If I’ve learned one thing about blogging, it’s that folk prefer misery to happiness. No-one wants to read about a nice pint in Pontypool; they want woe in Watford and micro madness in Margate.
So here’s rage from Radnage. Or woe in Wycombe if you like to dump places in their nearest big town like some CAMRA branches that rhyme with “weeds“.
Now, BRAPA will confirm that Buckinghamshire is the toughest county to do.
Inaccessible villages you arrived at caked in mud, identikit dining pubs, pashminas and Prosecco, beer struggling to average at best.
Some nice looking Olde Worlde English pubs though.
Flowers on the bar. Nice touch. And, oh look, local beers. One per ale drinker.
Service was good. The IPA was thoroughly pulled through, both reassuring and a worrying sign of lack of turnover. Mind, when you’re charging £4.20 a pint you can afford to pull it through.
It was the most Buckinghamshire beer ever, cool but thin and a bit sharp. NBSS 2.5 at a push. Which is adequate, remember.
The Crown was ticking over on a Monday lunchtime. Unfortunately that meant the only table not set for diners was already taken (below).
So, dear readers, I had to sit at the bar. Yes, I was the bar fly in Bucks.
I left the table between me and the dog spare. Dogs shouldn’t be allowed at the bar (rage away, canine cuddlers).
Of course, two minutes later a small child clambered onto the seat I’d left free.
“What you scoring that IPA then ?”
“Made it Mummy !”
Now I like to see children in pubs, I really do. It’s just that this one was the most accident-prone toddler in High Wycombe, falling off twice and dropping various toys at the foot of my chair. Mum seemed unconcerned and Dad was nowhere to be seen.
Fearing I’d be implicated if Johnny clambered onto the bar and drunk the IPA I was reserving for the plant pots, I made a dash for the Gents.
Oh no. Not luxury handwash. I don’t want luxury.
When I got home and added the Crown to my spreadsheet I was astonished to find I’d already been to Radnage, and it had left no impression bar a big X for beer quality. Good to know some things never change.
retiredmartin 
“The Whip Inn” at Princes Risborough is always a good pint of Rebellion in this area.
Is it in GBG19 ?
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There is a Whip Inn south and east of Princes Risborough which listed under Lacey Green in the 2019 GBG. It must be the one you mention.
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That’s the one – Lacey Green. Glad its in ! Never had anything other that NBBS 3.75+ in there.
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Yes, rare proper pub that one.
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Well done, Dick. Ten points.
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I am still trying to win a beer at Hungry Horse Wythenshawe.
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It’s still sitting on the bar, Dick. Would taste better sitting in the pipes, mind.
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Wish I had known that about the Whip Inn a year ago. Dave and I stopped at Long Crendon(Eight Bells) on our way to the Premier Inn at Loudwater and were not treated very well and the beer was worse. We cannot believe it is back in the guide. We should have stopped at the Whip Inn.
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Wait. You went to Bucks ? After ALL that BRAPA told you ?
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Only because it was on the way and not a destination. We also had to confirm his report. It that a good excuse?
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Yes !
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Although, I offer no excuses for Royal Standard, Wooburn Common, it is a great pub. Or the Squirrel at Penn.
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It is a classic.
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In Buckinghamshire’s defense the town of Buckingham was kind of fun when I spent an evening there. We had quite a few laughs in the Three Cups.
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The county town is Ok, but still a bit plain. Of course, number o GBG entries ? Zero. Very odd.
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No, but I agree that is/was a rare proper pub. There’s been a few dotted about that area south of Aylesbury over years.
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Beginning to think that it’s time for the GBG to split between the geographical areas of York and Canterbury. Bar Blockers and now Bar Barkers it’s all too much.
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Have you attempted to quantify the link between your regular readership and an attraction to misery?
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There is a somewhat curmudgeonly tendency emanating from both Stockport and Stafford.
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I like to feel you can sympathise with my malaise over duff opening times, poor beer, and tardy service.
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Well, I had good reason to be curmudgeonly today.
I used the Dorbiere pub just a ten minute walk from me and since last week the proper tables and chairs at the front of the pub where I sit watching the world go by had been replaced by high tables and high chairs.
4pm is about the latest I’ve ever arrived at the pub and the barman draw a pint off that had ben “in the lines” before giving me my first pint of Black Sheep Best Bitter. So none had been sold in the first five hours of the day and I doubted how many would be drunk during the remaining seven hours.
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Sometimes I feel I’m sitting one the sidelines criticising pubs for lack of custom, when I should be criticising the folk buying cans from Tesco or thirds at beer festivals. But you’re right; pubs not serving ANY of a beer for several hours is the problem in a nutshell.
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Do we read RM because we are miserable ? Or are we miserable because we read RM ?
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What came first, the pashmina or the Prosecco ?
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The soggy plant pot.
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None of my readers are miserable, Fred. I’ve met all seven of them (there’s another dozen who look at the pictures in the forlorn hope of finding the perfect lacings).
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“Flowers on the bar” – that’s what I remember in many a Whitbread pub.
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Interesting. Do you approve ?
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Not when it was the first widely sold keg in the 1950s – and not much more when it was a rather indistinctive cask beer from Cheltenham in the 1980s.
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Oh, we are at cross purposes over the “Flowers”, aren’t we ? As usual I sense Paul is the mischief-maker here 😉
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Martin, you addressed the readers directly in affable terms, calling them “dear”, no less.
Steady now – accounts have been barred on pub review sites for no more.
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Calm down dear. Can I ban myself.
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Is Johnny a beagle ?
“Drainage rota” is an anagram of “A Radnage Riot” – not that you really needed to know that.
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Can we have an “anagram of the day” please Paul ? It would help when I try to syndicate this blog to the Economist.
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I have no problem with children or dogs being in a pub – provided they are well behaved.
Children should never be allowed to stand near, or sit at the bar. Family orientated areas in large dry led pubs are excellent, otherwise Victorian values should be adopted; children should be seen and not heard, leastwise not beyond the people who accompany them. Animals should never be allowed up onto the seating, even more so in any public place.
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Spot on.
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As for “animals should never be allowed up onto the seating” I have observed that most dogs have the sense to know that their place is on the floor but pub cats often don’t realise that.
Animals should never be allowed in the kitchen unless they’re on the menu – and rodents should never ever be allowed on the premises.
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What about young kids being sat ON the bar in ‘Spoons ? Seen it on several occasions,
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So have I. It’s a health hazard. And to be clear, I want to see children in pubs from an early age.
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