New local blogs are a rare thing now: back in the day, new blogs were a frequent thing and the much-missed YamYam picked them up. Blogging is no longer fashionable, so it’s a great pleasure to find Evo Boozy Scribbler aka local all round nice chap and beer enthusiast Mikee Evans has started a WordPress blog (complete with a domain name too) after Facebook removed the feature he was using to write stuff before now. Nice to see he’s taken the plunge: there’s a reason I’ve been using WordPress so long- it works. His first post reveals his favourite local pubs, hopefully of which 2 will re-open at some point (one being demolished), given that one of them is my favourite Walsall pub too…
Category Archives: Pubs
Viva Lichvegas
At time of writing, we’re back in sort-of lockdown, expertly handled by our exemplary, skilled government.
We felt we needed to get out before it happened, as we’ve missed one holiday, and are about to miss another through the combined efforts of lockdown and my back playing me up, so I re-arranged one day of leave, and taking advantage of working from home, caught a bus bound for la-di-dah Lichfield (the service doesn’t run later in the evening).
We reached the city at around 6pm, got cash, and headed to The Angel Inn. A couple of beers, and then Thai food, taking advantage of Lichfield having a good range of places to eat. We chose Thai over Mediterranean as we’d got Greek planned for Lockdown Eve, but more of that later.
We tried The Horse & Jockey, but there were only high tables or outside available, so back to The Angel it was, followed by a taxi home: extravagant compared to a bus, but not too bad at 15 quid.
Hoping to make the most of it, we’d arranged a night out the next evening too: another taxi ride, The Lazy Hill, and a local, new Greek restaurant. Sadly, this all went wrong with them not having the booking they’d confirmed to us two days earlier. Fantastic. Our Greek became a KFC and a few drinks locally: at least we’d been in a nice pub.
Now we’re back in lockdown, so it’s back to takeaways at best and a beer delivery from that lovely Backyard Brewhouse. It remains to be seen if this lockdown will succeed, despite the broken way it as been handled.
Back to the Pub
A while ago, I didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get back to the pub.
I’ve since been back.
You know, I was wrong, mostly. There’s been a few notable outbreaks of both violence and covid, but in general, most people behaved (though I still had a few moments of feeling uncomfortable), most pubs have been sensible, and not that many people have got infected. Pubs are still very quiet, cask ale is thin on the ground, and the atmosphere’s a little odd, but it’s getting there.
We’re Going Down the Pub
As Sham 69 put it:
We’re going down the pub. Or al least, some will be. I’m personally not so sure: I love pubs, but I’m personally not so sure this is the right thing to do on a number of counts.
Official Government Advice, 23 June 2020 (v3.0), saved June 25.
Firstly: we have to deal with the great British Common Sense our leader is so keen on.
Today’s events have shown that common sense isn’t actually that common, and the actual sane advice will almost certainly be ignored, not helped by the usual delivery from Johnson.
Secondly: Alcohol. Humans tend to make poor decisions and become less risk-aware after a few drinks. I don’t think that a highly infectious disease, the great British public and alcohol is a world-beating combination. July 4 will be like the most amplified Bank Holiday piss-up armageddon, with the added bonus of Covid-19 as well as a fight, as all the idots release 3 months of pent-up fuckwittery in one lager-fuelled night.
Thirdly: Track and trace.
The opening up of the economy following the COVID-19 outbreak is being supported by NHS Test and Trace. You should assist this service by keeping a temporary record of your customers and visitors for 21 days, in a way that is manageable for your business, and assist NHS Test and Trace with requests for that data if needed.
No chance of misuse there.
Fourthly: Atmosphere. Given that
Indoor gatherings should only be occurring in groups of up to two households (including support bubbles) while outdoor gatherings should only be occurring in groups of up to two households (or support bubbles), or a group of at most six people from any number of households.
and that otherwise, we need to maintain social distance, what’s the point? If I only want to drink in that company, I can do it in my house or garden, at less risk and cost.
I’m very worried that, in response to the (very real) economic pressures, this government is fucking it all up again, making people think it’s all over, when that isn’t the case.
I know that the present situation cannot persist for ever. I recognise that we have to try to get back to normality and the hospitality sector has to get going- and of course, I’m desperate to get to the pub myself, Just not that desperate.
Desi Pubs, Part 3
It was well about time. A blog entry detailing a pub adventure instead of whinging about fuckwittery.
For reasons, we’d left the Desi Pub Tour hanging back in November 2018, with a wander around West Brom on a cold, damp November day. We only had one left from the book, but it was a 3-bus job, and we’d discounted it before as it has limited hours on weekdays.
Saturday it was, then. A trip into Walsall gave us an inauspicious start: the NXWM bus driver didn’t seem to understand a NBUS ticket, giving us a NX Daysaver instead, and the crowded bus had people hogging 2 seats. To cap it, the bus to West Brom that was waiting was a Diamond one that we couldn’t catch, but could have done if we’d had the NBUS…
Things improved though: a NX bus pitched up, we trundled out through Caldmore, got to West Brom, and found the correct bus out through the delights of Oldbury from the surface this time.
16 minutes later, we got to The Fourways and completed our quest. Lunch, and a couple of drinks, back on the bus. A drop in at The Railway gave us a convenient change for direct bus back to Walsall. A pleasant excursion and a small pub adventure complete.
HS2: Walking the Line
While I’m posting about NIMBYism and Brexit, I’ll go for another controversial thing: HS2. Guaranteed to upset the posh NIMBYs in Staffs and Warks, guaranteed to upset the environmentalists, and in no small measure upsetting plenty of others, from the (in?)famous Taroni dynasty in Brum to ordinary people who got a compulsory purchase order.
As I’ve exhausted Darknet Diaries, when I chanced upon a podcast discussing the impact of HS2 on Brum and the surrounding area I thought it might be worth a try (as usual, I’m well behind the curve, discovering podcasts a mere decade behind everyone else…).
First, I had to struggle to find it easily downloadable rather than needing an app or playing in a browser: Note for podcasters- some of us might want a standard, downloadable format for the car, or legacy players. Eventually, I found this RSS feed (remember those?) that freed me from phone app hell and got me the files.
On to the programme. The first episode covered H W Taroni, noted Birmingham scrapyard metal recycler and subject of jokes back when I worked nearby:
Where did you get that car from, Taroni’s?
…and we didn’t get robbed.
I’m playing on a lazy stereotype here, but hell, in the current climate, lazy stereotyping and casual racism seems the way.
We went away to Liverpool for a couple of days, leaving the cars at home. A bus to Walsall then Wolverhampton, and then a train to Lime St that we’d booked with Virgin, expected to be Avanti, but turned out to be LNR, operated by West Midlands Trains. Thank fuck for all that privatised railway choice, otherwise this could have been complicated!
As it was, it was easy. Comfortable, too as we’d forked out for 1st class, though as the train filled as we headed north, I think ticket arrangements were “flexible”.
Anyway, we arrived at Lime St- my second visit here, the last one being accidental, circa 1990, when very drunk, when I never exited the concourse, instead traveling straight back to my intended destination of Wolverhampton- and fell straight into The Crown, a fabulous pub right next to the station. We even got a seat, despite the fact the pub was very busy. A swift beer or two, and check into our hotel, a grand total of 50 metres away.
Back out, more beer, in very, very crowded pubs; this was Saturday night in a city centre, close to Christmas, and there was very little room to move, but Liverpudlians are a friendly bunch and offered me a seat when they saw I was struggling. Some Thai food, more beer (!) and back to the hotel; all with the city getting busier and busier.
The next day started well- full English, bus tour (pro tip: hop on/hop off city bus tours are a great way to work out the layout of a city), and in to The Philharmonic Dining Rooms before any other customers. It did go a bit downhill with The Baltic Fleet, which wasn’t awful, but wasn’t as good as expected, and Albert Dock (too much of modern chain places), but picked back up with great Turkish food and back to one of the best pubs later.
Liverpool’s a great city, and (as I found out about 30 years ago) remarkably easy to get to 🙂
Some Pub History
I randomly hit upon this rather nice site about Black Country pub history last night and thought it deserved a look. As you may have noticed, I have a passing interest in pubs, and this is a wealth of information on pubs both past and present in our area. It does rather put paid to the idea that aeverything was rosy in the past and no-one ever committed any crimes, too.
Inverness
So, we went away again.
It’s been a long time since we went this far north; we passed by in 2010, and also in 2008, but the last time we stopped nearby precedes this blog by some 3 months, in September 2003. back then we stopped in Muir of Ord, but we were younger and fitter and walked more, and I didn’t mind driving about so much.
So, with the changes in mind, we needed somewhere bigger. We needed public transport, restaurants, and pubs. To get those in more than single figures, you need somewhere quite large, in Scottish highland terms, which is why we found ourselves in a rather lovely cottage right in the middle of the city.
I’m jumping ahead, though. We needed to get there first. This is too far for me to spend sitting in a car to do the whole thing, so we left a day early, with an overnight stop in Dunblane, which seemed far too far away after a fire on the M6 near Knutsford saw us delayed. Still, we got there by around 4:30, checked into our B&B, and made it to the pub well before 6pm.
Continue reading Inverness
Easter
For some years now, I’ve spent the Easter holiday working, but this year, as I’m still recovering from my recent surgery, work that involves more walking and standing than normal (and would involve travel) didn’t seem like a great idea, so unusually I’ve had a long weekend, and it’s been a cracker, weather-wise.
With this time, I’ve got my bike back into working order, and ridden it on a couple of very short trial local journeys, I’ve visited a couple of new pubs, got a very small amount of gardening done, and sat in he garden with my pussy cats. Beats pushing packets 🙂
The pub trip introduced a new experience: heading north out of Walsall Station on the Chase Line to Hednesford. At one time, there was a direct bus service, but that went a number of years ago: given the train is fairly regular and quick, and the station is close to town unlike others on this line, there seems little need: a 25 minute trip saw us in Hednesford, which seems a bit more thriving than I remember, though the sun probably helped.