August 2026. Cardiff.
We’d booked two nights at the £31 a night edge of town Zip Hotel, a Premier Inn concept that doesn’t seem to have taken, off despite high spec capsule rooms and a “Pizza and Pint for a tenner” offer.
Because people are fusspots and can’t deal with windowless rooms.
I’d fancied a trip to the Mumbles on our second day, but Bonnie Tyler was being buried and Mrs RM hadn’t quite done Cardiff justice.
Westgate Street alongside the Principality Stadium looked rather different 24 hours on.
Lunchtime on Sunday saw the City Arms and Tiny Rebel thronged with Blues,
on Monday we had them to ourselves.
And we didn’t have to suffer plastic glasses for our pint of Cwtch, either.
Yes, yes, craft beer and exposed ducts,
but Tiny Rebel’s flagship is a youthful place promoting groundroots Welsh music,
and I’m still a fan of their beers, particularly the bubblegum gin sours that kept us going during Lockdown.
Just glancing back at this blog I see Tiny Rebel on cask pops up rarely, but is gorgeous when it does, which is a sign of a brewery that good pubs like.
Despite coping with long shifts (“and a few scuffles outside“) on match day, the young staff are great here, too, as young staff invariably are.
In fact, my only negative note is that the burger and beer are SO good it reminds me what a loss the original Newport Tap is.
Those of you who have seen Life After Football’s pics from Coventry may be pondering if that lunch was an entirely sensible dietary choice.
retiredmartin 
Hotel room?
All it needed was straps over the bed and it would pass very well for a gas chamber if you ask me, Martin (shudder.)
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Make it laughing gas and you’re onto a winner.
I was surprised at the range of custom that Zip had, even with being a £100 cheaper than the central hotels.
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Cassettes have finally made it to Wales then… wait till the eight-track (wyth trac) arrives.
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As an aside… for a module in his music degree, a couple of years ago my son had to write and record an album’s worth of music. Him being him, he released it on cassette. Partly because he intensely dislikes mp3 and partly because he wanted to do an analogue recording.
I had to dig around in the bottom of my locker at work to find my old radio cassette player – which fortunately still worked despite being under many years of acquired crap – so me and my wife could actually listen to it.
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I found a load of cassettes in a spare room a few weeks ago. Some of them are albums which have been deleted and not available in any other format. I had to dig out my 1980s radio cassette player and then remember how cassettes actually work, which way in they go etc. They played surprisingly well!
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