July 2025. Edinburgh. Last Edinburgh post, promise. I left the Argyle Bar just after 4pm, almost five hours till the train back to Darlington, but was already approaching 30,000 steps, and worried I’d just get distracted by Bow Bar, Halfway House, Oxford and the rest and undo all those calories walked off. So I slowed… Continue reading COCTEAU TWINS DEEP CUTS IN EDINBURGH’S BLACK CAT
Tag: Scotland
80 SHILLING. ONE QUID.
July 2025. Edinburgh. Yes, Edinburgh. A second Scottish tickathon in a month. This would normally have been a prohibitively expensive trip, but by the mere act of being old, fixing train times and also starting at 6am from a car park halfway up the A1 in Darlington, I got the cost down significantly. Just imagine… Continue reading 80 SHILLING. ONE QUID.
Could YOU walk past the Laurieston ?
July 2025. Glasgow. Back at Glasgow Central from edgy but exciting East Kilbride I had a couple of hours till my £66 return to Sheffield, sadly not long enough to attempt a visit to Carluke’s craft bars but time aplenty to walk across the Clyde for a curry. That area southside down to Hampden Park… Continue reading Could YOU walk past the Laurieston ?
A CLIMB TO THE BEN NEVIS
July 2025. Glasgow. One night in Glasgow, an expensive one we’ll hear more about later. 10 minutes on the train back from Jordanhill brings you into the heart of the West End, where a room in a flat off Argyle Street like this one; cost £30 at the start of the century. Thinking about it,… Continue reading A CLIMB TO THE BEN NEVIS
A GLASGOW WESTENDER
July (finally) 2025. Glasgow. We leave June with Dad celebrating his 90th in some style, and the next morning I’m at Sheffield station catching the TransPennine to Glasgow. £65.90 return, old folk advance rate, that’s not bad. And in fairness all the trains were on time with actual seats that hadn’t been taken. The Avanti… Continue reading A GLASGOW WESTENDER
HALF A DOZEN PUBS IN EVERY GBG COUNTY No. 69 – NORTHERN ISLES
Ah, yes, the Northern Isles. I spent 30 years looking at that tiny section of the Beer Guide, contemplating overnight ferries from Aberdeen or Loganair flights from Edinburgh, those evocative pub names in Kirkwall calling me. But if I did those pubs in 2011, would I just need to go back a decade later ?… Continue reading HALF A DOZEN PUBS IN EVERY GBG COUNTY No. 69 – NORTHERN ISLES
HALF A DOZEN PUBS IN EVERY GBG COUNTY No. 67 – KINGDOM OF FIFE
Well, my spreadsheet says just “Fife“, but the GBG is insistent on the Kingdom, and the GBG is definitive when it comes to county names. It only took three trips up the A1 and over the Firth of Forth to tick Fife, a county most folks will only know from St Andrews and the chippy… Continue reading HALF A DOZEN PUBS IN EVERY GBG COUNTY No. 67 – KINGDOM OF FIFE
HALF A DOZEN PUBS IN EVERY GBG COUNTY No. 65 – GREATER GLASGOW AND CLYDE VALLEY
Yes, get the spoiler in early. For most folk, Glasgow means two things. A nine (9) minute train to Paisley Gilmour Street’s cultural highlights, And curry. Oh, and a bloke with a traffic cone on his head. But some great pubs, too, and compared to the Scottish capital a bit easier to find them outside… Continue reading HALF A DOZEN PUBS IN EVERY GBG COUNTY No. 65 – GREATER GLASGOW AND CLYDE VALLEY
HALF A DOZEN PUBS IN EVERY GBG COUNTY No. 64 – EDINBURGH AND THE LOTHIANS
A belated return to the celebrated (in North Korea) “Half a dozen pubs…” series, which I might finish by 22nd December. Talking of which, where will I be on the most important day of the year ? Obviously, somewhere I’ve never been before, but a few new pubs would be nice. What about Mid Calder… Continue reading HALF A DOZEN PUBS IN EVERY GBG COUNTY No. 64 – EDINBURGH AND THE LOTHIANS
ONLY 3 SECONDS, BUT WHAT A LEGACY THE SCOTS LEFT IN ESTONIA
May 2023. Only two nights in Tallinn (and Riga and Kaunas) so we needed to make the most of a gorgeous evening where we had the famous Old Town cobbles to ourselves. 454,000 IT literate souls live in Tallinn, but they’re obviously tucked up in bed early as the streets were largely deserted as the… Continue reading ONLY 3 SECONDS, BUT WHAT A LEGACY THE SCOTS LEFT IN ESTONIA
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