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A jaundiced view of life from the darkest recess of the saloon bar...
Beer and Pubs Forum
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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 Cricketers - The Cricketers, Kennington, London An inter-wars pub in the shadow of the Oval cricket ground that appears to have been built at the same time as the su...
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The All Nations - *The All Nations, Madeley, Shropshire TF7 5DP* One of the original four home-brew pubs that survived into the 1970s, tucked away in a rural backwater ne...
5 years ago
Selected beer and pub blogs (may contain nuts)
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FINALLY ! A GOOD LANDLORD - December 2024. Milton. Happy Retired Martin Day. On Tuesday I failed to get to London to celebrate Mrs Retired Martin Day, and was attempting to get home t...2 hours ago
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News, nuggets and longreads 21 December 2024: The Parallax View - Here’s all the writing about beer and pubs that grabbed our attention in the past week, from Samuel Smith to red hot pokers. First, some news that’s crea...1 day ago
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New Brighton - I apologise for the gap in blog entries, pub guide research has taken a back seat behind Christmas get-togethers, trips away, and a nasty cold. Rest ass...1 day ago
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Swan at West Peckham off to a good start - Regular readers may remember a post I wrote at the beginning of *November,* concerning the *Swan*, in the village of *West Peckham.* The post describes h...1 day ago
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BRAPA in .... A GAME OF TWO HALVES AND SEVEN PINTS IN LONDON (W9 to E17) - Saturday 23rd November 2024 BRAPA F.C. are away at the London City Casuals, always a tough place to go and get a result. Daddy BRAPA...1 day ago
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Fresh solace - The craft beer goldrush is long over but nobody seems to have told the supermarkets. You can still get a reasonable selection of small-batch beers in most ...2 days ago
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These Be The Week Before Christmas Mailed In But Merry Beery News Notes - Well, they would be mailed-in if we hadn’t had a postal strike here in Canada. My Christmas cards are in limbo. Parcels replaced with e-cards. How unjolly....3 days ago
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Real Ale, Real Music's Best Beer and Pubs Of 2024.... - *Here's my own personal round-up of the best beers, breweries, and pubs I have encountered over the past 12 months....* It doesn't seem 12 months since...3 days ago
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London - A Small Cask Snapshot - I was in London last week for a few days and decided on a whim to have one entire day - or thereabouts - just drinking cask. "Unwise" I hear you say and ...3 days ago
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Ghosts of Christmasses Pasts - Were the ghost of Marley to visit me in the night to deliver one of his pre-Christmas 'change your ways' diatribes, I think I have a fair idea of what he...4 days ago
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WWW 2024: East is East - Here’s the third round-up (of five) of pubs from this year’s Winter Warmer Wander, Stockport & South Manchester CAMRA’s annual celebration of dark, strong ...4 days ago
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17/12/24 - The Old Swan, Minster Lovell - Myths and Ruins Why walk along the River Windrush, when you can walk in it? The aftermath of Storm Darragh in full evidence on this short walk that packs pl...5 days ago
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I'm Sorry, But I Don't Need Your Services Yet. - The Earl Grey: a lost pub in Gorleston, Norfolk.1 week ago
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November: Inside the Gipsy Hill Deal, Old-School US Craft and Boozing in EC1 - Gipsy Wedding It comes down to kegs, Sam McMeekin says. In an era of spiralling costs and deep-pocketed big-brewery rivals, kegs provide the simplest expla...1 week ago
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Giants and Woodmen - Cerne Abbas and Bridport - I'm afraid that my dedication to the blog and all things pub has trailed off at the end of 2024. "Stuff" has gotten in the way, as it does occasionally. ...1 week ago
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Restricted sizes of drinks - Hello again I wanted to find out what you readers think about many pubs and bars - especially ones part of a chain - refusal to serve beers of ...1 week ago
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Winter Warmer Wanderings - I completed Winter Warmer Wander, Stockport and South Manchester CAMRA's annual celebration of strong ales, stouts and festive beers, somewhat ahead of s...2 weeks ago
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Thomas Hardy: My Part in his Downfall - *I was going to use Return of the Native for the title of this post but I'm so slow other people have got there before me. *I don't know what the book's ...2 weeks ago
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Beer in the Bul - Istanbul that is. A city of more than 15 million people, a million of whom are taxi drivers (officially 45,786). The population has doubled since now Presi...2 weeks ago
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Pottering In The Potteries! #900 Up In Fenton - I’ve given up trying to work out if pubs are in Newcastle Under Lyme, one of the six towns, or another suburb in Stoke, or just a pub selling good value Ba...2 weeks ago
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Consumer Reports Ranks Beers, 1946 - Consumer Reports magazine in March 1946 provided a report on American beers, a standout early document for the assessment of American beer flavour and qual...3 weeks ago
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The Harp - Playa Blanca, Canary Islands: Another large seafront Irish pub like The Irish Anvil. Noy much different, but we preferred the latter.3 weeks ago
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Harrogate Pubs - This trip was pencilled in months ago, when the cup draw was made. I knew... The post Harrogate Pubs appeared first on Jane Stuart - Writer.5 weeks ago
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Trouble brewing for independents - Sitting at the bar in my local pub, the Great Northern Railway Tavern, earlier in the year, I noticed the regular guest lager produced by the brewery I co-...5 weeks ago
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Art Deco Pubs in the UK, Part 3: The Suburbs - This third and final part of the series about art deco pubs covers those in the suburbs of British towns and cities. For a general introduction looking a...1 month ago
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Garden Hermit Goes...To The Village Pub... - * ...The Black Horse, West Tytherley, Hampshire.* This could be a sub-series of 'Garden Hermit Goes...' blog posts, the number of which is unknown. It ...1 month ago
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No, the ‘Hymn to Ninkasi’ is NOT a recipe for making Sumerian beer - It’s a claim you will find repeated in dozens – possibly hundreds – of places: that the so-called “Hymn to Ninkasi”, a poem in the Sumerian language to t...2 months ago
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The Imperfect Individual Speaks - Had an insightful conversation with David about his book, The Imperfect Individual. We discussed the challenges of being a first-time author, the core th...3 months ago
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Decocting an Idea - At the beginning of this year, I made myself a couple of promises when is comes to my homebrew. Firstly I committing to brewing with Murphy & Rude malts ...3 months ago
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Now & Then, the Uplands Tavern, Swansea - The Uplands Hotel, Swansea has expanded into a neighbouring building since this picture was taken in the 1950s when it was a pub owned by Evan Evans Be...6 months ago
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WHEN CELEBRITIES DIE - THE INFINITY OF PUBS - Recently I was stood outside Huddersfield Railway Station waiting for my Replacement Bus Service. I was eating much needed food from a nearby fast ...6 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 ...1 year 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...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...2 years 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...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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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'...3 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...3 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...3 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...4 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 ...4 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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Evil and Supermarkets on Smithdown - Working in Liverpool means that people assume you’re an expert on the whole city’s beer, when in fact I tend to rattle around the same city centre sites. N...4 years ago
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THE PEOPLE YOU MEET AT A BEER FESTIVAL - Yesterday Mrs Ken and I attended the CAMRA Winter Beer Festival in Birmingham. Arriving in New Street Station, which is basically a huge shopping mall wit...4 years ago
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National Bass Day 2020 - Go in to a pub, any pub. The chances are there will be a Bass mirror on the wall. Many thousands of them across the country pay homage to one of the world’...4 years ago
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Favourite Bars of the Last Decade - No unnecessary preamble; this particular stuff requires no explanation. *LONDON* Favourite Bar - *Town of Ramsgate - *the most atmospheric of the many...4 years ago
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The Gamecock – Hulme - Booth Street West – Boundary Lane Hulme Manchester M15 6GE Manchester Local Image Collection 1964 the old Hulme, the old Hulme of tight dense dark terraces...5 years ago
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Magic Rock Fantasma - Not can conditioned Magic Rock Fantasma [baron rating 3/5] - 6.5% hazy gold ale,pithy smell,herbal biscuity bitter taste,thin herbal bitter finish Baron ...5 years ago
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BeerDredge - I've got a new website! Anything new will now be posted to www.beerdredge.com. You can also read more about my books, my work and there's an updated blog...5 years ago
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The Thorny Question - Dusty A few weeks back I went into one of Preston's ever-increasing number of micropubs. Usually this place stocks the uber-awesome beers from uber-aweso...6 years ago
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Letting go - It is often difficult to accept defeat. Indeed, when one has been working on something for a long time it can be almost impossible to actually make that fi...6 years ago
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My Top Five Pubs - This will be my last post. *Canterbury* *Royal Dragoon* Photo Taken by Alan Winfield My 500th pub and a great Shepherd Neame tied house with a great dri...6 years ago
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Twitter Outraged Again. - Twitter has once again confirmed it's the one and only place to vent your vitriolic hate of success again as news that the crafty beer worlds worst kept se...6 years ago
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Getting what you pay for - It's good to see some talk about class and price in craft beer coming up again. For all that pricing issues generate endless bickering, it's a subject th...6 years ago
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Craft Beer FUBU - or - Why People Get Upset When Breweries Get Sold - I haven't blogged properly in a while (ha! "a while"), largely because I haven't had anything constructive to say. That doesn't stop many bloggers, but I r...7 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 ...11 years ago
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Other blogs of interest
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Disturbance - *However, as it generally happens that those, who have had many experiences, vacillate, so long as they regard a thing as future or past, and are usually...1 hour ago
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Snigger - I have been feeling averse to Sir Keir Starmer for a while now. He has the look of a chippy and disingenuous car park attendant who cannot quite cope wit...2 hours ago
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Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year C — exegesis on the Epistle, Hebrews 10:5-10 - The Fourth Sunday of Advent — the final one before Christmas — is December 22, 2024. Readings for Year C can be found here. My exegesis for the Gospel, Luk...13 hours ago
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Dark thoughts - I am just a little pissed off. For the last few days I have been attempting unsuccessfully to get this damned laptop to work. On the plus side it is blazin...21 hours ago
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Weekend 21st December 2024 - The traditional time for bad news to be announced as the political class takes another holiday …..1 day ago
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President Farage, anyone? - Nigel Farage is cut out of higher-grade human material than the other leaders of our parliamentary parties. Compared to him, Kemi Badenoch comes across as ...1 day ago
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Moderate drinking continues to be good for you - Ongoing attempts to erase the health benefits of moderate drinking have suffered a setback in the USA. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, a...
3 days ago -
Death of the corporate Christmas card - *For years we used to design and print our own Forest Christmas card.* One year it featured Santa Claus smoking a cigar in a garden shed. The next he was...4 days ago
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Waitrose Scotland Bans Sale of Xmas Puds Before 10AM - Waitrose shoppers in Scotland have been prevented from buying Christmas puddings and other festive treats containing alcohol before 10am due to the c...
4 days ago -
The Royal Navy’s fading presence in the Middle East - Until recently, the RN maintained a meaningful force of at least 6 ships based in Bahrain. For a variety of reasons, this force may soon just comprise of...6 days ago
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On Nature - *Beautiful Bird, You Have Escaped the Eternal Struggle. No More Pain. Rest Easy, My Little Friend * Several months ago, I wrote about an enterprising pa...
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1 week ago -
Misuse of land use planning - If you thought McDonald's was some kind of public health hazard, using processes under the Resource Management Act to try to block one from opening in Wa...3 weeks ago
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The Fart of Doom - Okay. First of all, I don’t believe the Arla dairy company is involved in the whole ‘population reduction’ game. I don’t see any reason why a big company w...3 weeks ago
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Trump Triumph Will Shake Media, Democrat Party To The Core, And Then Some - Wintonsblog Posted in Politics The Democrats face oblivion if they don’t shake off the current dominance by socialist extremists Southport, North Ca...5 weeks ago
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Trump's Highland Charge - There is a tendency in certain Scottish nationalist circles to obsess about the Scottishness of vegetables. If a bag of potatoes fails to have a Scottis...
1 month ago -
Frank Davis – another year gone. - Frank moved on – around this time – three years ago. To a better place, I hope; quieter perhaps. How he would survey the wreckage that surrounds us is not ...2 months 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...8 months 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...10 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...1 year 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=81s1 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...2 years 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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Thinking beyond a spectrum of alcohol use - It’s January, so I shouldn’t really be surprised there seem to be a lot of stories about alcohol in the press and online. The particular one that’s caugh...
4 years ago -
Humanity Is No Longer A Priority For the NHS - If you wanted evidence that humanity has departed from the NHS in favour of elitist zealotry and pointless ignorant bullying, you couldn't find a better e...4 years ago
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Taking back the mile - One of the depressing aspects of life over the past few decades has been the steady replacement of comfortable, familiar British measurements with the co...
8 years ago
Urban life and exploration
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The Hub Marketing Christmas 2024 - *It seems an eternity since the Hub Marketing Board last staged one of our exploring sessions, what with the Waddle of Worcester back in early August bei...1 week ago
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Walking – Talking - I began walking when quite young, then like Felix, I kept on walking, walking still. The photograph was taking during the Whit Walks in 1958 – aged three, ...1 week 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...9 months 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.
Any proposals of marriage will be given serious consideration - there must be some cash-strapped drunk cat ladies out there!
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
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▼
2011
(294)
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▼
July
(35)
- Pubs Then & Now
- Not for girls?
- Thwaites on the move?
- Sales decline slows
- Indian Summer
- Mothers’ Union
- George the Last
- Off-grid drinking
- Pointing skywards
- Non-smokers’ survey – the results
- House of many rooms
- A self-enforcing law?
- Department of non-joined-up thinking
- Sports Personality of the Year
- Ordered to break the law
- Wedding crackers
- Strong outbreak of apathy
- Reopening the Gateway
- Bloggers’ delight
- Falling on stony ground?
- Taxed to death
- Non-smokers’ survey
- Striking a pose
- Smokers’ survey – the results
- A weak argument
- The 50 best beers?
- Do as we say, not as we do
- A touch of class
- Bottling a premium
- Smokers' survey
- A fair-weather business
- Local character
- Cig war won, on to beer
- Trial of strength
- None so blind
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▼
July
(35)
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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