Anyone looking for me, I'll be at the Recidivist...

Pub names… mystery surrounds their origin, to coin a cliché.

Well it doesn’t really, generally. But the thought is prompted by a pub called the Smugglers.

Why would it be called that? Presumably because smugglers spent their time chilling out there (well, warming up, obviously, in their case).

But that would be unlikely to have been its original name. If your inn was a favourite place for smugglers to hang out, it would seem unhelpful to call it the Smugglers. Because when Revenue Men (and who knows where they spent their time – they never seemed to get a pub named after them) were in that neck of the woods they would just have to head for… the Smugglers.

Similarly, you can’t imagine your average highwayman drinking in a place called the Highwayman. And pirates, reckless as they were, would surely have been sensible enough not to chance their arm (or another remaining limb) by congregating at the Pirate.

Obviously these insitutions must have been renamed long after the customer profile had changed, and the passage of time had made their activities seem colourful rather than nefarious.

And the rogues celebrated in pub signs have to be country or coastal types, it seems. Where are their urban equivalents? Why is there no Crooked Accountant or Bent Copper?

How long before the Banker makes an appearance? Quite a long time, one suspects.