I think I’ve been banned from MumsNet. After a year of raiding their treasure trove of accidental ludicrousness as a lurker I can’t load the latest articles about Christmas dilemmas and nitpick collagues without signing up, and who knows where that leads.
So I may miss out on Pashmina Petra from Parson’s Green telling us “The North is an acquired taste…be very careful“, and recommending that we all move to Norfolk, which is delightful.
It really isn’t. Unless you’re the Royal Family.
The Ffolkes Arms is equidistant from Sandringham House and the unrelenting hell of North Lynn on the A148 to Cromer, and greets you at the door as Her Majesty (get well soon) might expect to be greeted if she popped in for a pint of Ghost Ship over her Christmas break.
Is that a painting of Cromwell on the back wall ?
I stand at the bar for 2 minutes while the staff attend to a group of “North Londoners” getting their coffee topped up because they can’t do it themselves, and decide on the house beer because that’s what you’re required to do so you can make a little joke at the bar about pronunciation etc.
The barman returns to the Londoners, I try to find a suitable table. As a non-diner, I think I’m expected to sit on the high table, but I rebel and head for the Games Room/Pie Shop, obviously.
Have you ever seen anything so affected in your life ?
Of course most North Londoners have games rooms like this in their own houses so staying at the Ffolkes Hayloft for £275 a night feels like home.
This is my idea of hell, ffolks, and even worse the beer is undrinkable, and I’m not waiting at the bar again to take it back.
My first plant pot pour of the year. And it felt good.
retiredmartin 
That’s a very fine Bagatelle (the most pointless game of them all), and do I spy a Shove Ha’penny in the distance. It does look a bit like a museum though, and pie grease is a definite no-no when shoving coins up mahogany…
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These Scots have some odd New Year customs, Mark
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Is Mahogany the model girlfriend of one of the younger royals?
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Ex girlfriend.
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With undrinkable, plant-pour beer, the question has to be how did this outlet get into the Guide?
Doing the surveying virtually, and trying to second guess the beer quality? 🤔
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There’s only two explanations, Paul;
1) I was extremely unlucky, had the end of the barrel, and I should have come at a busier time of the day (though this place is open pretty much all day).
2) The beer in most of North Norfolk gastropubs doesn’t sell quickly enough due to most visitors drinking wine, lager and coffee but folk being seduced by 3 handpumps and local beers. That’s my experience anyway near Burnham Thorpe, anyway.
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Which leads me to wail again as to why the consistently good beer in my local never gets a GBG look-in. Derbyshire 1 v Norfolk 0.
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Norwich gets far more gbg places per head of population than most cities, and surely the Peak District gets more visitors than north Norfolk ?
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Remember those branches wailiing on Discourse about them having no pubs left to fill up their gbg allocation back in the Spring, then forcing a CAMRA backtrack after a perfectly reasonable suggestion to cut the number of pubs, then padding it with Locale gastro dross like this.
I might well name the pubs I declared rubbish in the last year for beet, nearly all of which dropped out the new Guide so it was worth posting NBSS scores!
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Sorry you can’t seem to get good quality beet in Norfolk. If you can’t get it there…
Oh, was it a typo? OK. Yes, the Camra Good Beet Guide will be winging its way to you any day now. But seriously, how can they expect to be respected as an organisation if a pub in their guide to places serving good beer instead serves dross? But it’s good to know that they react to some of the low scores you have posted, and I take back what I said about you scoring everything 3.5 NBSS.
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Beet comes from Bury St Edmunds, now there’s a place for pubs.
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I’ve heard the younger Royals sneak out from Sandringham to the Coach & Horses at Dersingham.
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I can believe that. Very upmarket and discrete.
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Tasters has to be the answer. Three clips on, choose to spend your hard-earned on the one in best condition.
After that embarrassing (not to me) exercise insist on a top up to the invariably short measure presented to you.
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