The Jollies

I work in Staines now, and rent in Hounslow. Both are, as far as I can see in my limited exposure, not the most beautiful places in and around London. But Staines is on the river, has pubs with terraces and will be quite lovely in summer I suspect. And Hounslow, well, it's convenient. 

To get from one to the other I mainly take a bus. One of the routes goes around Heathrow and through Ashford, the other through Feltham and Ashford in order to get to Staines. And I gotta say, as far as dreary goes, those places have to be near the top... Granted, I hardly know them, I just see what the bus window presents, but oh, how very much do I not want to explore this area. 

Funny thing though, the shops and pubs seem to have taken quite a liking to names with the word "jolly" in it. The Jolly Baker, Jolly Butchers, The Jolly Farmer... Or things like The Happy Landing. Most of these do not look particularly jolly, or happy, or even inviting. Or maybe I'm just an ignorant snob, who knows. 

Be that as it may, I wonder, in my years here in London I have not come across many pubs with jolly or happy in their name; none comes to mind although I am sure there must have been one or the other Jolly Whatsisname. But in this area, they are everywhere! Why is that? 

My theory, and feel free to contradict me, is that because it all looks so dreary around here they had to try and get at least some sort of positive note in. Power of suggestion and that kind of thing, maybe throw in a bit of conspiracy theory as well, government's secret plan to keep the inhabitants of squalid suburbia from aiming for too much change... If you see the words jolly and happy often enough you might, at some point, start to believe it actually is jolly or happy, or so the logic goes. And even though just by calling a ramshackle old dive Jolly Something doesn't make it any less of a ramshackle dive, maybe, just maybe, and given that there really isn't much of any other choice around there anyway, once you've had a couple of pints you really do believe anything they say, even if it is convincing you that this indeed is jolly. 

Well, jolly good I say. You enjoy the Jolly Butcher, and I stick to the nice pubs! Slainte!