Wait a minute! I thought Rugby was Rugby, what’s this Union and League thing you speak of?” Photo: Mel Rowling/Flickr

By Simon Webb

February is a big month for rugby fans with two major competitions kicking off. England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and Italy will battle it out for the Rugby Union 6 Nations Championship, a title which allows the winner to proudly call themselves the best in the Northern Hemisphere going into this year’s World Cup.

Meanwhile, teams from England, Wales and France are preparing to get stuck into another Rugby League Engage Super League season – a gruelling nine-month contest between 14 teams, climaxing in a grand final at Old Trafford in Manchester.

“Wait a minute! I thought rugby was rugby, what’s this Union and League thing you speak of?” sports amateurs may ask. “I’ve seen on TV, big blokes rolling about in the mud, fighting over a ball that’s shaped like an egg. You mean I might have been watching two different games and not even realised it?”

Ah- yes, perhaps you have. And before you say it all looks the same, it really is not! People in places like Gloucester, Wigan, Leicester and Hull get very precious about which is better.

To spare you the inconvenience of having to ask a diehard of one of the two codes to explain, here are a few basic points for starters:

• Rugby Union has 15 players per team while the League has 13.
• The points awarded for scoring are different – you get 5 points for a try in Union, 4 in League.
• The Union season runs from September to May; the League season from February to October.
• In the League a team is permitted to attack for as long as their opponent can complete 6 tackles, after which they either score, use their own creativity to win another six tackles or, as is often the case, hand over possession to their opponents.
• In Union there is no tackle limit, meaning teams must win possession during open play. In both codes, possession can also be given away through penalties being awarded for rules not being adhered to.

Overall, Union’s international competition is far stronger, with a greater number of countries expected to have a chance at winning the 2011 World Cup in Union than will for the League World Cup in 2013.

Although League has a top level professional team in London and the game is widely played in the Capital’s, London, like much of England south of Sheffield, is a Union country. However, go north into Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria and it’s very different.  Cross the border into Scotland and League is nowhere, with Union fighting football for attention.

Geographical divide in history

Geography is a very important part of the introduction to Rugby and the very reason why we have two forms of the sport at all.

In the 19^th century, teams from North and South were happily competing with each other. But those playing the game in the South were often from public schools and privileged backgrounds and on the whole wealthier, which means they could play on a Saturday and not be concerned with losing a day’s pay. Clubs in the North, however, would be fielding teams predominantly made up of minors, factory workers and other working class professions. Players were faced with the dilemma of having to take time off work in order to play Rugby.

Household name, Gavin Henson, is an Union player. Photo: Chris P Jobling/Flickr

The Northern clubs took the bold step of paying their players by way of compensation for the money they were losing for having to take time off from the day job. Bradford and Leeds were the first to be charged with going against the spirit of the game. To say this didn’t go down well with the Rugby Football Union (RFU), the Southern-based rulers of the sport, is an understatement. The RFU believed the game should remain amateur and so the Northern Rugby Football Union was founded in 1895, followed by the creation of Rugby League.

For the most part, Union is the dominant code globally, except in Australia, New Zealand and some regions in France, where League is more popular.

Since Union turned professional in 1995, the inevitable benefit to player fitness and conditioning has paid off. There has also seen a role reversal in the way money talks. During the Eighties a number of high profile Union players, most notably from Wales, moved to League in order to earn a living from sport. With the global power of Union resulting in a more attractive option for TV companies and sponsors, League players are being tempted into Union – current England star Chris Ashdon was developed by League club Wigan.

London – a blessed land for rugby lovers

Those of us in London are lucky enough to be able to see top level professional Union and League. Not only do we have England Union internationals at Twickenham and League’s Challenge Cup Final at Wembley, but The Stoop in Twickenham is home to the duel code club Harlequins. As one of the most famous names in club Rugby Union, Harlequins have existed since 1866, although in their early years they were called Hamstead. Founded in 1980 as Fulham, the club has moved around the Capital, changing their name on a number of occasions. They have had their current name and home since 2006.

If you’re prepared to travel out of London then Union clubs London Irish can be seen in Reading, Wasps in Wickham and Sarrisons at Vicarage Road in Watford. The latter play selected home games at Wembley Stadium where crowds of over 50,000 gather.

League names to look out for include South London Storm, West London Sharks and Greenwich Admirals, all of whom have seen players move on to Harlequins and in the case of Greenwich, England. There are also countless Union clubs to catch a game at, including Esher, Richmond and London Scottish.

Read more from The First Pint, the international's guide to all that London offers.

A Christmas Cracker, a staple of English Christmas, was made by Londoner Tom Smith. Photo credit: Sparkly Kate / Flickr

Staying true to its cosmopolitan nature, an amalgamation of imports greets a Christmas in the capital.

Like the Royal family, many of our traditions have been snatched from Germany: Christmas trees, glühwein and stollen cake, and even advent calendars.

But distinctly English elements remain, which baffle newcomers who spend the day in London.
On Christmas morning, with stockings discarded and wrapping paper littering the lounge, families and friends sit down for dinner and pull their crackers.

English folk fail to notice anything strange in donning rainbow-coloured paper hats like kings, reading jokes written by delinquents, and playing with plastic toys made for two-year-olds. It all stems back to Londoner Tom Smith, who in the 1840s used the gimmick of pretty wrapping and words to save his failing bon bon business. It worked, so unfold that paper crown and pass the gravy.

With piles of turkey, stuffing, parsnips, and a plethora of pigs in blankets, it was hoped that brussel sprouts could by now have been forgotten. But alas, they endure.

Filled with sweet alcohol, all English mums have their favourite Christmas pudding recipies. Photo credit: Matt Riggott / Flickr

Despite the majority’s distaste for this tiny green cabbage, they somehow make it to the dinner table every year, and onto everyone’s plate. Prepare yourself with the Attack of the Sprouts game.

But a sweet treat will follow, with the arrival of the hot Christmas pudding. Traditionalists still prepare the pud weeks in advance, leaving the fruit to soak up the spices, and then steaming it for hours on Christmas day. The topping is an integral part; soaked in brandy and set alight, or drizzled with brandy butter, or creamy custard.

After Christmas dinner

All must be consumed by 3pm, when Her Majesty takes to the airwaves and internet and telly to bring good tidings to the Commonwealth. The content is largely obsolete; the Queen’s Speech merely marks the shift from table to television just as the grey sky (for it is always grey) darkens. An alternative can be found on Channel 4, who since the nineties have broadcast everyone from Marge Simpson to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

After musing on the Royal reflections, flick through a copy of the Radio Times Christmas issue – which will list the reappearance of favourite films and comedy duos from years gone by. Be charmed by Wallace and Gromit, and avoid the melodrama of British soap operas, outdoing each other in scenes of social breakdown.

A couple of hours drift by before someone opens another box of Cadbury’s Roses, and the octogenarians in the room hunt out the sherry and the port.

Late night games

To wrap up your English Christmas experience, have a nice mince pie. Photo credit: Girl Interrupted Eating / Flickr

As evening draws in night, whether it is Scrabble, Monopoly, or something a little less timeless, no amount of technological advancement will prevent the appearance of the board game.

Warm mince pies keep the players playing, which for many years have had nothing to do with mince-meat at all. Packed with dried fruit and parceled in pasty, they vie for attention with Christmas cake. The latter however is merely fruit cake dressed up with a tartan ribbon and a festive message scrawled onto white icing.

The elderly snoring on the sofa marks the close of Christmas day. And so to bed.

To wake on Boxing Day, which once was used to give boxes or gifts to the poor or the workers. Now it exists as an overspill of Christmas, with turkey sandwiches, and television, and one more mince pie.

Read more from The First Pint, the international's guide to all that London offers.

This was taken at the end of the Fifth Test between England and Australia, 12 September, 2005. England had just drawn the Test, so regaining the Ashes after an absence of 16 years and 42 days. Photo credit: Hugh Chevallier under Creative Commons licence

What is the Ashes series?

The Ashes series as it known is the bilateral cricket series between England and Australia. The series is played biennially in Australia and the UK in the summer season, and there is a fierce rivalry for winning the coveted Ashes trophy – perhaps the fiercest in modern sports.

Typically, the Ashes comprises of five test matches. There are two innings per match, and the game follows the regular rules for test match cricket. In case of a drawn series, the country which previously won the series retains the Ashes title.

Who is in it?

It is often a dream of an aspiring cricket player to play in the Ashes series. Over the years the fans have seen some great individual performance from either side, resetting the bar every single time. Players such as Andrew Flintoff, Ian Botham, Steve Waugh and Shane Warne became sporting heroes with their deeds on the field.

Why “Ashes”?

Interestingly, the term Ashes was coined after England lost to Australia for the first time, playing at home at the Oval on 29 August 1882. The Sporting Times published an article pronouncing the death of English cricket. It read “The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”.

This article captivated the imagination of the public. When the England team under the stewardship of Hon Ivo Bligh embarked on the tour of Australia, Bligh promised to return with “The Ashes”. The British media termed the next English tour to Australia (1882–83) as the quest to regain The Ashes. The Australian captain was not far behind in showing his intention to defend the ashes and the term “Ashes” was born.

During that tour a small terracotta urn was presented to England captain Ivo Bligh by a group of Melbourne women. The contents of the urn are supposed to be the ashes of an item of cricket equipment, probably a bail. On that tour, Bligh also met his future wife – Florence Morphy. In February 1884, they got married.

Shortly afterwards, they returned to England, taking the urn which Bligh always regarded as a personal gift with them. Bligh died 43 years later and at his request, Florence bequeathed the urn to Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).

The trophy today

Today, over 77 years on, the tiny, tantalizing and inimitable artefact resides in the MCC Museum at Lord’s, the so-called “Home of Cricket” in Marylebone. Each year, it is seen by tens of thousands of visitors, from all parts of the world.

The replicas of the urn are often held aloft by victorious teams as a symbol of their triumph in an Ashes series. However, the actual urn is never displayed as a trophy. Irrespective of the side who wins the Ashes, the urn normally remains in the Marylebone Cricket Club. Instead, the winning team receives a Waterford Crystal depiction of the Ashes urn.

What’s up next?

England currently holds the Ashes, which they won under the leadership of  Andrew Strauss with a 2-1 victory over Australia in the 2009. For an in-depth preview of what is to come when the next series begins on 25 November, check out Amit Masram’s podcast, where he speaks to Lawrence Booth, acclaimed English cricket writer and award winning Daily Mail columnist and maverick Australian cricket writer Jarrod Kimber.

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What to do in cool London on this Halloween weekend? Photo credit: Paul Simpson/Flickr

The sky is getting cloudier, the atmosphere gloomier and the old ladies walking along the streets wrapped up in their coats increasingly look more like witches. Shop shelves have been packed with fake wrinkled noses, bloody fangs and witches’ hats for weeks.

There’s no doubt about it: time is quickly running out to plan your Halloween weekend and London is already buzzing with proposals and events suited for every taste.

Besides the classic club nights all dressed up like witches, vampires, pumpkins and skeletons, London offers a wide range of different events to celebrate the spookiest night of the year. From museums, theatre, telling of ghost stories to Halloween parties for kids, there is really a low risk of spending the upcoming weekend twiddling your thumbs!

Here’s a short guide to the main Halloween’s events, for every age and every taste.

Spooky club night outs!

If you’re up for a vibrant night out where everybody is going crazy drinking cocktails and dancing, the best you can do is to look for a Halloween ball in one of the many clubs in town.

Utterly classical, the Ministry of Sound is throwing a Halloween ball on Sunday 31 October. Tickets are £6 to celebrate All Hallows Eve in one of Europe’s most famous discos with its up-to-date electro and techno DJ sets.

If you really miss the summer you spent in Ibiza, it might be a good idea to relive a bit of it at Pacha London, near Victoria tube station, where you can find a Halloween ball for the price of £5.

If big clubs are not for you, but you still like dancing and partying, KOKO might offer you a good night. With their sound in between electro-dance and house, Gypsy and the Cat will entertain you with a tinge of Fleetwood Mac and a hint of Simon and Garfunkel.

Haunted talks and walks

Who knows what you might find in London on Halloween! Photo credit: Annie Mole/Flickr

If partying while wearing fake bloody teeth is something that doesn’t make you feel at ease –  Never fear! There are a lot of other exciting things you can do this weekend.

For example, if thrills and sinister meanders is what you’re longing for, you could go for one of the Halloween walks that are taking place all around the city. On Friday 29 October, you might join Fortean London blogger Scott Wood for an excursion through the haunted sites of the black dog of Newgate and the evil surroundings of Bleeding Heart Yard. The meetup is scheduled at 6:30pm at Farringdon tube station.

If you are interested instead in digging back to the roots of Halloween’s ancient tradition, you might want to join the Hauntings and Hangings Halloween walk organized by the Museum of London on Sunday 31 October. Telling tales of church murders, public execution of Scotsmen from the XVIII century, Museum staff will lead you through a stroll in Barbican and St. Paul’s neighborhood.

Something for the little ones

Finally, if a young cousin of yours is in town for Halloween, you could take him to the Pumpkin Festival at Osterley Park and House where he might assist to some pumpkin cooking demonstrations and Halloween workshops and games.

As you may have seen, London honours Halloween with varied and thrilling events. And this was only a small part of it! Get ready to choose the venue and that suits you more in this scary weekend! BOO!

Read more from The First Pint, the international's guide to all that London offers.

How important should investment in science and engineering be? Photo credit: Argonne National Laboratory

Last June, Chancellor George Osborne announced that governmental departments’ budgets could be cut up to 25 per cent.

In response, members of the scientific community created the Science is Vital campaign, which rallied at the UK Treasury in London on Saturday 9 October.

“It’s the best young scientists of the world coming to Britain now because they know Britain at the moment is a good place to do science,” neurobiologist Colin Blakemore told the rally.

With cuts to science research, he said all that could change.

Lab coats unite! from Dalia Lourenco on Vimeo.

Innovation needed in hard economic times

“Cut the research money and people move their research groups away,” explains Chris Taylor, a participant from the European Bioinformatics Institute.

He adds that austere economic times call for more investment in innovation rather than less. He says Britain should look to countries like the United States, Germany, France, Sweden and Singapore, which are increasing their research budgets. If Britain does the opposite, it will lose its competitive edge.

Science is Vital says overseas students make an important contribution to the UK economy, having generated about five billion pounds last year.

It argues the government should show commitment to science and engineering in order to attract and retain the best researchers from around the world.

The government will reveal its spending plans for the next four years on 20 October.

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Former Reuters correspondent and novellist Iain Pears talked about Italian art and their somber temper. Photo credit: Rosino/Flickr

With a sharp wit, an intelligent eye and the look of a perfect English gentleman, Iain Pears has the perfect profile to talk about Italy from an English standpoint. Pears’ deep interest in Mediterranean countries after a couple of visits to Italy and France in his teenage years and then as a Reuters foreign correspondent in the Vatican, makes the novelist an expert in talking about Italy.

The Mediterranean country is the aim of the series of encounters being held in the Italian Cultural Institute in London called “In Conversazione”. It is the initiative of writer Maxim Jakubowski and means to get English writers such as Pears who have an experience of living in Italy to discuss why they write and obsess about it.

Pears’ novels usually take place somewhere in the past of Italy, often harking back to the glorious Roman Empire. His best-selling novels tell the adventures of art dealer Jonathan Argyll and two members of the Art Squad of the Italian police: Flavia di Stefano and General Bottando. The books trace their investigations about art mysteries, where Pears rebuilds the atmosphere of present times going back to its roots in the past.

An approach to Italy

“Why do you enjoy writing about Italy’s past rather than about the present?” Barry Forshaw, the interviewer, asked Pears at the roundtable.

“I think it is meanly because I find it interesting and useful to talk about the past making parallels with the present,” Pears said. “I believe it helps a lot and it is an illuminating way of questioning and understanding the current situation.”

His overall outline of Italy attests to the fact that he has a very wide knowledge of the country, which goes deep into its social as well as political mechanisms. Art, Mafia, corruption, bureaucracy, good food and people’s warm temper: he switches dexterously from a topic to another and avoids falling into easy stereotypes and common-places.

“The most sober people I’ve ever met in my life are Italian”, he replied when the interviewer asked him if the climate somehow influences people.

Towards the end of the debate, Italy became an opportunity to open up the discussion to broader issues. “As a reporter from a foreign country and an admirer of culture generally speaking, what do you think of globalization as an opportunity to get more easily in contact with different cultures?” asked Forshaw.

“I think it might be good in a way. But of course Italian food in the UK is not as good as Italian food in Italy,” Pears said. “There’s something artificial about the so-called Global Village that doesn’t convince me.”

Berlusconi and the English way

Facing a mostly Italian or at least an Italophile audience, Forshaw couldn’t escape asking the fatal question: “What do you think of Berlusconi? Would you write a novel about him?”

“He’s not the kind of character that catches my attention. I just find him incredible, in a way,” Pears answered cooly.

He replies to the questions coldly and detached, with an unmistakable English attitude. When someone from the audience makes him notice it and wonders how such a cool temper can fit in a country like Italy, he replies with no hesitation: “It is probably for my cool temper that I fell in love with Mediterranean countries. For a young English man going to Italy is somehow like dying and arriving in Paradise.”

The Iain Pears debate at the Italian Institute of Culture was the second of a series of meetings about English writers and their relationship with Italy. The next event will feature crime writer Maxim Jakubowski and will be held on 15 November.

For more information, check the Institute’s website.

Italian Cultural Institute, 39 Belgrave Square London SW1X 8NX 020 7235 1461

Read more from The First Pint, the international's guide to all that London offers.

Former mayor Ken Livingstone talks about his views on immigration, racism and London as an international city. Photo courtesy of Emma Beal

With Ken Livingstone you never know what to expect. When asking about the name of this website, he was exactly spot on. “The First Pint?” he said. “Is it like the first pint you have in a London pub?” From this he began explaining how big a part of English life surrounds the pub culture, adding that pub closing times were introduced in World War I to force people to sober up and work for the war effort. You just don’t know what to expect from Ken.

A notorious left-wing politician, Ken Livingstone was the first Mayor of London. He has seen the city go through most of its modern milestones, including its rise as an international financial centre, the July 7 2005 bombings, and winning the 2012 Olympic Games nomination. He is currently running against Oona King as the Labour party’s candidate for this year’s mayoral election where he’ll face the current mayor, Boris Johnson. Ken is confident that if he wins the candidacy, he will beat Boris.

Shortly before Conservative MP Damian Green’s declarations about international students, The First Pint spoke to Ken Livingstone about how London was moulded into an international city. He shares with us a bit of London’s past, the hardships he had to deal with when he was mayor and what he thinks of London today.

The First Pint: What are your views of London as a city for internationals?

Ken Livingstone: Both London and New York have over a third of their citizens born in a foreign country and these are the two international financial centres. If you want a generally international centre, you’ll have a lot of foreigners in it. That’s the core.

What we’ve specifically said in London and what has been part of our theme here for the past 30 years is that we don’t just want foreigners to come here and invest; we would like it if you bring your culture as well. The result is that you have this huge relaxed community that has come to terms with the fact that people are different. As long as everybody else lives their life the way they want, you can live your life as you want.

Race issues in London have come a long way since Ken Livingstone's youth. Photo credit: Clive Power / Flickr

TFP: As mayor you promoted London as an international city. How did this come about?

KL: In the 1980s, it was more about challenging racism which was much stronger than now.

I remember that my mother worked in a bakery chain and a young black woman turned up for a job, this would be early to mid 1960s, and my mum said she was a really nice girl but they couldn’t take a black person handling food. We were much more backwards than America in race issues and it was something that we had to work on.

It was only when I became mayor that the social responsibility and a sort of economic strategy blended together. It wouldn’t be a world that I necessarily would have created but it was the world that I was stuck with.

TFP: You were mayor when the 7 July 2005 London bombings occurred. How did you deal with terrorism alongside the issue of racism?

KL: On the issue of terrorism, we just took the view that they were small groups of disaffected individuals in each community who were likely to try violence not just from Islamic fundamentalists but from angry young white men. Just before I became mayor we had the London Bomber, an angry young white man called David Copeland, who was a racist BNP supporter who let off bombs in Brixton and Brick Lane. The police services have always been aware of the danger of this. So there was the potential in any community where there are angry young men.

TFP: How do you think that you dealt with racism?

KL: In a sense all those campaigns going back to the early 1970s where individual politicians, faith leaders, community leaders, trade unionists, were all making the case for tolerance and equality and it developed into multiculturalism. This is just the work of a lot of people over nearly four decades and it just created this city where basically people aren’t terribly concerned about [racism]. One person in twenty in the city is now mixed race. Which is quite different say, from New York where I think it would be less.

Ken Livingstone has always promoted diversity in London. Photo credit: Stonewall UK / Flickr

TFP: I’m fairly new to the city, I’ve been here for maybe two years. And I’ve always had the feeling that London was an international city…

KL: But it wasn’t like that when I was growing up. There were small immigrant communities – the Irish in places like Kilburn, small Chinese communities in the East End, a very small Somali community around the Docks. I was born in 1945 and I remember parents talking about the fact that black people were first coming to Brixton. I didn’t talk to a black person until I started my secondary school and my chemistry teacher was from Nigeria. I remember the first time a black person in the street spoke to me on a bus. I sat next to him, nobody wanted to sit next to him, and he made a comment about prejudice. I must’ve been 13 or 14.

For most Londoners, it was really only in the 1960s and ’70s that they started developing a relationship with people of a different colour.

TFP: If you see the evolution of London as a multicultural city, do you think it has gotten better?

KL: I think it consistently gets better. Even the fact that you’ve got a very right wing Tory mayor in the form of Boris Johnson… the one thing he is not reactionary about is immigration. He has never made a speech criticising immigration and he doesn’t pander to anti-immigrant feelings. He has also adopted my policy that illegal immigrants should all have an amnesty and be able to become legitimate citizens and pay taxes.

We used to be a city in economic decline and we became the only city in Europe that matches American levels of competitiveness and productivity and that is largely because we are the most open city. People who get off their back sides and come half way around the world don’t come to stay in a bedsit: they’ve come to make their fortune. There is a reason that it is starting to change. Asian immigrants generate over twice the economic benefit of an indigenous citizen, on average.

TFP: How do you make the international community more comfortable in London?

KL: It’s just a question of keep bringing them here first. Then the key thing is celebrating the cultural differences. You have the Notting Hill Carnival here on a Sunday, we have St. Patrick’s, we celebrate Chinese and Russian New Years. I’ve done a lot of that as mayor so that Londoners can turn out on the day and get a taste of other people’s culture that they might not necessarily otherwise get.

TFP: Finally, what do you think of the immigration cap and the restrictions on foreign students coming to London?

KL: We’d be mad to cap or restrict the flow of foreign students. If someone is coming to study, they should be allowed to come. Nine out of ten go back to their country of origin anyway. If they have good links and have a favourable opinion of London, many of them will be in important positions and it will influence the decisions that they make. It will benefit us in the long run.

I’m all in favour of expanding the number of foreign students coming in. They’re the people that are going to determine the things that will happen in their own countries. If eventually they have to take a decision as to where to site their business operations in Europe, we would want them to think that London is the best place to do it in.

Read more from The First Pint, the international's guide to all that London offers.

The sign outside the Fullers Brewery. Photo: Faisal Latif

Admittedly this is a great way for Fullers to advertise their product, but the brewery tour is a unique experience. You’re walking around a working brewery so from the moment you step past the 200 year old wisteria and on to the factory floor you are in someone’s workspace. This also means you get to wear a nifty orange vest to make sure no one mistakes you for any thing other than a member of a tour.

The tour starts off next to the Thames. No, the brewery does not use that water, not because it’s gross but because it is salt water. The water they use to make the beer comes from the main London supply.

Currently the brewery is owned and operated by two of the original three families, Fuller and Turner, Smith was bought out several years ago. The First Pint was lucky enough meet a gentleman whose family worked in the brewery for generations.

Jim Lockie worked at Fullers for 43 years as a driver, delivering and loading the casks to pubs owned by the company. He was on the tour because his son, who does not work at the brewery, wanted to visit and look around. Jim said: “Of course it’s all different now.”

A different lorry from what Jim used but still a Fullers delivery truck. Photo: Alissa Smith

His family began working in the brewery in 1870 with his grandfather and the family’s traditional occupation endured until 1994 when Jim retired. “Between the blokes who worked there they’d say that there were so many Lockie’s working here it should be called Fullers Smith Turners and Lockie.”

During the time that Jim worked in the brewery it was a wet brewery, which meant that each worker was given an allowance of three pints a day direct from the freshly brewed stock. But as a lorry driver, Jim would have his first pint before he left on his first delivery at around noon and then another at each pub, though he admitted to sometimes having two.

Generally though, your tour of the brewery will only have the tour guide to tell you entertaining stories or facts about the beer. For example I was informed that you need four things to have a great pint of English ale:

- To be in England
- Get a good brewery
- A good landlord (one who keeps the pipes clean)
- A good drinker

A cask of Fullers should be drunk with in three or four weeks and four to five days once opened in the pub. They produce one million pints a week in the four or five batches they make in a day.

At the end of the cacophony of smells and noises that you are bombarded with in the brewery you are taken back to a small museum where you get to try the beer if you’ve paid for that exciting experience. The tour could last as long as the group wants but the shorter the tour, the more time you have to drink, so keep that in mind.

While you can call to set up a tour for that day, its recommended that you sign up via the website before hand because they only do five tours a day and even then that’s only on the weekdays. This of course makes it difficult for the workers of London to get down there and try almost every single beer that Fullers makes.

If you do go, be warned, if you don’t have a good meal before the tour you might get a little buzzed at the end.

Read more from The First Pint, the international's guide to all that London offers.

The Chap Olympiad, a return to the UK's elegant past? Photo credit: Maja Kucova

We Russians, angry or not, have a rather funny perception of England and its dwellers. It’s largely formed of 19th and early 20th century novels – Dickens, PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie etc, all widely available in the USSR in superbly done translations by some of the best Soviet writers and poets – and the classic screen version of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series.The latter is so great that Her Majesty herself bestowed an OBE on the leading actor, Vassily Livanov. And all the while the Soviet-British relations were neutral at best.

But we somehow insisted on thinking of England as of some retro-themed fantasy land stuck in the times when everybody was buttoned up and mannered and calmly humorous whatever the circumstances. This notion is, of course, centennially away from the current state of affairs.

I’m running a Russian-language blog about Britain and London as a separate country within her and it’s moderately popular (about fifteen hundred subscribers at the time of writing). But what really pushed my blog upward in the ratings was the translation of an old article from The eXile, undoubtedly the best and sincerest newspaper in Moscow which owed its glorious existence to the sole fact that no one at the Russian Minitruth at the time could read a word of English (for a story of The eXile as concise as practically possible see this article from Vanity Fair. It was about chavs, the English counterpart of Russian gopniks, the kind of proletarian youth that wears tracksuits with massive junk jewellery, binges on cheap liquor and pollutes the gene pool by means of rapid and almost instinctual procreation.

So the chav story became an instant hit on the Russian internet, having been reposted at least two hundred times so far. Almost everybody’s image of Britain seemed to have been hopelessly shattered. Could it really be Sherlock Holmes’s grandkids or the Hugh Grants of the world who are pissing on walls after downing six super strong lagers at a children’s playground? I almost felt a collective sigh of relief. We (Russians, internationals, whatever) aren’t that different from the rest of the “civilised world” after all. Others (mostly those who have never been in England or at all abroad) were utterly disappointed and really angry at me for ruining their dream.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR. Photo credit: Maja Kucova

Rekindling a Chap’s dream

But alas, not too much is lost, apparently, thanks to a wonderful thing called The Chap Olympiad. It’s run by a magazine appropriately titled The Chap which is all about fancy retro dressing, fabulous moustaches, shaving with razor blades and smoking pipes. So the Chap Olympiad at Bedford Square on Saturday was like being in a park full of Bertie Woosters and Pauline Stokers. In fact, I looked quite out of place in my dull plain clothes and not in an impeccably stylish tweed suit.

It’s funny because there’s no aristocracy in modern Britain to speak of, and most of these people are common office clerks in their normal, non-retro mode, but it still all looked incredibly organic. It’s probably some kind of a genetic memory, because when a Russian holds a Victorian-themed party, everybody ends up looking like a constipated Dracula. And if it weren’t for party spoilers like me and a couple of other journalists in crumpled jeans, you could really forget that you were indeed in 2010.

Anyway, the Olympiad part consisted of silly but quite fun “competitions” like bicycle jousting with umbrellas for lances or moustache tug war, but most people seemed to be more interested in a beautiful weather and a good opportunity for a picnic. The only things that were sort of disappointing were the low turnout of the barbeque stall and one lady who knocked over my gin and tonic and didn’t even offer to buy me a new one. I mean, that happens all the time, but probably wouldn’t in the fancy era they all pretended to live in. I will definitely go again, but not without proper preparation this time.

Read more from The First Pint, the international's guide to all that London offers.

The passion for the World Cup goes strong in London. Photo credit: Celso Flores

By Emma Nilsson and Aoife Yourell

After a week of World Cup craziness, everyone is now familiar with vuvuzelas, dodgy refereeing, and the fact that South Africa has been a pretty good host.

Back here in London, internationals have been having a ball watching the matches and supporting their home teams as the first round of the competition ends.

Here at The First Pint, we are all enthusiasts for the beautiful game. So, we rounded up a couple of internationals and an Englishman to see what they had to say about their own countries and how they were going to enjoy the World Cup.

The panel of wishful thinkers are as follows:

Marco Granese – Italy
David McCardie – England
Julian Perreira – Brazil

May the best team win!

Read more from The First Pint, the international's guide to all that London offers.