RETIRED MARTIN MEETS ROCKIN’ RICH

February 2026. Sheffield.

One of the best things about retirement, and goodness knows it’s been epic, has been getting to meet nice people over a pint in comfy pubs.

And so it was that I finally met one of the many nice guys from Yorkshire, Rockin Rich(ard) Clark from Harrogate.

He’d been trying to arrange a catch-up for months, and it never quite worked, partly because I explode if I have to stay more than two days in the same place.

But last Thursday worked perfectly; no food in the house so a pizza and non-alcoholic Thornbridge beer in the Fargate for a half hour before Rich caught the train north. Mrs RM came along, she’s hardly left the house since Turin.

Reader, we were there, in the same seats, from 12 o’clock opening till gone 3pm. US Dick (no relation) will confirm that is nearly 2 hours. I have never spent so long in one place in my life, and I only moved to go to the bar (4 times) and loo (x times).

I suppose you want tasting notes ? Tough.

I’ll say this, Mrs RM and I started on that Green Mountain 0.5% before regaining sanity and moving back to Jaipur (more than twice what it costs in Spoons but hey ho), and then losing the plot again near the end;

I saw this post about pub pricing last night,

it’s probably been doing the rounds in some form for years. The killer lines are these ones;

Pubs allow you to stay for 10 minutes for a quick pint, or 3 hours for a chat about life, and politics and Harrogate. You’ll never have that conversation in an ASDA queue, or via Messenger.

Apart from Rich, the really interesting thing about the Fargate was how it changed over the course of that lunchtime.

Quiet at first, then swarmed by female groups, older couple, a smartly dressed West Indian gent with a cravat, the sort of people who you don’t expect to go to Sheffield pubs. And now they do.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

25 thoughts on “RETIRED MARTIN MEETS ROCKIN’ RICH”

  1. “One of the best things about retirement, and goodness knows it’s been epic, has been getting to meet nice people over a pint in comfy pubs.”

    You have my envy, good sir.

    “partly because I explode if I have to stay more than two days in the same place.”

    Blimey. Does that include home?
    (wherever that is at the moment) 😉

    “Mrs RM came along, she’s hardly left the house since Turin.”

    Ah. So ‘home’ doesn’t count, exploding-wise.

    “I have never spent so long in one place in my life, and I only moved to go to the bar (4 times) and loo (x times).”

    I was going to ask, ‘how do you sleep?’, but realised the going to the loo (x times) takes care of that whilst in slumber.

    “I suppose you want tasting notes ? Tough.”

    Doesn’t bother me, way over here on the other side of the pond. 😉

    “I’ll say this, Mrs RM and I started on that Green Mountain 0.5% before regaining sanity and moving back to Jaipur (more than twice what it costs in Spoons but hey ho),”

    In for a penny, in for a pound. And hey, it was exceptional circumstances.

    “and then losing the plot again near the end;”

    (looks down)
    Goodness! How drunk were you?

    “Pubs allow you to stay for 10 minutes for a quick pint, or 3 hours for a chat about life, and politics and Harrogate. You’ll never have that conversation in an ASDA queue, or via Messenger.”

    Abso-bloody-lutely!

    “Apart from Rich, the really interesting thing about the Fargate was how it changed over the course of that lunchtime.”

    (looks down)
    (slow golf clap)
    Oh wait, you were talking about the onset of inebriation, correct?

    “Quiet at first, then swarmed by female groups, older couple, a smartly dressed West Indian gent with a cravat, the sort of people who you don’t expect to go to Sheffield pubs. And now they do.:

    Huzzah!
    (even the the ‘older couple’ was most likely you and Mrs RM coming back from the loo – ducks!)☺️

    Cheers

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  2. A planned half an hour no alcohol turning into three hours and multiple ‘real’ pints sounds like a great win and time well spent on this planet.

    I agree with 95% of Manchester Events’s post apart from super market check-out staff – there’s great banter to be had at the tills at Co-op and Iceland in Canton.

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    1. I think the suggestion was that you can’t get banter at a self-checkout. I find that I can get a serious rise in blood pressure at one of those, but certainly not any banter.

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      1. Well said, Will.

        I normally get some form of “banter” at these wretched tills, but it invariably involves me asking for assistance. I do try and be as pleasant as possible to the person who comes to help, because it is not their fault that these systems were designed by idiots. It is also their jobs that are under threat from this unwanted automation which, in many cases, has been forced upon them.

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      3. I rarely use shops but find the bigger they are the worse they get.
        In my nearest Co-op a few weeks ago I asked the assistant if she used to work at a corner shop on the other side of town and she said she did but a long time ago having moved two miles eastwards forty-seven years ago.
        All I hear in Sainsburys is the suggestion that I use a self checkout, which is about as likely as me ordering a pint with a gadget from a pub table.

        Liked by 1 person

  3. The time comment seems accurate enough for US Dick(no relation-can we be completely sure?). I am still trying to come to terms with the fact that you passed up on a Bathams in the Lichfield Horse and Jockey.

    US Dick

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      1. Sex, politics, and religion are the only things, about which it’s worth talking.

        That’s why they’re frowned upon as subjects in “polite” society.

        The French, to their great credit, got rid of their pillars of that, and now talk about little else.

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      2. Lacings, American female songwriters, and Chinese takeaways are the only allowed topics of conversation in my presence. If Mrs Rm chooses to talk politics with Rockin’ Rich while I’m at the bar that’s her issue.

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      3. “Lacings, American female songwriters,”

        I’d prefer talking about female lacings and American songwriters myself. 😎

        Bit ambivalent with regards to Chinese takeaways, though most of my wife’s family love them.

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      5. “It’s like jazz, you’ve never quite had the right Chinese takeaway yet. Or something.”

        Good analogy! I still can’t get my darling wife to wrap her head around certain jazz genres.

        Cheers

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    2. Actually Dick, I’m rarely impressed with Bathams in that Horse and Jockey, not that I’m suggesting that it doesn’t travel well beyond the Black Country.

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      3. The comment at midnight was NOT mine. So maybe I’m a victim of identity theft, not that I’d ever expect anyone to pretend to be me.

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