The government have announced that the £2 cap on bus fares in England is going to be extended until the end of June. Some eyebrows may have been raised at the effusive welcome CAMRA gave to this policy, which they had strongly urged their members to support.
Chairman Nik Antona said:
“Cheaper bus fares are great news for the beer and pub trade, making it affordable for people to go out to visit their locals.
“Extending the £2 bus fare scheme for England is something that we had called on Transport ministers to do so that pubs, social clubs, breweries and cider producers grappling with the cost-of-business crisis can benefit from people being able to get to the pub in an affordable and environmentally friendly way.”
Whether or not it is a desirable policy is debatable. But is it really CAMRA’s role to be campaigning for generalised subsidies to public transport? It comes across as stepping outside its campaigning objectives. Yes, it may bring some benefit to pubs, although probably less than might be imagined, but that’s only a tangential effect. It would be just as logical to campaign for a cap on taxi fares, or funding research into self-driving cars.
It probably has a lot to do with the long-standing overlap between CAMRA members and public transport enthusiasts. At one point CAMRA did set up a national public transport campaign group, although mention of it seems to have disappeared from their public website. Many taxpayers on modest incomes may well question whether it is a good use of public funds to subsidise people to go to the pub.
No doubt someone will pipe up that it will act as a deterrent to drink-driving, but in reality the idea that a higher bus fare will tempt someone to offend isn’t really credible. This is akin to the suggestion that is sometimes heard of linking drink-driving with high soft drink prices.
Public transport subsidies are not a no-brainer – it is a matter of legitimate political debate as to whether they provide a worthwhile return to the taxpayer. Given this, even if they do tempt a few more customers to visit pubs, to actively support them is exceeding CAMRA’s remit. It should go no further than observing that they may be helpful to some pubgoers.
Earlier this month, the local branch of CAMRA held its annual Good Beer Guide selection meeting in the upstairs room of the Magnet pub in Stockport. It was a very well-attended meeting, but on top of this the pub downstairs was rammed too. The pub themselves said that they had seen their busiest January for years, and this was continuing into February. Hopefully at least part of the motivation for this was a desire to put two fingers up to “Dry January”.
The Magnet is a pub that does what it sets out to do very well and is justifiably popular. On that particular Thursday evening it might well have been the busiest pub in Stockport town centre. But this clearly demonstrates that, despite all the hand-wringing about the cost-of-living crisis, there are still plenty of people around with money to spend in pubs. This is borne out by the Morning Advertiser, which reports that“The majority of operators I’ve spoken to have reported stronger than expected sales in January, with customers continuing to visit and spend well.”
I’m well aware that my pattern of pubgoing is hardly representative, but in the year so far I’ve visited a wide cross-section of pubs and seen levels of trade ranging from being the sole customer through nicely ticking over to standing room only. It seems no different from how it was pre-Covid. The one pub where I was the only customer was one that I’m confident would have been busy at other times*. Unsurprisingly, two of the busiest ones were branches of Wetherspoon’s.
I’m not denying for a minute that there are many people who are finding things a struggle at present, but equally there are lots who aren’t. Apparently foreign holiday bookings have exceeded the 2019 level. There is plenty of money out there to be spent, and pubs do themselves no favours by overdoing the doom and gloom.
* ironically, this one served me probably my best pint of the year so far
Simon Everitt recently spotted this sign on his GBG ticking travels in the Split Chimp micropub in Whitley Bay, Northumberland. It comes across as remarkably prissy, it can’t practically be enforced, and it’s frankly unrealistic to expect customers to adhere to it. I have heard of people deliberately arranging their routines so that they can perform their bowel movements in Wetherspoon’s, but surely if someone needs one while visiting a micropub it’s not something they had planned and they don’t have that much control over the timing.
It also illustrates a wider problem with the single-WC pub or bar, which has become much more common with the rise of micropubs and other shop conversions in recent years. When I was at school I vaguely remember studying Queuing Theory in Maths. I’ve forgotten most of it, but one bit that did stick was that reducing the number of outlets would have a much greater impact on the maximum queuing time than the average.
While I wouldn’t go so far as to want it banned under planning regulations, as a point of principle I won’t give my custom to any bar with a single WC. The tiny Circus Tavern in Manchester city centre manages to provide separate ladies’ and gents’ toilets, with a trap and a couple of urinals in the gents’, so why should they be any different? This is not a question of toilets being unisex (that’s a separate issue), but of the overall level of provision being seriously inadequate.
I have been told that planning rules state that, if you want to provide more than a single WC, one of them has be accessible to the disabled, which is reasonable enough in theory, but in practice may deter, or physically prevent, bar owners from expanding provision even if they feel it’s insufficient. The best becomes the enemy of the good.
On the other hand, of course, the much-derided Wetherspoon’s are noted for their ample toilet provision, although it can be something of a hike to get there. Plus they win numerous awards for toilet hygiene.
Back in December 2021, I reported on how New Zealand was planning to introduce a kind of creeping prohibition of tobacco, with the legal purchase age being increase by one year every year. Given that tobacco is a legal product that is enjoyed by a large number of people, this is an utterly abhorrent and illiberal measure. Yes, it carries health risks, but every adult must be aware of that, and the same applies to plenty of other things people do. Also, given that smoking in public places has already been effectively denormalised already, it’s unlikely to be much of a deterrent. The main effect is likely to be handing over government revenue to the black market. It might have been thought that the departure of Jacinda Ardern might prompt a rethink, but given that her successor is someone who said that the unvaccinated should be “hunted down” that’s probably unlikely.
Now, Labour’s health spokesperson Wes Streeting has proposed that the same should be done in UK. Exactly the same issues apply – it is objectionable in principle and is likely to be impractical and problematic in operation. It will also give small shopkeepers the problem of having to establish people’s age at an ever-increasing level, unless of course they follow New Zealand’s example and restrict to tobacco sales to a small number of approved outlets, thus destroying many independent businesses.
Maybe this will never happen, but it underlines that, when it comes to lifestyle issues, whether tobacco, alcohol, food or gambling, Labour hardly has a single libertarian bone in its body. Their thoughts naturally turn to regulation, restriction, taxation and ultimately prohibition. And, while it’s obviously a legitimate position to vote in a way that goes against your personal interests, anyone imagining that a future Labour government will be good news for the pub and brewing industries in the UK, or for the consumer of alcoholic drinks, is likely to be sorely disappointed.
Yet, at the same time, former leader Ed Miliband has stated that a Labour government would be open to the legalisation of cannabis. There’s certainly a good case for this, but my support is hardly encouraged by the tendency of cannabis lobbyists to harp on about how it’s supposedly less harmful than alcohol, and states in the US that have legalised it have experienced very mixed results and completely failed to eliminate the black market. And it comes across as grossly hypocritical to seek to legalise one drug while at the same time prohibiting another, especially when in practice the two are often mixed together.
Presumably the motivation behind this is that one is fashionable, while the other isn’t, but it hardly comes across as intellectually consistent policy. It brings to mind the report I saw* that the US state of Colorado, one of the most right-on in the country, had made it illegal for employers to discriminate against cannabis users, but not tobacco users.
And of course nothing similar is ever going to be applied to alcohol, is it?
* I have definitely read this, although I don’t have a source for it.
It was reported recently that Guinness had overtaken Carling* to become, for the first time, the best-selling beer brand in the UK. The makers of Carling were quick to point out that they were still selling more in volume terms, but of course this is an admission that Guinness, which is only 0.1% ABV stronger, was achieving a price premium over them.
One of the reasons behind this is that Diageo, the owners of Guinness, have over the years been very assiduous in protecting and developing the image of their product. They have linked it to sport, particularly Rugby Union, they have stressed its Irish heritage and they have protected its position as a premium product by doing their best to avoid deep discounting. They have successfully avoided any connotations of it being an old man’s drink, despite flying in the face of modern trends by being a dark beer, and they have come up with some of the most memorable and iconic advertising of any alcohol brand.
Possibly this is helped by the fact that Guinness is the only major beer brand in Diageo’s portfolio, so they can concentrate single-mindedly on it, whereas if it belonged to a brewing conglomerate attention might be diluted. This can be compared with Stella Artois, which in the 1980s enjoyed a similar position as a respected premium product, but where the brand equity has steadily been undermined by its owners through cheapening the recipe and reducing the strength, to the extent that it is just another commodity product today.
The result is that Guinness, more than any other mass-market beer, is seen as being a cool product in pubs and bars, and very much something they have to stock. In a group of people, the choice of where to go may well be determined by the Guinness drinker objecting to the place that doesn’t stock it, just as the cask drinker would. Any pub not offering Guinness will have to contend with the problem of people asking for it by name, and then having to explain “we have XXX stout, which we think is better”, just as other cola brands had to cope with customers asking for Coke. Anyone remember “It’s McDonald’s cola, is that OK?”
This means that trying to compete with Guinness is an uphill struggle. If you are a brewer with your own pub estate, you have a captive market, and Sam Smith’s have produced their own Extra Stout for years, which many people view as superior to Guinness. Holt’s have recently emulated them with Trailblazer Stout. They have also replaced all mass-market lagers with their own products. And BrewDog have recently launched their own Black Heart stout which no doubt will find favour in craft-oriented bars. But if you’re a pubco or free trader with no brewery links, ditching Guinness may seem a foolhardy move.
Guinness is often defeated by competitor products in blindfolded taste tests, such as this one carried out by Holt’s for Trailblazer. The same was true of Coke vs Pepsi. But in fact in a blind test people tend to pick out the option with the strongest flavour, which isn’t necessarily reflected in decisions across the bar. In fact, one of Guinness’s key attractions is that it is relatively bland and inoffensive, so it doesn’t put too many people off. The same is true of top-selling brands of any products. Competitor stouts tend to emphasise the roastiness more, which may appeal to beer aficionados, but is likely to deter many mainstream drinkers. I have to say I’m not really a fan of roasty beers and, while I like dark mellow ales, I tend to steer clear of cask stouts for that reason.
Possibly this news also says something about the health of the lager market. Some people have speculated that, just as bitter superseded mild as the leading beer, and lager in its turn superseded bitter, something else will eventually take over from lager. In reality, I don’t really see this happening. These changes occurred in an insular British beer market, whereas pale lager has become the default beer worldwide. In a sense, Britain was just belatedly catching up with the rest of world.
But there’s no denying that the lager sector is looking distinctly tired. The concocted Spanish lager Madri looks less like a brilliant innovation and more like a last desperate throw of the dice. Part of the problem is that the vast majority of the established lager brands are lacklustre products that for whatever reason don’t live up to the original beers they’re based on. They’re increasingly seen as just interchangeable commodity brands. The one exception is Peroni, which is intrinsically a pretty good beer and where the brand owners seem to have taken a leaf out of Guinness’s strategy book. And maybe what the sector needs is for the existing brands to be cherished on a long-term bases rather than constantly looking for a new gimmick.
* It would be interesting to know what Carling itself superseded in the 70s or 80s
"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)
The Fox and Hounds
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The Fox and Hounds, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire
A typical Northamptonshire ironstone building with a steeply-pitched roof,
situatedon the north sid...
The Olde Cottage
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*The Olde Cottage, Chester CH1 3DZ*
Although now bypassed by Hoole Way, Brook Street remains a busy
thoroughfare with a variety of restaurants, takeaway...
And what else?
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Continuing from yesterday, my run-down of the beers I drank at the Belgian
Beer Weekend festival in Brussels last month.
Early on, I spotted a new entrant ...
THE PARLIAMENTARY TRAIN TO BRIGG
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September 2023. Brigg. 2.5 hours in Brigg ? That’ll be seven (7) posts
then. On the Thursday I took Dad for a drive round the lesser-visited Fen
east of El...
How ‘conservative coded’ is cask ale?
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Is cask ale right wing, left wing, both, or neither? Is cask, in American
terms, ‘conservative coded’? It’s complicated. Last week a row blew up when
an ...
BRAPA MONTH END REVIEW - SEPTEMBER 2023
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Good evening! I don't say it often enough, because it doesn't happen often
enough, but that feeling of 'making genuine progress' is one...
Here’s the 2024 Good Beer Guide
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As Retired Martin has already commented, it’s one of the best days of the
year when the new Good Beer Guide drops through the letterbox. It’s a cue
for hou...
Hebden Bridge Pubs
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Dear reader, I’ve found a new beer friend, Kerry. Today was to be our
first...
The post Hebden Bridge Pubs appeared first on Jane Stuart - Writer.
30/09/23 - The Plough at Ford, Gloucestershire
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Who would have guessed what my First Good Beer Guide Pint for the 2024
Edition was?
No UK based walking blogs for a few weeks. We've been rambling in Portu...
Revisit: The Lazy Hill Tavern [Ale Pub and Kitchen]
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Aldridge: Original post here Whatpub Link Website It’s been a while since
we went here, and it’s changed a fair bit, it’s become a Desi Pub, and a
quick po...
Rainy Days And Sun Days....
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*A return to one of my favourite parts of the country, which included
visiting a number of my favourite pubs and because of the weather, not much
else. S...
Taw Valley Brewery
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Back in Devon, this time pretty much slap-bang in the middle of the county
in the small town of *North Tawton*.
I was aiming for a Beer Guide pub and a ru...
A short history of the King’s Walden brewery
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Frederick William Fellowes was born in Beighton, between Norwich and
Yarmouth in Norfolk, in 1856, one of the 10 children of the Reverend Thomas
Lyon Fel...
Small is Beautiful The End
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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...
Minus One, Plus Two
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I headed into town to mop up a few targets in the London Road area,
starting with the Bullring:
This is a rather impressive high ceilinged room with skyl...
In defence of dynamic pricing
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Despite the extreme unexpected late-summer heat, I cycled across north
London to the BrewDog bar in Camden Town and bought a pint of much welcome
“Cold Bee...
It’s A Funny Old Game
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My annual summer jaunt to Oakham always gives me the opportunity to notch
up a couple of Leicestershire/Rutland boozers. The sort of pubs the Mark
Shirley ...
Book Review - Cask by Des De Moor
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The subject of cask conditioned beer is a complex and broad one and to
tackle it, Des De Moor has written a comprehensive and extensive book about
it. At...
Welcome to the Windsor beer (half!) mile
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“Where’s the local beer?” I half-jokingly asked my hosts at the Windsor (as
in Castle) office of a US tech company, as the day’s meetings finished and
th...
BV London Pub of the Year 2022-23 - the results
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What combines the anticipatory excitement of a gender-reveal party with the
hoppy aroma of a cool, fresh pint, and the excited anticipation of a
differen...
The State of RTE with Christian Morris
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The State of RTE with Christian Morris where we talk about the recent
Tubridy controversy, new Alt media, why RTE is so bad, the anti immigration
riots, ...
Cashing in on a crisis
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Self-styled man of the people Nigel Farage was in Downing Street last week,
along with colleagues from the right-wing TV channel GB News, to hand in a
pe...
Taking Up the Alworth #MyDreamBrewery Baton
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We've all done it I am sure, dreamt about what our ideal brewery or pub
would look like. I have done it many times, whether sat in a taproom with a
drink...
Translucent Style: Cut & Etched Glass in Pubs
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Click or tap to enlarge Cutting, etching and embossing glass was perfected
by the Victorians and put to excellent effect in many of the hundreds of
pubs ...
...Caravanning To (R)ookesbury Park
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*'ookesbury Park - didn't quite get the R in...*
Rookesbury Park is a private estate near Wickham in Hampshire, and on it,
hidden away in the woods, is...
True History Brewing and its Hefeweizen
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I don’t mention Hefeweizen that often, other than for historical
discussions. For those not familiar with it, Craft Beer has a good rundown.
First, I find ...
Visiting the Brewdogs in Berlin
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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...
Terroir - putting the locally sourced boot in
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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...
Reconnections
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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...
Paradise Garden
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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...
A night out in sunny Sheffield!
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Afternoon readers - long time no write I admit!
Yesterday was my day off and I decided to make my first ever trip to the
Itchy Pig up at Banner Cross - ...
Pinning for the Beer Hordes
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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...
BeerDredge Beer Flavour Wheels
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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...
Guinness Nitrosurge Device - Does it work?
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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'...
PETER WALKER & SONS : PALE ALE 1930
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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...
On writing, especially beer writing
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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...
Cider with.....Ted and Janet
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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...
Living with cancer, chemo, lockdown and work
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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...
A Tale Of Two Weekends
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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 ...
The Lockdown Chronicles #4
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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...
Hard Brewing Times in an Age of Coronavirus
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“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...
Brown Cow – Ancoats
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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....
Remembering Alan Winfield
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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...
Pubpaper 886 – Festive Pub Time
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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 ...
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
...
It's The Judge Who Needs A Wake Up Call,,,
-
..in fact, it's the entire justice system:
Grinning from ear to ear, this was *the reaction of a thug spared jail* for
stabbing a complete stranger momen...
From a press release
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Elle Brooke Interview: Piers Morgan ‘doubled her earnings overnight’;
Brooke confirms she was earning £30k a month before leaving Uni In an
exclusive int...
Afternoon roundup
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The tabs...
- Earthquake strengthening costs on one Wellington performance venue
have increased from $90m to $182m and now to $329m (Dom, Herald)....
Forbidden Bible Verses — Titus 1:5-9, part 1
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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...
A painful regret
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So they’re rolling out the Covid vaccine again. I have a violent reaction
to this jab – I’m likely to thump anyone who brings it near me, or at the
very ...
Where are the Britons of yesteryear?
-
This question springs from a melancholy observation: just about everyone in
the service sector seems to speak English as a second language. Many of
them ha...
Oh Dear, How Sad
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Shouldn’t have bought a stupid milk float then, should you. Marshals have
been brought in to police ‘charge rage’ between drivers of electric
vehicles at [...
Still here
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As in, still in hospital The operation was on Friday, the stone is gone and
so is the external bladder. However, it seems I acquired an infection
during th...
How is the sexual revolution working out for you?
-
For most of human history sex was carefully regulated. It might be argued
that this was because of religion making moral demands on people, but it
was...
Unsmoked out
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*Fair play to Philip Morris International.*
Despite lamentable viewing figures, they're still churning out videos for
their Unsmoke Your World YouTube ch...
Scaphism or Death by Boats
-
*Scaphism- Greek for boat*
The ancients were very adept at concocting particularly unwholesome means
of dispatch for their malcontents and criminals. Cru...
In defence of disposable vapes
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I've written a short briefing paper with Reem Ibrahim about the risks of
banning disposable vapes for the IEA. A few stats:
- 35 per cent of adult vap...
Dixon Shrugged
-
Say, did I miss anything?
Last time I checked Sunak was an empty suit and Starmer was a slippery
weasel sooo....guess not.
In fact, so useless are our...
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...
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...
Alcohol labelling and rationality
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The Sun reported yesterday that public health ‘nannies’ are planning on
introducing calorie labelling on alcoholics drinks, including in pubs, bars
and r...
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...
Seeking Beer Festival Salvation in Shrewsbury
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*Attending beer festivals seems to have become a quarterly occupation for
Nick and myself in 2023, in that we haven't done very many and those we did
sampl...
Spillers Mill Car Park
-
Tyne Mill is one of a trio of mills designed by Oscar Faber for Spillers
Ltd – the others are in Cardiff and Avonmouth and led to subsequent
commissions fr...
4 days 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.
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.