In the Boar’s Head on New Years Eve I realised that none of my Top 100 pubs so far are from Stockport, despite me telling you it’s our greatest pub town (now that Bathgate is losing its Wetherspoons, anyway). Stockport suffers from a surplus of treasures, with at least a half dozen potential candidates, and… Continue reading TOP 100 PUBS -YE OLDE VIC, STOCKPORT
MIXING PUBS AND POLITICS IN STOCKPORT
And so after “HandbagGate“, we come to the great Dick & Dave meet-up. An early start for Stockport that seemed pointless as I flew up a deserted M6 for the first time all year. I assume I haven’t accidentally brought my 90mph driving speeds from Germany home with me. Parked in the Premier Inn (home of rubbish Wi-Fi) by 11.30,… Continue reading MIXING PUBS AND POLITICS IN STOCKPORT
MISTLEY TO MANNINGTREE
Some of you might think I pick on Mrs RM on this site, but you’d be wrong. I applaud her decision to leave her handbag under the chair in the Waggon at Wix, as it enables me to ask The Question. WHY CAN’T WOMEN WEAR CLOTHES WITH DEEP POCKETS LIKE MEN DO, INSTEAD OF CARRYING AROUND… Continue reading MISTLEY TO MANNINGTREE
STUCK IN THE MIDDLE OF WIX
Dick and Dave will be safely Back in the USA (was that a song ?) now, but will have to wait a little while longer for my post while I run it past Trump Towers. Instead I want to praise an unassuming little Essex pub five miles from Harwich Ferry, in the Beer Guide for… Continue reading STUCK IN THE MIDDLE OF WIX
A STRATEGY FOR 2017
“Steal from the best” is a decent life strategy, so I’m going to continue to nick ideas off Simon Everitt in 2017,though possibly not his fashion tips. But a strategy for the year sounded like a good idea, even though as you know the year actually starts when the Good Beer Guide arrives (end of… Continue reading A STRATEGY FOR 2017
TWO ITALIANS
Snow gives you the incentive to tidy up your photo collection, and find that I haven’t written up two pre-Christmas meals at pubs run by Italians. Nothing that unusual about that, but they’re the two main locals in my village and my in-laws in Kent. The White Horse in Waterbeach has been through the ringer… Continue reading TWO ITALIANS
SINT-NIKLAAS – IT’S NOT BRUGES
A final post from Europe, and a rare Belgian town that doesn’t feature in the European Beer Guide. That seemed odd, as Sint-Niklaas has 75,000 residents, and a tourist draw in Belgium’s biggest market square. More importantly, it was Mrs RM’s choice of fortifying lunch stop on the six hour Kassel-Calais leg. You really need to be… Continue reading SINT-NIKLAAS – IT’S NOT BRUGES
RETIRED MARTIN’S 2016 REVIEW
The problem with doing an annual review is that Simon Everitt has already written that book. In 1993 I read Vikram Seth’s 1,500 page “A Suitable Boy” in a week, and Simon’s post makes Vikram’s epic seem like a Independent puff piece (i.e. all current Indy content). My review will be concise, partly because I… Continue reading RETIRED MARTIN’S 2016 REVIEW
A DIDDY PUB FOR SIR KEN
I don’t actually have a bucket list, but if I did a Ken Dodd show would be on it. Reports of Springsteen-length gigs ending at 1am abound, but where Bruce plays the stadiums, you can still see Ken at the Skegness Embassy. It is possible that my first record was the famed Diddymen EP in… Continue reading A DIDDY PUB FOR SIR KEN
CIGARETTE SHARING, JAYWALKING KASSEL
The drive back from Southern Poland to Calais is 14 hours of motorway punctuated by nine McDonalds across five countries. Even on mainly German roads that’s not healthy in a day, so we stopped at another place we’d hardly ever heard of before, halfway between the honeypots of Leipzig and, er, Dortmund. Kassel is, I… Continue reading CIGARETTE SHARING, JAYWALKING KASSEL
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