retiredmartin

Yes ! A second obscure Duran Duran reference in successive blog !

Mrs RM is in charge of our programme of cultural activities in Sheffield. Ballet, Rachmaninov, Bao buns; we’re fully immersing ourselves in the whippets and Hendo’s culture.

Art ? Well that came at We Wonder Noir in the Grade I listed Wentworth Woodhouse in the posh bit between Rotherham and Barnsley.

Wentworth’s estate is home to an upmarket cafe and garden where I took the in-laws last year, but it took a little bit of modern art to persuade us inside the house. That and the fact it was a fiver. I really dislike that whole Upstairs, Downstairs National Trust dullness.

The centrepiece of We Wonder Noir (£5) is a micropub the moon. Don’t worry, it’s only on loan and is returned this week so shouldn’t affect the gravitational pull of the oceans or whatever it’s day job is.

Pink Floyd are on the other side, of course.

The whole thing is very Tate Liverpool in feel and very informal. And very good.

In one room a Grimethorpe Colliery Band soundtrack is playing to activate windchimes and Mrs RM says “There are people playing the ding dongs” which is the sort of thing you expect to hear in an Elsecar pub.

Talking of pubs.

One of two perennial Wentworth Guide entries, the George & Dragon used to be the flagship for the eponymous brewery whose beers you saw in Spoons 20 years ago (“WPA”, anyone ?) which I like a lot, particularly the Oatmeal Stout.

We’d had a trip here from our Worksop Travelodge base in 2001 and James had enjoyed the huge garden.

Here’s a reminder of that visit 21 years ago.

But tonight the pub feels far too foody, plates full of encrusted baked beans left on tables and the bar, toddlers running back and forth to the bar, and a choice of far too many beers, none of which I saw poured in our half hour there.

Mrs RM gets the Old Peculier. It’s OK, but lacks body (2.5).

And then they start to play Snow Patrol…