that a return to the name Hunters is imminent, although I had to chuckle when he stated that his aim was to get ‘Hunters kicking again’. I have to credit my girlfriend with the observation, ‘they should forget about getting it kicking and just let it kick back’. Although given our ano

Beano has brightened up my Friday afternoon by rumour-mongering that the ‘Deez’ incarnation of Hunters’ pub might already be approaching its end and the pub may soon be under new management (yet again).  He has written a wonderfully vitriolic post detailing his objections to the ‘600 capacity venue’ (as it styles itself) and its ‘insufferable vulgarity’. My own contribution on this topic, bemoaning the re-branding of Hunters, was written only in March, so if Beano is correct, Deez took less than four months to prove an abject failure. Unlike Beano I must admit that I have not boycotted Hunters since its name change, although I have been more inclined to walk the extra few yards to Ryans. But I felt strangely compelled to find out whether my own prediction of its demise would prove accurate or whether the new management had actually cleverly identified a gap in the market for a structurally old fashioned pub, decked out in day-glo yellow, with pretensions of being a club. Duri

Apologies for the following rather parochial post. It won't mean a great deal to people at the vast majority of points in the cluster map at the bottom of this page. Still, today I wish to complain about the constant reincarnations inflicted on a pub on Belfast’s Lisburn Road, which I will never, despite what various owners might contend, know as anything other than Hunters. I have been visiting Hunters for over ten years on and off. The pub came to my attention initially as the essential pre-match watering hole for Northern Ireland home games. Then for substantial periods Hunters has been my closest bar – the local which I repair to for essential Premiership games, or just to read the paper and have a pint after work. The relationship has not always been smooth. For a spell when Northern Ireland was less popular and following the team was not as fashionable as it has become recently, the pub refused to admit supporters after games. Naturally, given the large quantities of cash