‘Twas the Friday night before Christmas, and all across the land lads and lasses donned Father Christmas hats and drank 8 pints of Bass Carling WKD in the nearest pub after their jovial boss, probably called Martin, sent them home after lunch.
Well, no, of course they didn’t. There are no pubs, Proper pubs anyway, for Northern folk like me. I’d really been looking forward to a night in the Bankers Draft and the Brown Bear, too.
So 2020 sees the end of a run of great Black Eye Fridays in some of our most funtastic towns.
2017 – Barnsley
Fluffy jumpers and political discourse, the mark of a South Yorkshire mining town.
Of course, Christmas in Barnsley means Belgian Blue, a tradition as old as giving your whippet a bobble hat.
2018 – Barrow-on-Furness & Ulverston
This was also my birthday, a famous night memorable for drinking the Landlord’s beer in Foxfield and this incident;
2019 – The Goyt Inn, Whaley Bridge
Not as serene as the setting suggests,
proof that a Proper Pub with Stella and swearing and children and darts and BBB can still get in the Guide.
Actually, the night before the Goyt I’d been in Workington and Whitehaven, where Black Eyed Thursday has EU protected status.
Two Wetherspoons; guess which one is from which town ?
Astonishingly, Whitehaven is in Copeland, the Local Authority with the lowest Covid cases in the entire country yesterday. And still not Tier 1.
Roll on 2021.
retiredmartin 
The late Jodrell Arms in Whaley Bridge was the most violent pub that I had ever visited when I went there in the late 1970s.
“Serene” would not feature on any list of words connected with the place, however long.
You hope that things might improve though, and maybe they did?
LikeLiked by 1 person
EVERYTHING was violent in the late ’70s. Have you ever heard the Lena Martell album ? Brutal.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I believe most right minded people got brutal when forced to listen to Lena Martell.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We must be a peace loving country. I had to google the term black eye Friday.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When we did our Caribbean cruise in 2007 I was amazed by all the frat boys getting drunk in Grand Cayman on Christmas Eve. Guess that’s your equivalent. Our drinking culture is completely different, as you know !
LikeLike
Martin
Was your Caribbean cruise in 2007 an opportunity to drink some Banks’s, the Barbados variety ?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I did drink some Banks, and believe me it’s not a patch on the Wolves original.
LikeLike
2020 in Goyt?? You tier breaker you….
Told you to head for Orkney, still a covid rate of zero. OK, so is Shetland, but that’s not exactly tick central.
LikeLike
I OBVIOUSLY did purposely to see if the police would beat a path to my door. They didn’t.
I hear that Brew Dog can serve their full low alcoholic range till 6pm in Scotland. Highly tempted…
LikeLike
Johnson is reportedly looking at imposing a travel ban on those of us in the south east. This is to stopthe spread of the new variant corona virus that they’re not really worried about.
Whether he’s serious and how this could be enforced, is open to question, so it’s probably just another of the crazy gimmicks he comes out with from time to time. Rest assured it will be ground breaking, world beating and all his other ridiculous cliches, rolled into one.
Happy days. 😁
LikeLiked by 1 person
Superglue, Paul. They’re going to superglue you to your sofa (or your office chair).
Happy days.
LikeLike
T’other Paul,
Whether “the new variant corona virus that they’re not really worried about” or the new variant corona virus that they’re now really worried about won’t make much difference to Boris.
LikeLike
Always called Mad Friday here.
Last night (as it is now 00:40) we would have been doing the famous Hillgate Stagger, which was the first time I ever met you some years ago.
Sadly diminished now, though, so it has to be done from top to bottom and ends up in an aimless dispersal around the trendy bars of the Market Place.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, Stockport version more refined and no actual black eyes involved. Except possibly in Winters.
LikeLike
T’other Mudgie,
Not just the famous Hillgate Stagger, for the first time in 45 years Stafford and Wolverhampton branches won’t be meeting up at the Anchor, High Offley tomorrow lunchtime.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“‘Twas the Friday night before Christmas”
That fellow in the photo above is taking the P**s. Sorry, typo, that should be taking the S’s.
“So 2020 sees the end of a run of great Black Eye Fridays in some of our most funtastic towns.”
2020 has really been a bloody black eye, boot to the groin and slap upside the head, all topped off with the two-fingered salute!
(palm inwards of course, otherwise it’s just the V sign for peace… which 2020 was far from!)
“a famous night memorable for drinking the Landlord’s beer in Foxfield and this incident”
Thought you’d gotten your own birthday wrong, then realised you texted that early Saturday morning. 🙂
“proof that a Proper Pub with Stella and swearing and children and darts and BBB can still get in the Guide.”
In the photo below, is that the Elf guy from the first photo, partially hidden by blue shirt man?
“And still not Tier 1”
I have no idea how to read the numbers on that photo below. It looks like a bloody bingo sheet! 😉
Cheers
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes that’s the same guy.
Our Tier numbers are actually decided by random ball selection like in bingo.
LikeLike
“Our Tier numbers are actually decided by random ball selection like in bingo.”
I’m beginning to think that’s actually true!*
* – only because a dartboard doesn’t go higher than 20… unless you count doubles and triples. 😉
Cheers
LikeLiked by 1 person
Stafford Paul, it depends on what the last person who Johnson was talking to told him, as rather like his soon to be gone “mentor ” across the Atlantic, the man has the attention span of a flea, and certainly doesn’t do detail.
(Liked your comment btw, but still having trouble logging into WordPress.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
T’other Paul,
The average flea probably wouldn’t have done as much harm over the past year.
LikeLiked by 1 person