October 2025. Whitehall. London. While I sat in the Admiralty I scribbled down a few notes, mainly about queuing tourists and naff modern pop, but also “another week another two (2) London pubs two minutes apart“. Should have been 30 seconds to the Old Shades, but something in the space/time dimension where WC2 becomes SW1… Continue reading THE OLD SHADES, SW1
Tag: Youngs
YOUNGS, NEVER ORDINARY IN THE RICHMOND ARMS, GODALMING
August 2023. Godalming. You can learn a lot by looking at a Retired Martin Ordnance Survey extract. Godalming looks particularly alluring, doesn’t it ? Hills, National Trust river navigations, Lammas Lands, a Ladygarden and the birthplace (at Charterhouse school) of Genesis. OK, scrub that last bit. Never did get Genesis, something to do with poorly… Continue reading YOUNGS, NEVER ORDINARY IN THE RICHMOND ARMS, GODALMING
TICKING THE EAST DEVON PUB BOULES LEAGUE GROUNDS
Unless you tick churches, and I suspect their opening times are even more restricted than pubs, then GBG ticking is the best way to force you to visit those parts of the UK that only us completists will ever know. Like Musbury (pop. 543), on the edge of the Axe Valley. Which reminds me; I’ve… Continue reading TICKING THE EAST DEVON PUB BOULES LEAGUE GROUNDS
SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE
Still on Thursday night, as I finish a long day in training for the Proper Pub Day Out in Bath with the inevitable crispy beef and Singapore Rice just off Whiteladies Road. On the walk down from the Westbury I’d been scrutinising the Google reviews, it helps with bumping into folk, and found the Dragon… Continue reading SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE
DOING THE LAMBETH TICK
Slight problem as my earliest extensive notes, somewhat akin to Pepys but with more typos, have just been overwritten by my sitting on my phone and now look like this; A third South-West London tick in an hour, as I take the Northern Line from Clapham Common to the Oval, and then a hop through… Continue reading DOING THE LAMBETH TICK
TOM THE PUB RETURNS
Some people idolise brewers; with me it’s the guys and gals who get magic out of the pumps. Our own Andrew and Helen at The Sun, Jeff at the Ypres Castle, Terri and Jethro at the Blue, and the folk at Durham’s Station House and Stockport’s Petersgate Tap. Meet Tom the Pub, a Southern Cambridgeshire… Continue reading TOM THE PUB RETURNS
A RUDGWICK PICK
If these posts seem a bit rushed it’s because they’re being compiled in between selling ladies undergarments at the local Salvation Army sale. The ticks are limited but the blog potential is high. Onto Rudgwick, my last Guide pub for the year in brutally inconsistent West Sussex, which really ought to merge with its eastern… Continue reading A RUDGWICK PICK
THE BUCKINGHAM ARMS – A PASSPORT TO GBG IMMORTALITY
I’m meeting Simon in Belper on Saturday (#PrayForRetiredMartin), and no doubt we will reflect on recent pubbing experiences. Last time we met, down in Dorset, he’d just completed the Famous Five GBG ever-presents at Worth Matravers, treating it with his usual lack of reverence. It’s three years since I last did the FF, and I’d… Continue reading THE BUCKINGHAM ARMS – A PASSPORT TO GBG IMMORTALITY
MONDAY MORNING YOU SURE LOOK FINE
Monday morning, trapped at home by the threat of the “Beast from the East“*, surprised the trains were running at all in the face of this never before seen onslaught. No trip to Aldershot today, so I did my usual fallback of a long walk round ” Cambridge central”, the place that nice Japanese tourists… Continue reading MONDAY MORNING YOU SURE LOOK FINE
UNWRAPPING THE KING’S ARMS, OXFORD
Into tourist central now, and that pub across from the Camera (which is not as exciting as CAMRA). The King’s Arms is wrapped in unflattering scaffolding, so here, as the ice age descends, is my photo from the balmy summer of 2015. I’d forgotten what was special about it, until we stepped thru’ the… Continue reading UNWRAPPING THE KING’S ARMS, OXFORD
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