A piss-o-what?

I saw this last week after I had bumped into Archimedes under the railway arch.  Since I was heading back that way to meet a friend for lunch, I decided to give myself an extra 5 minutes to make the detour.

The sign is on the side of the Lass O'Gowrie pub which was apparently named the best pub in Britain in 2012!  The pub obviously has a long history as it appears on the 1844 map of the area.  

In the late 1800s, this part of Manchester was known as Little Ireland, due in the main to the large numbers of Irish immigrant workers living there.  The area was home to extreme poverty and terrible hardship. Legend has it that the original landlord of the pub was not an Irishman, but a proud, homesick Scotsman who named the pub in honour of his favourite poem - 'the Lass O'Gowrie' written by the celebrated Scottish poet Lady Carolina Nairne.

I don't know if there was an out-house or something similar on this spot, or if people just relieved themselves into the River Medlock below!

Sometimes the perfect blip is something that just makes you smile on a wet, miserable Monday!

In other news, as I was walking back to the office I had to double-take at the bit of rubbish I spotted in my extra photo.  Anyone else see a fish?

Quote for today:
Everyone is a genius.  But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.
- Albert Einstein