retiredmartin

April 2026. Barkisland. West Yorkshire.

As you’ll observe, I don’t tend to suffer from writer’s block, unless I stupidly follow pints of Old Peculier with pints of Wobbly Bob and suffer the consequences.

Vikram Seth is still struggling with his follow-up to the epic “A Suitable Boy“, a novel so good I took two days off work to try and read its 1,349 pages (pages, not words) in 1993, failing miserably.

“A Suitable Girl was announced in 2009 but has yet to be completed. After Seth missed a deadline to submit the manuscript to Penguin Publishers in June 2013, it was announced that the new novel would be published in autumn of 2016.  In May 2015, it was reported that Seth was hoping to finish writing the book in 2016, for publication in 2017. Seth explained that he had missed the Penguin deadline due to suffering from writer’s block as a result of the failure of a romantic relationship. As of 2023 the novel was still unfinished” 

So as it stands his latest work remains “An Equal Music“, now more than a quarter century old,

and one of precious few literary classics referencing Rochdale pubs (the Moorcock, set on the lanes through the south Pennines).

This is one of those areas, dotted with reservoirs and isolated settlements, that you see while zooming along the M62 and realise how little you know about Rishworth Moor, or Rippondene, or Barkisland.

Until now, as I complete West Yorkshire GBG for another year,

with a rural cricket club rather than a Halifax craft bar for a change.

Barkisland is a sprawling village, coy about its population size,

so I’ll guess 1,762.

Two of whom join me in the Cricket Club bar at opening.

Loads of sports bars in the Guide recently, two next door to each other in Dorridge.

It’s slightly disappointing I’m here before local cricket starts, and so can’t give you cliches about “ball on leather” and “stick of rhubarb“,

and it’s a bit “high stool”, but I can’t dispute the quality of the welcome,

or the pint of Mallinsons Superdelic, a cool and rich 3.5+. Are Mallinson back in favour ?

I keep telling myself I should go and watch a soporific day of County Cricket. I follow Northants on local BBC radio, the only thing the BBC do well, and I’ve just listened to possibly the worst team (now Leicester have recovered) post a record breaking score card.

I could go to the County Ground, watch Ricardo Vasconcelos out for 7, and then drink Carlsberg in its homeland.