July 2026. Bradford.
Back from the Ginger Goose, Mrs RM said she didn’t want anything to eat, which I took as instruction to head out immediately and come back with a healthy tea.
I headed out into Little Germany, a part of Bradford with unrealised potential, expecting to find a dozen pizza/kebab places on the way.
Quirky,
and imposing,
but apart from the giant casino and Cathedral there’s not much to detain you from the Corn Dolly, the last survivor in the easy of the centre, and a shrine to cask and Bradford City.
Probably my favourite Bradford boozer, and not just for the banter about the Bantams and the beer,
the Zapato a chewy “VERY GOOD” (bring back numbers for beer scores).
There’s a famous jukebox, and while I suspected there was always an hour’s worth of Bob Seger and Thin Lizzy queued up, I stuck in 50p anyway.
I would have picked “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” for the Southworths, but picking the longest track is like choosing the strongest beer, and who does that ?
So, 15 minutes later, I got Rainy Day Women No’s 12 & 35 with my pint, not a regular jukebox pick.
That’s astonishing, and so in its own way is the last track on Olivia Rodrigo’s 3rd album, a track I’d only played once due to accidentally giving Matt the lead that connects my Sonos to my Naim pre-amp, concepts totally alien to Bobs Dylan and Johnston 60 years ago.
And what Bob Johnston would have made about the production on the bridge of “cigarette smoke” I can’t imagine,
but those notes hold me in their grip, like almost nothing before.
retiredmartin 
We would have no problem staying there for the whole song. May have taken at least 3 ales.
Great pub.
Dick
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I might have mentioned before that I’ve never been in the Corn Dolly, that being because it was unexpectedly shut in May 2018 but the New Beehive then opened early for us.
I doubt if I’ll get to Bradford again now that the New Beehive’s gone.
“Bantams” reminds me of Bathams and the Bull and Bladder and Beacon Hotel being my middle two pubs on Saturday.
I’ll always find time for “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”, especially the Joan Baez version.
On America, I’ll add that yesterday afternoon I watched the first quarter hour of a programme about the Mississippi and learnt that Minneapolis has a waterfall near which is a restaurant with authentic local food including white cedar. I’ve never been anywhere anything like as far away as Minneapolis
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I can’t remember the last time that I put money in a juke box.
It was probably to hear “Pretty Vacant”, “Lay, Lady, Lay” and the like at the Falcon, Nottingham, in the early 1980s
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The Like were Peel favourites, weren’t they ? Number 41 in the Festive Fifty in ’82.
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..or perhaps it was when I put on The Birdie Song eight times in succession at The Bendigo in Sneinton.
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The Bendigo sounds like an instruction in “Superman”, the other Black Lace classic.
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Actually, Birdie Song was the Tweets, wasn’t it ? Though Black Lace did a version.
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Costa del Sol hotel dance floor memories with mother.
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The Bendigo was named after the boxer, and had a statue of him, fists raised, over the door.
It was probably the most violent pub in Nottingham (sic), and maybe in a far wider area.
Black Lace graced our ears with treasures such as Agadoo. I think.
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