Small Beer, Crouch End, N8

This place is pretty much what you would expect from the Irish Wishing Well shop conversion chain of pubs with the usual generic draught and plasma screens that show Sky Sports, Setanta (probably not any more though) and GAA. There were only five other punters, but they seemed like a nice bunch as they discussed the benefits of getting totally plastered. Unsurprisingly, Magic love songs was playing on one of the plasma screens, not that anyone other than the barmaid was listening to it. She said please and thank you and even said goodbye when I left, but she seemed like she'd had a long day as she didn't crack a smile once. As I went to use the toilet at the rear of the pub I passed a bloke was smoking at the locked back door inside the pub. He glanced at me and asked if he would be ok smoking so close to the gas canisters, which were actually empty beer kegs. I had a chuckle to myself as he thought he was risking his life just to have a sneaky fag in the pub rather than standing on the high street out the front. I ended up sitting at a table and reading a paper from the bar that another customer had left. It was here, whilst I was trying to work out why I didn't like this place as much as other Wishing Wells, that two dogs started humping in the middle of the pub and it took until they had finished for someone to calm the situation. I'm still not entirely sure why I wasn't so keen on this place!