retiredmartin

March 2024. Wolverhampton.

I’ve been making appalling progress with ticking new entries in GBG24. Things are rather more impressive on the classic pub revisit front, and Friday saw a long, long overdue return to the Black Country in top Pub Man company. Kentish Paul has the details here.

I’d planned to stick the campervan in a Wolverhampton NCP car park overnight, but I couldn’t face the drive, particularly with the day’s inevitable hold-ups around Coalville, so did my now iconic Sheff-Derby-Brum, Brum-Wolves rail trip. One of these days I’ll fall asleep near Tamworth and end up 4 hours later in Plymouth, with a £377 fine and a pint in the Dolphin.

Obviously, you don’t buy tickets for Sheff to Wolves; you save £18.70 by splitting your ticket at Derby, and £18.70 will pay for an afternoon’s supply of Batham’s and baps cobs. You’d save even more if you were an Old Codger, of course, but being an Old Codger does seem to come with drawbacks.

A day as grey as the grey peys and bacon in the Great Western,

and on leaving the station I had some tortuous decisions.

The Two Pauls (repeats available on BBC 4 after midnight) had started off on their bus tour of Black Country classic pubs, which had the upside of classic pubs and the downside of being on Dudley buses.

I’d been warned that the full tour might mean 3.5 hours on buses, and probably as long again standing at bus stops wondering where the Number 223 had got to.

So I thought I might catch up in Sedgley at the Beacon after lunch, a shorter hop out on the Number 1, and bring you some Wolves culture.

The culture had come at Molineux a week earlier, at an FA Cup Quarter Final that had me reassessing my views on “grassroots football“.

I’d watched the second half of that with Dad, a rare bit of live football on Terrestrial TV; almost as good as the World Cup final which was the last game he saw on telly with me.

What to do for an hour ?

The Art Gallery ? The Wetherspoons that banned Paul Mudge ?

Well, the Moon Under Water certainly had the pub life.

But instead I was distracted, like the flow of folk stopping to talk to Jehovah’s Witnesses on the approach to Sheffield Station, by an alluring sign;

Blackpool Jane would stop for that, anyway. OK, it’s a tenner (well worth it) to get in, but these exhibitions are costly to set up and staff, even in an outbuilding at Wolves station.

The BBC may not be any good for news these days, but it can reprint press releases word for word, so here’s their take on The Smallest Zoo In The World by David A Lindon, with better pictures than mine.

You get an informative film about the artist that goes on just beyond the point where you start to think “I want to see the animals now” and “I could be in a pub“.

So, a zoo of animals on the eye of the needle. With sound effects. It’s immensely impressive,

but when I feel it polite to tell David how impressive it all is I realise I’ve actually no interest in the actual process and would actually rather ask him about curry.

Instead I go “42BPM, blimey“.

I decide against extending my stay by taking on David’s personal challenges.

Unlacing and re-lacing trainers when you could be drinking Batham’s ? Nope.

Seriously, well done David, and well done Wolves putting it on. Open till 8 April, just turn up at the station.