You’ll be delighted to hear the blog is up-to-date, bar yesterday’s crawl round Oxford. Eight pubs and eighty photos in Oxford, so no doubt that’ll be eight short posts to dribble out over the next 3 days. No new GBG ticks, which will horrify the Pubmeister, but sometimes you have to visit pubs for pleasure… Continue reading OXFORD ’18 – CURLING
Month: February 2018
LIKE A NIGHT OUT IN SHEFFIELD
You Fill Up My Senses, Like A Gallon Of Magnet, Like A Packet Of Woodbines, Like A Good Pinch Of Snuff, Like A Night Out In Sheffield, Like A Greasy Chip Butty, Like Sheffield United, Come Fill Me Again, Na Na Na Na Na…OOOOHH! SOURCE: Sean Bean, probably Up to Sheffield on Thursday night to… Continue reading LIKE A NIGHT OUT IN SHEFFIELD
BLACK SHEEP WINS BATTLE OF CUTTHORPE
Chesterfield is one of our great pub towns, but the hills to the west have been strangely bereft of GBG pubs over the years. The Gate is your archetypal traditional rural pub, and a pleasure to have in the Guide. Just when you’re thinking GBG status is all about sticking a homebrew pump on the… Continue reading BLACK SHEEP WINS BATTLE OF CUTTHORPE
MATLOCK SPOONS PERSISTS WITH THE OLD-SCHOOL COFFEE MACHINE
I knew we should have gone in Matlock‘s Spoons when we walked past last year on a glorious Summer day. Perhaps we did go in. Google maps might know. But Matlock is always worth a return trip, even if the M&S Food Hall makes you unreasonably irate by not recognising anything as part of… Continue reading MATLOCK SPOONS PERSISTS WITH THE OLD-SCHOOL COFFEE MACHINE
SCRATCHING A BASS ITCH IN CRICH
This post title only works if the locals really do pronounce it CRY-ch, of course. Crich is the first place out of Derby or Nottingham where you’re really aware of the Peak. Their transport Museum makes a useful place to entertain toddlers who are young enough to be fobbed off with brightly coloured trams,… Continue reading SCRATCHING A BASS ITCH IN CRICH
MINCE & DUMPLINGS, NOT MIGNON MORCEAUX IN MEDOMSLEY
Contrary to popular belief, Tipton pork scratchings aren’t the ultimate snack. That would have been Mignons Morceaux, the flagship product of Phileas Fogg until United Biscuits ruined the brand. In memory of the great MM, I walked the Medomsley Road* to the Royal Oak, slightly disappointed not to meet guys on street corners selling boxes… Continue reading MINCE & DUMPLINGS, NOT MIGNON MORCEAUX IN MEDOMSLEY
DIPTON MILL – DIPPING INTO HEXHAMSHIRE
Once a blog post is at least two years old you have free licence to use the same material again, confident your readers (and yourself) will have long forgotten it. And you can’t yet plagiarise your own work. Into ancient Hexhamshire. According to Wiki, now a name for a civil parish of 797 people,… Continue reading DIPTON MILL – DIPPING INTO HEXHAMSHIRE
YOU CAN’T HURRY KELSO
You left us in Rutherfords, contemplating whether to start a game of skittles and just work through the beers/gins. But drinking on an empty stomach remains a daft notion, even in Scotland, and we set off over the cobbles for Cobbles. Or “Cobbles Freehouse & Dining“, just to emphasise that we were going to get… Continue reading YOU CAN’T HURRY KELSO
A SENSIBLE NIGHT IN KELSO ALWAYS AVOIDS TREPANNING AFTER GIN
Don’t oversell your blog posts, folks. Last 3 things said by @christinet50 "More gin""The spoons won't reach""Phil Collins"Going to be a good blog from #Kelso pic.twitter.com/Q6PwFQqK2K — Martin Taylor (@NHS_Martin) February 18, 2018 Unless you’ve got something really important to say like the availability of flat Bass in a proper pub, anyway. One night… Continue reading A SENSIBLE NIGHT IN KELSO ALWAYS AVOIDS TREPANNING AFTER GIN
JARL, AND THE SEARCH FOR A THIRD HEART IN COLDSTREAM
I could have lumped The Castle in with the Besom on the previous post but I find writing more than 500 words tiring as I reach extreme old age. Even BRAPA is cutting back on those “Moby Dick” length posts these days. Onto the Castle Hotel. Looking at the Google extract now, it’s evident there’s… Continue reading JARL, AND THE SEARCH FOR A THIRD HEART IN COLDSTREAM