Tudósok at the Montague

'Stephen stepped into the Magyar Morbius Magners sipping Montague. Saxophone jazz punk funk on that stage where the Gang of Four once sang: 'See the world through their polaroid glasses, things'll look a whole lot better for the working classes'. Antelope stares blankly to the zebra across the bar'.

Apologies for the bad-Joyce parody, which is just my way of saying what a good time was had last Monday, Bloomsday, at the Montague Arms. Actually I met up there with the book group I'm in, so we started off sitting on a table at the back of the bar (near the famed stuffed zebra), taking in the strains of tombone poetry and images of James Joyce while we discussed 54 by Wu Ming. But we got up to watch Tudósok, the aforementioned dada jazz punk funkers, and they were really good. It was one of those New Cross moments when you find yourself giving thanks that you live in an area where one of your local pubs can feature an East European avant-garde outfit on a Monday night (the band were formed in what was then Yugoslavia, and then reconvened in Hungary when war broke out there). I also enjoyed the band's singer Dr. Máriás inviting a young woman up on stage to sing a Hungarian bandit song.