Lord Nelson, Barton Hill, Bristol

A large, street corner boozer that has clearly seen better days. The entrance porch way is located between two bars, but the one to the left was locked up and had broken glass in the door. Thus I can only describe the bar to the right, which one assumes is the better of the two, as that was the one that was open. It's surprisingly small given the apparent size of the outside of the building, and has a very basic, dated appearance. When it last had a lick of paint in the 1970's I daresay it was quite pleasant. The floor covering was presumably carpet at one time, but has now morphed in to a solid black mass with a curious rubber like quality. A battered portable gas fire was providing some heat. There was vinyl bench seating around the perimeter which had gaffer tape trying to hold it together, rather unsuccessfully. A plasma was mounted up in one corner, and below this, for some reason which I'm unable to fathom, was a sign that said "Operating Theatre". There were also a couple of old portable TV's, although these were not in use and a darts board. The ceiling was suspended polystyrene tiles similar to what you might get in an office, although it was brown rather than white, presumably thanks to years of smoking in the pub. The only other punters in there were a group of half a dozen or so sat in the corner. I use the terms punters loosely, as one was a child of no more than about three, who was drinking lemonade, eating crisps, and generally making rather a lot of noise. At 10:00pm I would have thought it was long past his bedtime. The mother looked barely old enough to be in the pub herself. Unusually, there were no ales on tap, real or otherwise. Of the other pumps that were on the bar, about 70% had sold out, judging by the plastic bags over the pump handles. The solitary cider was Thatcher's Dry, since the Cheddar Valley was also off, despite not having a bag over the pump. I was however offered Thatcher's Gold from a can, and one of the other punters was drinking Natch from a can. All in all a classy establishment. This is a little tricky to mark. On the face of it, 2 seems to be a bit generous. But I suppose it could have been worse. It's not as though I got beaten up or anything.