There was an excellent article in the Telegraph recently in which Charles Moore took a very sober and sceptical look at the current hysteria about the alleged ‘epidemic’ of binge-drinking.
3 days ago
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Salient quotations
"If I see one more politician who voted for the smoking ban crying crocodile tears about the state of the pub industry, I may throw up." (Christopher Snowdon)
"The era of big, bossy, state interference, top-down lever pulling is coming to an end." (David Cameron, 2008)
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." (H. L. Mencken)
"The final nails have now been hammered into the coffin of the freedom to smoke in enclosed public places. This piece of legislation must be one of the most restrictive, spiteful and socially divisive imposed by any British Government." (Lord Stoddart of Swindon)
"Raising taxes on alcohol to prevent problem drinking is akin to raising the price of gasoline to prevent people from speeding." (Edward Peter Stringham)
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." (C. S. Lewis)
"People who deal only in 'craft' beer do not care about some dirty old pub and the dirty old people who are in it and the dirty old community that it holds together." (Boozy Procrastinator)
"The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies." (Robert Conquest)
"A Puritan is someone who lives in mortal fear that somewhere, sometime, someone is enjoying himself." (H. L. Mencken)
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'Wow! What a Ride!" (Hunter S. Thompson)
"No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare." (Kingsley Amis)
"When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves,
For you will have lost the last of England." (Hilaire Belloc)
My other blogs
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The Rookery Tavern - The Rookery Tavern, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire A large modern estate-style pub with a rather troubled history, located on the southern fringes of the ...
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The Sun in September - *The Sun in September, Burnage, Manchester M19 1NA* The newest entry on this blog in terms of when it opened as a pub, the Sun in September was original...
2 weeks ago
Selected beer and pub blogs (may contain nuts)
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BREAKFAST IN STARA ZAGORA - April 2024. Plovdiv – Veliko Turnovo. Mrs RM’s plans saw us ticking Bulgaria with a circular route starting and ending at Sofia, and taking in two other of...3 hours ago
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The Pub Beneath The Bridge.... - *I recently paid a visit to a local pub which is to be found in a rather unusual location, which then set me off thinking about other pubs I have visited...3 hours ago
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Oh Ottawa, Beer in 1986 - Canada’s capital is Ottawa, the National Capital Region as more grandly termed. It comprises now Ottawa in Ontario and a slice of Gatineau in western Quebe...4 hours ago
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Wild for the Chardonnay - The quarterly Wicklow Wolf Locavore series has really hit its stride in recent years, with some truly creative and high-end beers. It may be a bit of a gim...9 hours ago
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BRAPA .... A TICK IN THE TWICK(ENHAM) : London Latest - Saturday 20th April 2024 With Hull City's fading playoff dreams now resembling a pair of stonewashed jeans from a mid 80's club in Soho,...21 hours ago
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Stockport Pub Explorations - Stockport County are on the rise, now crowned champions of League Two. Local indie rockers Blossoms have hit the top spot of the UK album charts several...22 hours ago
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A Cracking Pub and Two Microbreweries - Did you know that Melbourne has more trams than anywhere else? Well, I think that's what was said. I can confirm at least the place was hoaching* with t...1 day ago
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20/04/24 - London Spiral - Stage 14 - Kew Gardens to Wimbledon - Why 'Spoons is the best for the Lonely Football Fan The London Spiral doing a fine job of making you think you are not in London. The 8 miles of this stre...2 days ago
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Another brewery sadly bows out - So, just a couple of posts after my disclosure that I wasn’t a massive fan of *Cellar Head beers,* news broke that the company, had ceased trading, with ...2 days ago
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News, nuggets and longreads 20 April 2024: Slap Shot - Every Saturday we share links to a selection of articles or blog posts about beer and pubs. This time we’ve got Art Deco pubs, posh publicans and lethal ...4 days ago
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Art Deco Pubs in the UK, Part 1: Beside the Sea - This is the first of three posts looking at art deco pubs across the UK. This one is about art deco and moderne pubs in seaside towns. The post Art Deco ...5 days ago
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The “Happy Birthday To Me!” Edition Of These Beery News Notes - Well, well, well. I entered the first day of my 62nd year today. No trauma. No big plans. Not like when you hit 25 or 40. Those were panicky birthdays. Fee...6 days ago
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Looking for Leverkusen - On my first trip to Germany back in 2009, I spent a few days going round brewpubs in the Rhineland, some of which became favourite drinking spots that I ...1 week ago
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We’ll Fight and We’ll Conquer Again and Again. - Black Bull / Hearts of Oak: a lost pub in Cambridge.1 week ago
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Pull the other one! - In recent weeks there has been considerable debate about Carlsberg-Marston's launch of 'Fresh Beer', a controversial product that has garnered mostly neg...1 week ago
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Rochdale Pubs - Why Rochdale? Well, on my virtual travels during lockdown (remember when we weren’t allowed to... The post Rochdale Pubs appeared first on Jane Stuart - ...3 weeks ago
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The Tipperary’s back but the history is even more confused - The Tipperary pub in Fleet Street, London, has reopened after four years of closure, excellent news, since it’s one of the most attractive little pubs in...3 weeks ago
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IT Issues - There I was, tapping out a blog when the ancient flash disc it was all stored on went bump. There’s around 20 pubs that have gone into the ether so, unless...4 weeks ago
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February: Facebook's Best Boozer, Downsizing in Walthamstow & Covent Garden's Indie Delights - How London Pubs conquered Facebook MARK is drinking Thatchers Cider at a pub in Ruislip. Thomas is lamenting the “long gone” Fountain in Lower Clapton Road...5 weeks ago
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Earlestown - Today I headed east to Earlestown where there are a number of pubs overdue for a revisit. I began by walking past some good targets which I will get on ...5 weeks ago
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The Kernel sails on almost serenely - He’s very modest so he’d almost be embarrassed if you suggested he possibly runs the UK’s best brewery in the country. Reality is, this might just be the c...5 weeks ago
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Every little helps - I’ve just drunk – in fact, I’ve just made a small detour in order to drink – a pint of Burning Sky Plateau. Burning Sky is a brewery I’ve got a lot of time...5 weeks ago
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The Club on the Tyne is All Fine - The first rowing club to feature in the Good Beer Guide is really, well, oar-some. Tyne Amateur Rowing Club is a striking modern building, elevated with ba...1 month ago
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...Back For Another Pint At A Wierd Weatherspoons - *Quiet stillness...St Thomas' graveyard, Lymington.* In the quiet stillness of the graveyard of my long past blogs, rests one entitled 'Summoned By Bells...2 months ago
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Homebrew - Cheaper than the Pub? - The price of beer has been on my mind a fair bit lately. At the weekend I kicked my first keg of homebrew for the 2024, a 5.1% amber kellerbier that I br...2 months ago
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Finally visiting Sarah - *I'd waited a long time for this. *It was over thirty years ago that I first drank Sarah Hughes Original Dark Ruby Mild. I think they've dropped the "Ori...2 months ago
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My Best of 2023 - I haven't written much cheerful content (or much at all) for a while, and there will I'm sure be plenty of unhappy events to comment upon in 2024, so a...3 months ago
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Island’s Edge Irish Stout - Island’s Edge Irish Stout www.islands-edge.ie/ Brewed by Heineken Ireland Style: Irish Stout Cork, County Cork, Ireland Typical! I go drink a beer intend...3 months ago
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The Chetwynd Arms - Upper Longdon, near Lichfield, Staffs: Whatpub Link Website What a pleasant village pub this was: there is dining, but the food bias is in dining rooms, th...3 months ago
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The Crask Inn, Crask. near Lairg, Sutherl;and, North East Scotland - Evening Readers - assuming there are any of you left......before I start I should add a quick caveat. So I know that even my my own cacky handed mismana...5 months ago
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"They Had Their Issues, So..." - There’s a set of garages to rent as storage units near my workplace. One of them is taken by a local florist that uses it to store flower arran...5 months ago
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Czech beer at a crossroads? - Clock's barrel-aging outpost Fenetra has this Bretty sour cherry beerMost beer lovers who’ve tried a classic Czech lager rapidly become fans. So why is it ...6 months ago
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Small is Beautiful The End - By far the largest part of Schumachers book is in regard to the third world and this section really hasn’t aged well at all. The world is different place...7 months ago
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Guest Post : No Food For Lazy Man : Finding beer with a side of Art in South London - Thanks to my good friend Margaret Howie, our London correspondent, for this excellent review – Kirsty Peckham, the jewel of South London, is nicknamed “Lit...8 months ago
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Visiting the Brewdogs in Berlin - At the time of visiting Berlin, there were 3 Brewdogs in the City: Mitte, Friedrichshain and the Dog Tap. Berlin has a wonderful public transport netwo...10 months ago
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Terroir - putting the locally sourced boot in - All beer geeks like to occasionally have something that reminds us of when we were first getting into craft beer, so I enjoyed seeing some proper Beer Di...10 months ago
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Reconnections - It's fair to say that the last few years have wreaked havoc on the way that we've lived our lives. People have lost their jobs. People have lost their b...1 year ago
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Paradise Garden - Timbo's Dream One thing you rarely encounter in a tightly-packed and traffic-addled city centre like Preston's is a pub with a proper beer garden. All th...1 year ago
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BRAPA in .... 'ERE WIG GO AGAIN : MORE FROM NEWPORT / LAST POST ON BLOGGER (Gwenty is Plenty Part 7/14) - (LAST BLOG ON BLOGGER, actually wrote this before Edinburgh when the photo upload was just about bearable). Join me on Wix from tomorrow (link at the bo...1 year ago
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Pinning for the Beer Hordes - After a very quiet August, beer sales picked up again but I’m going through pins like no ones business. Sales of 4.5 gallons were generally the sole preser...1 year ago
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Life’s great artefacts: The Three Stags’ Heads, Geoff Fuller and his pots - Master potter and master publican, the late Geoff Fuller (together with his wife, Pat) made a difference to more lives than he’ll have ever known. https://...1 year ago
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BeerDredge Beer Flavour Wheels - I've developed a set of six Beer Flavour Wheels and they are available on my other site: BeerDredge. The BeerDredge Beer Flavour Wheels present a lexico...2 years ago
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#291 The Navigation, Kilby Bridge, Leicestershire : 1986 to 2021 - Our first ever visit to The Navigation Inn was on the evening of *Wednesday 23rd July 1986*. This was our summer vacation and my first time along the Le...2 years ago
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SUNDERLAND AND SOUTH TYNESIDE ONLINE BRANCH NEWSLETTER ..DECEMBER 2021 - The December issue of our digital magazine “CAMRA Angle Online” is now available from https://sst.camra.org.uk/wordpress/?tag=newsletter I hope you enj...2 years ago
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Guinness Nitrosurge Device - Does it work? - Guinness sent this little gizmo to me along with two cans and a glass. I attended a zoom demo and then later tried it myself and made a video which I'...2 years ago
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PETER WALKER & SONS : PALE ALE 1930 - How Do All , Here`s a nice recipe for a PREMIUM Pale Ale from the noted Lancashire brewery of Peter Walker & Sons on Dallam Lane in Warrington , from t...2 years ago
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On writing, especially beer writing - Just write, gather and then scatter the words, like throwing seeds about on a field during the act of ploughing, a virtuous Piers-like act that is labour...2 years ago
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Burwell Brewery – “Judy’s Hole” - Burwell Brewery – “Judy’s Hole”. Spotted by @LouiseReeve13 years ago
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Cider with.....Ted and Janet - I don't know how we came to know Ted Jones and his wife Janet. It is almost certain, I think, that the introductions were made by the late Rhys Jones (no...3 years ago
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Living with cancer, chemo, lockdown and work - Moving from a position of being self-employed to working for someone else is something of an adjustment. Going from having control and responsibility of ab...3 years ago
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A Tale Of Two Weekends - The never ending tour of Manchester continues. With a lot of places either still closed completely or not opening early in the week, it's easier to do a ...3 years ago
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The Lockdown Chronicles #4 - Hundreds of destitute landlords across the uk are calling for the government to not have a #NationalTimeOut on rents for the hospitality industry as they d...3 years ago
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Salt Ikat - Not can conditioned Salt Ikat [baron rating 5/5] - 8% hazy orange ale,herbal banana smell,intense fruity pithy orange tropical bitter taste,sweet dry finis...3 years ago
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Hard Brewing Times in an Age of Coronavirus - “Part 1” (all disclaimers in that piece apply to this piece too) Such is the state of flux that Covid-19 is having that between the time the working day in...4 years ago
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Brown Cow – Ancoats - Corner of Butler Street and Woodward Street Ancoats. How now Brown Cow? No Brown Cow now. Tanning studio, former organic goods store and one stop shop now....4 years ago
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Remembering Alan Winfield - Remembering Alan Winfield I'm sorry to have to publish this, but unfortunately Alan passed away on Friday 27th July at 11:25am after his 8 month battle wi...5 years ago
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Pubpaper 886 – Festive Pub Time - I hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year and got to visit all the pubs you wanted to and sample all the beers your taste buds desired. Looking at ...7 years ago
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Drop Forge, Greenside Street - Drop Forge, Greenside Street, Openshaw. (c) D.N. at ManMates Facebook.8 years ago
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Notes From Home - Part IV - *- The Lamb and Fountain (aka Mother’s)* 57 Castle Street, Frome, BA11 B3W * S*o much a part of the cultural heritage of Frome that long term landlady ...10 years ago
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Other blogs of interest
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To kill or not to kill - Reasons to euthanise the dog – Reasons NOT to euthanise the dog – I’m much too fucking soft.5 hours ago
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Why Are We Importing Trouble? - A *Muslim teaching assistant* who claimed that *being given the Christmas Grinch prize at a staff award ceremony amounted to religious discrimination* ha...7 hours ago
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Three Body Problem - *The three-body problem is a fascinating conundrum that defies total explanation. And no, I'm not referring to the time when I got drunk and was discover...8 hours ago
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So, who are the wealthy who must be taxed? - Over and above the usual answer of those who have £5 more than the person being asked of course. One is that you can save a lot. Your proportion of volun...9 hours ago
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Midweek 24th April 2024 - The BBC has demonstrated its ‘anti English bias clearly today . St George’s’ day ? Really ? Compare with the other nations of the UK ….. clearly the BBC ha...21 hours ago
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Forest office site goes smoke free - *Twenty years ago Forest moved from a leased office in London to a substantially cheaper serviced office in Cambridge.* In January, as I explained here, ...1 day ago
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Ship to shore – new solutions for getting troops onto the beach - In January 2023 the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) launched the Novel Amphibious Craft competition as a prelude to replacing the Royal Marines’ ...1 day ago
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Forbidden Bible Verses — Genesis 10:13-20 - The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture. Yet, it doesn’t tell the w...1 day ago
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Barclays Bank - Cunts. Okay, let me clarify. Yesterday I bought a motorcycle. This beauty is a direct replacement for my 2018 Z900RS. Normally, I don’t buy privately, [...]1 day ago
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61 billion reasons to hope - That’s the size of the aid package for the Ukraine that the US Congress has finally approved after six months of dithering. It would be easy to ascribe the...2 days ago
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And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from nationalism - The roots of recent events go far back. The SNP changed when it first gained power in 2007 and even more when it gained a majority in 2011. But it chang...
3 days ago -
Nanny Bans Jewish Looking People - Nanny's chums in the Met (a police force that most certainly doesn't conduct "two tier policing") decided to impede a man's progress on the street b...
5 days ago -
Libertarian prohibitionists - you've heard it all now - I wasn't going to write about the tobacco ban again for a while, but the ludicrous spectacle of prohibitionists purporting to be champions of liberty has s...
6 days ago -
Despair - construction consenting edition - Kainga Ora is the government's house building agency. It's been building a lot of social housing. Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting aut...6 days ago
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Eclipse! - Well, it’s been a while since the last post. I’ve had follow up scans and there’s no sign of any new kidney stones so that’s all over for now. I was at my ...3 weeks ago
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More Projection Than The Local Odeon.... - Looks like crime's so low in the People's Republic of Caledonia that the McFilth have had to resort to policing hypothetical crime: Police have been accu...4 weeks ago
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Let’s just defund the UN and leave it immediately - Hidden deep below the headquarters of the United Nations’ aid agency for Palestinians here is a Hamas complex with rows of computer servers that Israel’s...2 months ago
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Frank Davis- Two years down the line. - Frank – Christopher Francis – Davis died two years ago. He is not forgotten. His interests – sometimes passions – are recorded here on his website. The bus...6 months ago
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Lionising the lionesses - Football has kept me sane during a difficult part of my life. There have been weeks in the past two years when the only place I’ve left my home to visit ha...8 months ago
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Mark would have loved this - I think - 'where does money come from' - From the Cobden Centre https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cSyctENy3A&t=81s8 months ago
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Rage-Driven Tobacco Control Industry Stupidity Explained In One Tweet - It was once explained to me that there are thousands of students who start off aspiring to be doctors. Those not clever enough to become doctors drift in...
1 year ago -
Reuters Supports Climate Change Partisan; Why, And Is Coverage Compromised? - Wintonsblog Posted in Politics Reuters Supports Climate Change Partisan; Why, And Is Coverage Compromised? “Since when did Reuters require an outside or...1 year ago
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Parliamentary NIMBYs in action: report on a depressing debate - Parliament held a 30-minute debate about housing targets and the planning system moved by Gordon Henderson, MP for Sittingbourne & Sheppey. It will come a...1 year ago
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Outta here… - As promised, I’ll no longer be updating this site. My new stuff will all be published at https://aljahom.substack.com Please do subscribe over there to get...2 years ago
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Alcohol labelling and rationality - The Sun reported yesterday that public health ‘nannies’ are planning on introducing calorie labelling on alcoholics drinks, including in pubs, bars and r...3 years ago
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Is the party over? - Following Paul Nuttall’s failure to win the Stoke-on-Trent Central by-election, the future of UKIP as a party has been called into question. Surely, if i...7 years ago
Urban life and exploration
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Another April Assortment - *April 2024 seems to have developed a liking for double-header blog postings. With Perton and Pensnett already accounted for, I'll now combine two more out...4 days ago
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Toys Were Us – Milton Keynes - As seen on my list in 2018. While originally considered a category killer, the rise of mass merchants and online retailers cost Toys “R” Us its share of th...6 days ago
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In Pictures: Stockport’s New Bus Interchange - State-of-the-art transport interchange quantum leap on 1980 predecessor This Sunday saw the opening of Stockport’s bus and coach interchange. Situated on t...5 weeks ago
A Martin Scriblerus Blog
What's this all about?
See here for some background information on the thinking behind this blog.
Samples of beer and cider and review copies of relevant books will be gratefully received – e-mail me for address details.
To contact me directly, please send me an e-mail.
You can also follow me on Twitter at @oldmudgie.
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If you have a blog that links to this, and is at least vaguely on a political or beer-related theme, drop me a line and I'll add it to my blog list, even if I don't agree with you on everything.
Fellow Curmudgeons
Blog Archive
Links
- Alliance of British Drivers
- Beer and Pubs Forum
- Big Brother Watch
- British Beer and Pub Association
- British Weights and Measures Association
- Campaign for Real Ale
- Countryside Alliance
- Cyclops - beer tasting notes
- Daily Mash
- Directory of Draught Bass outlets
- Drinks Retailing News
- Dugs'n'Pubs
- FairFuel UK
- Fleurets - licensed trade estate agents
- Independent Family Brewers of Britain
- List of Wetherspoon Pubs
- Map of Samuel Smith's pub locations
- Morning Advertiser
- National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors
- Pub Cats
- Pub Curmudgeon website
- Pub Trails
- Pubs Galore
- R U Pissed?
- Sense on Drink-Driving
- Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood
- Society of Independent Brewers
- Sp!ked
- Stockport & South Manchester CAMRA
- Straight Statistics
- TaxPayers' Alliance
- The Conservative Woman
- The Country Squire
- The Free Society
- What Pub?
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