The Blackbird (Morrles)
Blackbird Leys Road, Blackbird Leys, Oxford

It's right next to the Community Centre and the Church of the Holy Family 
in the centre of the Blackbird Leys estate. I went at lunchtime on a week 
day, to discover that while there was a cask pump advertising Morrells 
Oxford, it wasn't available, and I was reduced to Whitbread Cask.

It seems to have been done up fairly recently in standard pub issue shiny 
ceiling and wallpaper, and is dominated by a pool table in front of the 
bar, with a dais with seating on it and railings in the northwest corner.

The barman strikes me as the sort of man who'd make an immensely good 
schoolteacher. Huge amounts of authority, which is probably just as well 
judging by what I've heard about this pub in the evenings (though that 
could well be nonsense). There is a sign which forbids drug-taking and 
mobile phone use in the one breath. There's another rather complicated 
sign that explains that your children are welcome provided they behave 
themselves.

One thing I've never seen before: bottled Dragon Stout behind the bar. 
(30.iii.1999)