June 2025. Macclesfield.
Apologies for the absence of a blog post yesterday, due to a combination of family drama, 30 degree heat and Blackpool Jane’s punishing Newcastle pub schedule.
Two more from an excellent Friday session in Macclesfield, a reminder how much enjoyment can be had by putting your phone away and just talking to folk.
Five hour chatting about nothing, or perhaps everything, with top company in some decent pubs in a some decent town pubs.
The George & Dragon won’t be making my Top 100 pubs, but it’s a solid Robinsons pub you’d miss if it wasn’t there.
Last time here I wrote about the juke box;
“Anyhow, this machine simply refused to play “Kashmir”*, the track calculated to give the best Value For Money. Mudgie rightly demanded his money back and then somehow got extra tracks to torture delights us with.“
Today the jukebox, stuck firmly in the mid-70s, was the star,
along with the photos of Macclesfield Town FC.
Straight glasses for some, handles for others,
a half pint which rather messed up the Unicorn (NBSS 3) for me.
Someone, and I suspect it may have been Jon as he’s quite cultured musically, showed us their 99p investment.
Bill Oddie could have been the next Mike Batt, you know.
retiredmartin 
Getting the phone out, unless for a brief picture or two, is an insult.
I was out in Darlington yesterday and saw two peoples on a table. One had a constant phone call. He even went indoors and conversation on the phone carried on – I’d have walked.
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Beer scoring is fine, surely ?
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Wait a minute while I ask Humphrey. He knows. (What’s that? Anything as long it doesn’t have microchips?)
He says you could write your beer scores on a piece of cow dung, as far as he’s concerned. And transcribe it when you get home.
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Who was Mike Batt?
Oh, I see. Isn’t that a bit like saying Paul Jones could have been Mike D’Abo? Different talents, different results.
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I’m a bit slow today. That was your point wasn’t it.
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SH,
Such a scorcher was forecast that I was a bit faster this morning, four pubs ( Bass, Abbot, Pedigree, Timothy Taylor Dark Mild ) before the half past midday bus home.
Old Tom gone eight days ago ( getting back on topic ) was probably from the heat.
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These aircon – or whatever they’re called – cellars are a great leap forward.
My Brains bitter was as impeccable as ever at the Romilly this afternoon.
Less so the plastic garden furniture, which had gone decidedly, er, flaccid, I suppose, in the heat.
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It was always the Dolphin for me during the six years that I lived in Macc for Robbies.
Yes Bill Oddie might well have been, perhaps if he weren’t quite so cantankerous.
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Oh yes, Dolphin was the Robbie’s pub in Macclesfield.
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“Getting the phone out, unless for a brief picture or two, is an insult.”
For me, I don’t want anyone taking my photo in a pub however brief it might be, unless I know for what it might be used. But I don’t have a problem with beer scoring – except that to me it is quite subjective and affected by factors like how I might be feeling on the day. In recent years there has been a lot of enthusiasm for Bass but it seems hard to say whether the technology of getting a pint to the drinker has become much better or the enthusiasm is feeding into higher sales – which should being more consistency. However, I have never had Bass as good as a few pints in the Bass Museum in Burton when on a visit there around the 90s.
Going back to phones, the virtual demise of pub phones makes mobiles essential if you need a cab to get home or move on. Any pub phones are now liable to be locked up in the office and even staff can’t use them.
[IPW]
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