March 2023.
There’s just too many temptations in Sheffield.
Goodness knows how those CAMRA delegates will cope in April with all those great Greene King and Sam Smiths outlets.
Just when you need your journey home from the Wetherspoons beer festival to be direct and rapid, someone puts a magnificent pub like The Crow in your way.
In 2021 I’d been in Sheffield less than a year and was telling you the Crow might be my favourite Sheffield boozer,
But I couldn’t tell you why, and within a year our very own Blind Monkey had upped its game even further and the indescribable Alder had appeared from nowhere.
So I legally HAD to pop in the Crow, only for a half, obvs, to see how it was. It was playing the Slits;
And it had genteel folk on laptops, Old Boys doing crosswords,
and a huge blackboard of strong keg. I had a Beak of some description and shazamed the next punk classic.
Someone had good musical taste.
Ticking over, full of life, the perfect place for a quick half of DIPA and a nosey round the CAMRA mag.
And then the opening notes of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” burst in.
“Ooo, ha ha !” said split jeans man to my right. I turn my head, he nods, knowingly, in recognition of shared appreciation of a classic.
So I stayed for another. JUST a half, Cloudwater’s “Talus In Your Heart” the best cask in Crow for a while (3.5+).
At the bar, a discussion kicked off about who’d sung “The United State of Whatever“.
I knew it used to be the shortest UK chart single, but no idea who sung it.
If only Mrs RM had been there, SHE’D have known, and would have loved one of these shiny bottles.
Neither of those last statements are true.
retiredmartin 
The Slits were the first band I ever saw.
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I read that as “I ever played in”, Bill, which would have been something.
They were playing that whole LP.
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ey up then duck you seem to get round enough of those sheff pubs do yer like it then in sheff? where did you come from before? i thought you were from manchester as you talk about that all the time can anyone go to that conference thingey? and is there any free booze or booze as cheap as spoons does your mrs ever keep you in under lock and key when you going to scotland again do you have a youtube channel? tic tok is good can you do tic toks
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I can do a Tik Tok to “Ceilings” by Lizzy McAlpine where I run down the street and strip off to reveal a wedding dress but there are decency laws in Sheffield.
Are there really people called Steve in Ripley ? What’s the best pub there now ?
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Great you like Sheffield because your overseas options are getting restricted. “Amsterdam asks ‘wild’ young male British tourists to ‘stay away’”.
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Enough of the young !
Do you know where I am tonight ?
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No and I have a feeling I’m about to be really jealous.
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Yeah course there are people called Steve and Dave and Gary etc ha ha I’m from the Codnor end but technically Ripley I could not call myself talented Steve from Codnor as no one talented or sofiosticated ever came from Codnor ha ha ha Best pub in town is Red Lion they do cheap beer and good breakfasts bet you have been there and the three horseshoes in market place is good and Steampacket at Swanwick is good lots really are are good here not like those stuck up ones in B****R
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The Red Lion in Ripley is a Wetherspoons, is it not? Are you a chatbot paid for by Tim Martin?
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Yes it’s a Weatherspoons and no I am not a bot just an honest working bloke passing me time on the bosses computer but don’t tell him
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yeah its a weatherspoon a no i’m not a bot just passing time on my bosses computer
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