You’ve no doubt been kept awake at night wondering about the Hundon pub that caused me such angst recently by being closed. Erroneous opening times continues to be a theme for my travels, and also those of Paul Bailey.
We did go back to the Rose & Crown at the weekend, which was a poor use of a Saturday but lone unticked pubs are so irritating.
Hundon itself looked a bit better than a fortnight ago, with a few more autumn touches adding colour to some attractive old houses.
The Rose & Crown itself was a lot better than it would have been on a midweek lunchtime, with some decent ale turnover no doubt boosting the quality of an exceptional, flat and chewy 6X (NBSS 3.5). Yet more evidence that Wadworth still make a decent beer; with quality it’s all in the keeping.
The two parrots* were no doubt recording all the interesting conversation, ready to repeat it to Simon Everitt when he eventually gets here. Most of the bants here centred on a heavy Friday night comprising 2 pints of Ghost Ship, 2 (generic) lagers, and a bottle of Jack. And that was just the parrot.
There was also heated conversation about the merits of “Briggit Jones and her flippin’ baby”, the admonition “don’t you cock my toad in the hole up”, and friendship rings. No sign of any food trade, just locals chatting at the bar, which is my sort of pub. As usual in the Haverhill area, music was supplied by Starship.
QUIZ TIME – Just how did Jefferson Starship go from “Surrealistic Pillow” to “We Built This City” ?
On the way back we stopped in Haverhill, which sounds like a rejected Fiddlers Dram song. The highlight here is the amazing 16th century engraving of Anne of Cleves, which may explain the brevity of her marriage to Henry.
The town used to provide half the workforce for the NHS offices in Fulbourn in years gone by. Anne, of course worked in the local Wetherspoons after the divorce annulment, but by all accounts was something of a sloppy worker, unlike today’s very lovely staff.
The rest of Haverhill is functional, and the town continues to aspire to be a Westhoughton of the South. Its efforts in the last decade were rewarded with the building of a multiplex and Frankies & Benny’s, which has at least eased the pressure on the A1307 into Cambridge.
There use to be a Rose & Crown in the Beer Guide here; etched windows with GBG and John Smiths stickers are a favourite of mine.
It’s a mystery that Haverhill can’t get a pub in the Guide. A growing town of 30,000 on the Cambs/Essex/Suffolk borders should have enough real trade for one enterprising free house or micro of quality.
*Mrs RM has just issued me a reprimand for my reclassification of budgies as parrots. I’m not good with birds.
retiredmartin 
I am unable to decide if the quiz today is a rhetorical question for which we all get a point or a genuine quiz. The short answer, as is common in rock, is greed, age and lawsuits.
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It wasn’t rhetorical, I was genuinely interested in hearing a convincing argument for the meltdown from 1970-1985. I suspect you’ve won already.
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I tried a pint of 6X the other night in The Pack Horse on Briggate, it was a decent drink, maybe I had a poor one down in Brizzle? I take all previous comments back about 6X. Still categorising Marston’s in with Doom Bar, GK, etc, etc.
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Did your 6X have a head on it ?
Must get onto Pedigree next.
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Are we looking for the odd one out as part of the quiz? I found two. Funny looking parrots, and the sentence regarding the 6X containing the word ‘exceptional’ alongside ‘flat and chewy’…!
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Mrs RM has just chided me on the budgies. As for the 6X, I have an unusual beer vocabulary and those are the words I wrote down that made sense at the time !
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Going against the advice of my legal department, but with their help in the wording, my quiz answer is that the bizarreness of the lyrics depended on the grade and variety of herbal smoke being inhaled at the time. There may, but I have no evidence of this and it could well have not happened, have been other factors such as the sucking of lines of sherbet through a straw.
The two birds are budgies, but I am in no way qualified to determine the brand of budgie. Did Mrs RM state this before issuing your punishment for calling them parrots?
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Absence of drugs is the correct answer Tom. Four pints a day of Plum Porter would have maintained the Kantner/Slick creativity into the ’80s.
Mrs RM know no more about budgies than I do.
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On the lyrics front I was shocked to see the Bernie Taupin and Peter Wolf had a writing credits for that song.
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“had writing credit” before the pedants correct me.
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Don’t worry I put pedant filter on in time.
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Real generic mid-80s RAWK
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There was a lot of pretty bad rawk at that time.
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Just how did Jefferson Starship go from “Surrealistic Pillow” to “We Built This City”?
Already answered by dave, Tom and your good self of course, but Surrealistic Pillow wins hands down for me; drugs or no drugs!
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