The Old Kent Road in south London is one of the country’s oldest and most storied. The original track was paved by the Romans and used as their principal thoroughfare between old Londinium and the coast. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote about its use as a pilgrim’s way in The Canterbury Tales and later it was the route by which King Henry V and his men returned triumphant from the battle of Agincourt.

Once upon a time pubs and bars were somewhere you went with the sole purpose of getting pissed and there wasn’t a knife and fork in sight, just a packet of dry roasted nuts.

Nick Strangeway on the pros and cons for bartenders taking on an ambassadorial role in post-Covid times.