The Old Dog and Duck: The Secret Meanings of Pub Names - Tapa dura

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 ha'penny, showing that, ultimately, the story of pub history is really the story of our own popular history

Including the stories of, among others ...

The World's End
'The recent use of World's End may be traced back to a relatively modern soothsayer, or witch as some might say, living in Yorkshire ... Mother Shipton, the 16th-century prophetess who was responsible for many surprisingly accurate predictions both of her lifetime and of the future that, if true, would put Nostradamus firmly in the league of "having a bit of a stab at it."'

J.D. Wetherspoons
'As the young manager surveyed the carnage in front of him he was reminded of a recent lecturer of his who was also unable to control an unruly crowd, in his case a classroom full of students. He was also the tutor who wrote on Martin's report card, "Tim will probably amount to nothing." His name was Mr Wetherspoon and Tim added the initials JD in honour of his favourite television character of the 1970's, J.D.Hogg in The Dukes of Hazzard. And that, believe it or not, is a true story.'

The Dog and Duck
'There was a time, centuries ago, when the great and good of English society would amuse themselves with the sport of Duck Hunting. In villages all over the land duck hunting, a favourite pastime of King Charles II, consisted of catching a duck, clipping its wings so it could not fly away, throw it into the village pond and send the dogs in after it.'