Still on Friday night 11 days ago, shamefully, and a rickety train trip (£5 return) from Fareham to one of England’s lesser-known islands.
Well, I didn’t know Portsmouth was an island till 2014, and I’ve been there 2 dozen times.
The train passes Fratton, where Portsmouth and Lincoln City are debating the finer points of Pompey’s 4-2 mid-table end-of-season win.
I’m studying what BRAPA had to say about my new tick;
Sounds great, doesn’t it ?
It’s a lovely evening for a walk* to the North End, through the horrors of the shopping centres, the cobbled streets housing Charles Dickens birthplace,
and the contrasts between brutalism and beauty alone Mile End Road.
Blimey, they don’t make GBG pubs like this anymore (except this one).
Courage Best or Directors, cash only, no airs and graces, bewildered dog drinking Newcy Brown.
Obviously I loved it as much as Prince, whose Sexy Maritime Fratton shook the walls.
In all honesty, the Directors (£4.10, it’s no Craft Union) was a marginal NBSS 3, tasty but possibly not flying out the pumps,
but I couldn’t have been happier.
And it’s nice to see Pompey folk being as questioning of authority as ever…
*Some folk, including much of beer twitter, would consider this an “edgy” walk, akin to the stroll from Birmingham New Street to the Barton’s Arms, and take a taxi. Be brave…
retiredmartin 
As a youth I had an edgy cycle through a union jack strewn sink estate in Portadown and on through Sixmilecross that when I told my granny which way I’d come she nearly dropped the pan of spuds! “Promise me you won’t go back that way!…” Since then I’ve yet to walk through anywhere I’d find particularly edgy in England.
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Ooh, Portadown, heading that way soon.
Some folk find west Birmingham into the Black Country edgy. Only place in England I’ve ever felt the need to be particularly alert was south of centre (Little Horton, I think), which felt a bit like an episode of The Wire.
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One of the handful of Norn Ireland towns with a rail station. Lots of Bramley Apple orchards if I remember right, Scrumpy & Tayto town. Probably.
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“I can hear the Admiral Drake before I see it, the sound of “Pick Up The Pieces” floating out over the outside tables with view of the Rudmore flyover.”
Always a good sign. Didn’t you visit a pub in Sheffield or Leeds (?) last month that had banned the A.W. B from the jukebox? What fools they are.
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