Y con una pena intensa que le paralizaba el corazón, llegó al convencimiento de que ella jamás conocería la felicidad" (Qué fácil es echarle la culpa a la vida, tachándola de injusta, quejarnos, y dejarnos llevar... La felicidad no se encuentra si no se lucha por ella con uñas y dientes.) Kew Gardens used to have two small bars. One rail-side and one land-side separated by the serving area. The TfL Bylaws 1999 already stated that consuming alcohol on trains was forbidden — unless explicitly permitted by railway staff. It was just that the rule was largely ignored. At Mansion House, a buffet bar was run by Spiers and Pond, which was tantalizingly close to the platforms, but not quite on them. Gervaise, a young mother of two, looks for a job in a local laundry service when her husband Lantier decides to walk away from their marriage. A local roofer, Coupeau asks her to marry him, and although she is hesitant, she does. They have a daughter, Nana.

Per due volte tornò a piazzarsi davanti alla vetrina, incollandovi di nuovo l’occhio, esasperata nel vedere al riparo quei maledetti ubriaconi che continuavano a bere e a strillare. I fasci di luce che uscivano dall’Assommoir si riflettevano nelle pozzanghere che coprivano il selciato, e su cui la pioggia rimbalzava in mille piccole bollicine. Quando la porta si apriva e si richiudeva con il sinistro cigolio delle sue lastre di rame, era costretta a scansarsi e finiva nel fango. Alla fine si diede della stupida; spinse la porta e andò difilato verso il tavolino di Coupeau. I can't help noticing, though, that there is no overt politics in this book: workers accept their places in the social hierarchy without agitating (though my understanding is that this theme is displaced to Germinal) which leaves us with an over-riding sense of hopelessness. And their cruel childhood is shown in later books to play out in the lives of Gervaise's children: Claude ( The Masterpiece), Etienne ( Germinal), and Nana ( Nana, which I'll be reading soon). Zola retrospectively added Jacques, the protagonist of La Bête Humaine, to the family.

Does anyone remember in the 60’s a restaurant that was quite classy inside Baker Street Station. I used to take my little brother in there for soup or an omelette after shopping. It was such an integral part of the station that it must still be there , probably under a different name . Very swish inside. Previously published as L'assommoir ( The Dram Shop), Emile Zola's The Drinking Den is an unflinching study of a desperate young woman struggling against the ravages of vice. This Penguin Classics edition is translated from the French with an introduction by Robin Buss.

That is Zola's laconic explanation for "L'Assommoir", simply a moral message shown in action. And what devastating action it is. From 1877 with the publication of L'Assommoir, Émile Zola became wealthy, he was better paid than Victor Hugo, for example. He became a figurehead among the literary bourgeoisie and organized cultural dinners with Guy de Maupassant, Joris-Karl Huysmans and other writers at his luxurious villa in Medan near Paris after 1880. Germinal in 1885, then the three 'cities', Lourdes in 1894, Rome in 1896 and Paris in 1897, established Zola as a successful author. It's Bijard,' she said. 'He's beatin' ‘is wife up. He was waitin' for ‘er under the archway, pissed as a newt. He kept punchin' 'er all the way up the stairs and he's still at it up there, in their room. Listen, can't you 'ear 'er screamin'?'So: Gervaise is hardworking laundress whose life is blown to smithereens by rotten good-for-nothing beer-sodden bastard men. Men are responsible for taking her life and flushing it down the sad Parisian cludgie, along with a family of unfeeling guttersnipe witches who make you want to pound their faces in with soldering irons. Oh, poor Gervaise! a kingdom in N Europe, between the Baltic and the North Sea: consists of the mainland of Jutland and about 100 inhabited islands (chiefly Zealand, Lolland, Funen, Falster, Langeland, and Bornholm); extended its territory throughout the Middle Ages, ruling Sweden until 1523 and Norway until 1814, and incorporating Greenland as a province from 1953 to 1979; joined the Common Market (now the EU) in 1973; an In fact, drinking on the Underground was already sort-of already banned in 2008, but the ban was rarely enforced. The toilets in the Betjeman Arms used to be where the private dining room is now on the corridor to the current toilets – was nearly very embarrassing when I bowled in fiddling with my zip!

Does anyone remember the Baker Street Tea Rooms situated within the Baker Street underground station in the 1950’s?A short note in The Times of 9th August 1949 on the rebuilding of the station noted that the “tavern” had been on the platform ever since the station was built in 1868.