Celebrate World Book Day with a pint in one of these literary hotspots

It's World Book Day! Chances are, you don't care. To this we say congrats - you've reached the stage of your life where today is no longer important, there are no teachers to make you put together a piss-poor fancy dress outfit, and you're legally allowed (and encouraged) to enjoy the best elixirs in life.

If you're desperate to recapture an element of your long-lost youth (and I can't blame you), substitute your usual post-work haunt for one of the many pubs with literary connections that London has to offer.

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese

Here's one for the City workers. Head down the Fleet Street and visit one of the country's most famous literary locations. It's old - the current pub has been standing since it was rebuilt following the Great Fire of London in 1666. It's drawn some of the biggest names in British history. Dickens was a regular, and even alluded to the inn in his novel A Tale of Two Cities. You don't need to have read it, just tell people you have when you get there.

It was also a draw for the likes of Samuel Pepys, Mark Twain, Samuel Johnson, Yeats and Sherlock-creator, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle. Maybe just basking in the presence of their ghosts will be enough to help you write that novel you've always planned on.

Ye Olde Cock Tavern

Keeping with the Fleet Street theme, here's another classic for you. You know it's legit because it also has 'Ye Olde' in its name. The Cock Tavern dates back to 1549, according to their website. They're kind of right - the pub was dismantled and the interior moved over the road to make way for the Bank of England in 1887, and a fire in the 1990s did some real damage. The Great Plague also shut it down for a while in the 1660s (and you thought business rate increases were bad for business), but it's been bubonic-free since then.

That's not to diminish its sense of history. The pub also boasted literary boozers Dr Johnson, Dickens and Pepys. The latter boasted about turning up at the pub by boat for beer and lobster way back when. A little grander than the Uber entrance you're likely to make, but it was a weirder time. Poet Alfred Lord Tennyson ('Charge of the Light Brigade') also had a cheeky pint here, but if you're keen to tell people you shared a glass with someone still alive and kicking, recent years have seen Ivanka Trump and Kings of Leon make their way through the doors.

The Flask

We're moving up to North London now. If you're based around Highgate (or getting off the Tube here after your real work in the smoky underworld of The City), The Flask is a great literary bet for you. It was a famous favourite of a bunch of the Romantic poets - Shelley, Keats and Byron especially. An impressive bunch. Fast forward to the 1920s and 30s, when TS Eliot was known to pop by.

It's so leafy and pretty, you could almost pretend you don't live in a cess-pit of pollution in its beer garden.

The Lamb and Flag

Chances are you've been to a Lamb and Flag. As far as pub names go, it's not the most original. But one Lamb and Flag you should definitely make a visit to today is the one at Covent Garden.

It was visited by Dickens, who seems to have made his way around most of the pubs in the capital. But it also boasts a cooler story - the poet and playwright John Dryden survived a murder-attempt right outside the pub. He was a loyal regular, so they've named a room after him. Pretty cute.

Dog and Duck

Soho is full of wacky and wonderful drinking venues. One that's a little more traditional is The Dog and Duck. Built in the 1700s, the pub has hosted some more edgy literary figures - fitting for its location. George Orwell, of 1984 and Animal Farm fame, paid many a visit, as did the older Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Birds of a feather flock together, etc.

More recently, rumours have it that Madonna was there not so long ago. Chances of seeing her there tonight are admittedly very slim, but if you want to improve the educated hipster image you've been curating as long as you've been growing your beard, I recommend a jaunt.

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