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With 20 minutes to kill, I wandered Cirencester only to find myself in Somewhere Else. It has a history as a pub (the Three Compasses, I think) but now looks like the lobby of a Hotel Ibis near an airport in some town heavily damaged in WW2–very modern with very modern body builder waiters in tight outfits…you’d think you were in some yuppy part of Frankfurt or Hamburg if they didn’t speak with so much effort to disguise the West Country accents. Bless.

I had a pint of Amstel and watched many large glasses of wine pass by. Everyone in there looked like they would smell like money but I couldn’t work up the nerve to do the experiment (I mentioned the waiters that look like bouncers, right?). Still, it is comfortable if not exactly pub-like.

It was while logging this entry that I noticed this was pub #1100. I don’t consciously try to make the multiples of 100 something special (and when I do put forth the effort, tend to fail) but this really would never have made the short list on merits of what you find on the web. To be fair, I have done a lot worse on this long crawl.

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[*kpw = kebab per week for 2013, as noted in an earlier post and the 19th entry for the 2013 Challenge]

Floating with a couple of beers and on a tight schedule for the bus, I dashed from the Golden Farm back to the Best Kebab, which was near the Bee’s Knees from whence this journey commenced. I’m not sure if it really is the best in Cirencester although it may be the only kebab place here.

The sizes were small, medium, and large so I got the small which would have fed two hungry adults or served as a snack to six. My ears still ring with parental admonitions to eat every bite before me though so guilt gluttony kicked in and I shovelled it all down. Not that this was a chore as it was quite tasty, too; I would easily have finished a medium and probably would have picked at the remains of a large if not hospitalised with a distended stomach from the effort. The lettuce and cabbage were crispy and crunchy, and the tomatoes burst forth with flavour despite the spicy and heavily garlicked chilli sauce. Addictive.

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I tried to follow the trail from the Bee’s Knees: blobs of flour and ‘checks’ (circles where decoy trails go in alternate directions to the ‘true trail’); but, alas the markings seemed incomprehensible to me — local traditions are something you just have to learn through hard graft.  But, I eventually did come across the Golden Farm, an exceptional old inn near the River Churn; more over, they had a tasty beverage with a pump clip that looks just like Fat Chix, a nefarious Tucson hasher (in keeping with the theme, this was my choice of refreshment).

 

It is a huge house and quite old but one large back room is entirely dedicated to billiards (with full size tables) and some of the drinking tables serve double duty as drafts/chess boards.  There is a huge beer garden wrapping from the front around to the south side.

Perhaps that was an old trail as I never spotted any obvious hashers at the pub (although there were a lot of likely candidates for walking trails — short trails, certainly, but the fellows around the bar looked like a hint of beer and sweaty females on offer would be all the incentive needed). I may be underestimating the effect of inertia, though.

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An early afternoon trot around Cirencester is always a welcome thing, especially when you get dropped off nearly in front of a pub as welcoming as the Bee’s Knees.  Traditional architecture and hospitality but with a healthy dose of modern “sport bar” fixtures — there was sumo wrestling on tele! — combined for a good first impression.  I got an Arkell 3B and headed out to the smoking garden (since the other few early customers were all out there hacking up lungs).

The best thing of all, as I left for the start of the run there were blobs of flour at the door from which I inferred that a Hash House Harriers trail had been laid there recently; with any luck, it would lead me to another pub…which, eventually it did.

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The move has dictated that I stay fairly close to home but now that we are settling in I took an opportunity to ride out to Lechlade with a friend from work that was stopping in at an off-license there that has the most amazing vegetables, meats, and cheeses (while selling the saddest selection of wines in miles).  I was catching the bus back into Swindon and he was heading on to Cheltenham so I jogged down to the Thames for my first new pub to add to this blog since the first week of January.

The Riverside Pub is a large inn with a dock, several reasonably priced rooms, and if the odours are any indication a marvelous kitchen.  I tried one of the Arkell’s Ball and Chain special edition beer commemorating the wedding of the brewer.  More floral than most of the Arkell’s line, I could get used to this if they opted to make it a permanent addition.

The landlord was affable and answered my question about flooding with a detailed and interesting (to me) explanation that this side of the Thames is 2 feet higher than the dead flat OTHER side so miles of it flooded without so much as a puddle encroaching on their decking.

I also spotted a car dealership advertising plate from Riverside Ford in Macon, Georgia (which is about a mile from my grandparents’ house).  A serviceman from there was stationed at the nearby Fairford RAF base and sent it over on his return home.  Nice.

 

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The previous post was better, but I wanted to showcase the screensavers pieced together by Squeezin’ (with my gratitude for these).  The pics, in order, are

Venue	Where	beer #
The Princess Hotel (done around 5 am New Year’s Day)	Swindon	1
The Bank House	Cheltenham	2
At the New Year’s Races in Cheltenham (watching my nag drag in)	Cheltenham	3
Midlands Hotel	Cheltenham	4
The Queen’s Tap	Swindon	5
The Four Candles	Oxford	6
The Turf Tavern (at the sign commemorating Clinton failing to inhale there)	Oxford	7
The White Horse	Oxford	8
O’Neill’s	Oxford	9
Ellington’s	Swindon	10
The Red Lion	Oxford	11
The Gloucester Arms	Oxford	12
Eurobar	Oxford	13
The Volunteer	Faringdon	14
The Red Lion	Faringdon	15
The Bell	Faringdon	16
The Lamb and Flag	Oxford	17
The Bird and Baby	Oxford	18
Far  The Madding Crowd	Oxford	19
Southbrook Inn	Swindon	20
The White Hart	Wolvercote, Oxfordshire	21
The Red Lion	Wolvercote, Oxfordshire	22
The Plough	Oxford	23
The Gardener’s Arms	Oxford	24
The Rose and Crown	Oxford	25
TP’s	Swindon	26
The De’s Cut	Oxford	27
The King and Queen	Longcot, Oxfordshire	28
The Woodman Inn	Fernham, Oxfordshire	29
The Eagle	Little Cocks Swell, Oxfordshire	30
The Wheatsheaf	Faringdon, Oxfordshire	31
Faringdon Folly	Faringdon, Oxfordshire	32
Salisbury Cathedral	Salisbury	33
The King’s Arms	Salisbury	34
The Old Castle Pub	Salisbury	35
The keep at Old Sarum	Salisbury	36
Wheatsheaf	Lower Woodford, Wiltshire	37
Bridge Inn	Upper Woodford, Wiltshire	38
Black Horse	Great Durnford, Wiltshire	39
Wilsford Cum Lake sign (heh, heh)	Wiltshire	40
Stonehenge (really a great disappointment)	Wiltshire	41
King’s Arms	Amesbury, Wiltshire	42
George Hotel	Amesbury, Wiltshire	43
New Inn	Amesbury, Wiltshire	44
The Greyhound	Amesbury, Wiltshire	45
Royal Oak	Oxford	46
The Red Lion	Marston, Oxfordshire	47
The Angel and Greyhound	Oxford	48
The University Club	Oxford	49
The GW Hotel	Swindon	50
Jude the Obscure	Oxford	51
The Victoria	Oxford	52
The Rickety Press	Oxford	53
Wahoo Sport Bar	Oxford	54
The Oxford Retreat	Oxford	55
The Grapes	Oxford	56
The Rolleston	Swindon	57
The Baker’s Arms	Swindon	58
The Dolphin	Swindon	59
Marsh Farm Hotel	Royal Wootton Bassett	60
The Cross Keys	Royal Wootton Bassett	61
The Old School	Oxford	62
The King’s Arms	Oxford	63
The Swan and Castle	Oxford	64
The Victoria Arms	Marston, Oxfordshire	65
The Black Swan	Abingdon, Oxfordshire	66
The Blue Boar	Abingdon, Oxfordshire	67
The Bowyer Arms	Radley, Oxfordshire	68
Zen Bar	Swindon	69
Sir Daniel Arms	Swindon	70
White Hart	Lyneham, Wiltshire	71
Sodom	Wiltshire	72
The Angel	Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire	73
Cape of Good Hope	Oxford	74
Rudi’s	Swindon	75
Burn’s Day Lunch (Haggis, Neeps, Tatties, Whisky, and 2 beers)	Oxford	76
Swindon Wildcats 3, Sheffield Steeldogs 4 (SO)	Swindon	77
The Longwall	Oxford	78
The Royal George	Purton, Wiltshire	79
Riff’s Bar	Greatfield, Wiltshire	80
Magic Roundabout	Swindon	81
The Three Tuns	Wroughton	82
The Havana	Swindon	83
The Lydiard	Swindon	84
The Savoy	Swindon	85
The Brewer’s Arms	Cirencester	86
The White Horse	Woolstone	87
The College Farm	Watchfield	88
The Horse and Jockey	Ashton Keynes, Gloucestershire	89
The Vale Hotel	Cricklade	90
Goldfinger Tavern	Highworth, Wiltshire	91
The Red Lion	Northmoor, Oxfordshire	92
The Bell Inn	Standlake, Oxfordshire	93
The Maybush	Newbridge, Oxfordshire	94
The Beehive (this is about 100 yards from the house we are moving to)	Swindon	95
Baker Street	Swindon	96
Steam Railway Company Pub	Swindon	97
The Pig on the Hill	Swindon	98
Long’s Bar	Swindon	99
near Parliament, with a Cuban cigar and a bunch of dirty looks (and after 5 pub stops)	London Marathon	100
The Bear	Oxford	101
The Old Tom	Oxford	102
The Crown	Oxford	103
The Beehive	Carterton, Oxfordshire	104
The Crown Inn	Faringdon, Oxfordshire	105
Romany Inn	Bampton, Oxfordshire	106
Talbot Hotel	Bampton, Oxfordshire	107
The George Inn	Sandy Lane, Wiltshire	108
The White Hart	Calne, Wiltshire	109
The now defunct King George	Calne, Wiltshire	110
Barrington Arms	Shrivenham, Oxfordshire	111
Groves Company Inn	Swindon	112
Revolution	Swindon	113
The Plough	Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire	114
The George and Dragon	Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire	115
The Fish	Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire	116
Great Western Railway Staff Association	Didcot, Oxfordshire	117
The Prince of Wales	Didcot, Oxfordshire	118
Tap and Barrel (good read goes along with this pic)	Swindon	119
Old Town Festival	Swindon Town Gardens	120
Cock Inn	Combe, Oxfordshire	121
Three Horseshoes	Long Hanborough, Oxfordshire	122
Swindon Pride 2012	Swindon (duh)	123
Wernham Hogg’s	Slough, Berkshire	124
The Myrtle Grove	Risca, Gwent, Wales	125
The Sirhowy	Blackwood, Gwent, Wales	126
Railway Tavern	Sirhowy, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	127
The Castle	Bryn Serth, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	128
The Coach and Horses	Ashvale, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	129
Ye Olde Red Lion Hotel	Tredegar, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	130
The Tumble Inn	Pontypridd, Wales	131
The Maltster’s Arms	Pontypridd, Wales	132
Wyvern Theatre	Swindon	133
Byron’s Bar	Swindon	134
The Bear Hotel	Wantage, Oxfordshire	135
Source ot the River Thames	Kemble, Gloucestershire	136
Carpenter’s Arms	Lacock, Wiltshire	137
Mill House	Chippenham, Wiltshire	138
Sunny’s Pool Bar	Swindon	139
The Royal Oak	Marlborough, Wiltshire	140
The Lamb Inn	Marlborough, Wiltshire	141
The Crown	Marlborough, Wiltshire	142
IMS/TOF Mass Spectrometer	Oxford University	143
New Year’s Eve on Ferndale Road	Swindon	144

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“Once upon a time there was a tavern
Where we used to raise a glass or two
Remember how we laughed away the hours
And dreamed of all the great things we would do.”
–credited erroneously to Mary Hopkin, above the bar at the Tavern Inn

The last mile of the run entailed dashing from the Thames Head Inn, down the Kemble/Tarlton Road, through the Kemble Station where I startled some boys doing a bit of Parcours on the rails and post box, over the bridge and out the far side of the station and up to the Tavern Inn where half the clientèle were out having smokes and were not a little bemused by my sunset arrival.

Inside, it was more folks just out from the fields in filthy wellies and talking bollocks to beat the band.  Some international rugby match was on but there wasn’t a good place to squeeze in or, rather, no place as good as the empty table near the darts alley.  I took by Donnington Two B’s and dumped my bag out to try to sort my dry clothing into an easy to deploy pile.  No one seemed to take the slightest notice of this behaviour except for the boxer (canine, not Cassius Clay) that came over for a scratch and a chance to sniff to poo covered shoes and socks while I slipped on my dry ones.

For a railway pub (which, 50 meters from the platform, this should qualify) it seemed particularly local but then again Kemble is tiny and it is surprising they even have a station anymore.  It’s worth a stop if you have an hour to spare on the ride between Gloucester and London, though.

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Skirting Haley Wood from the Tunnel House but not really making out the site of the Roman Settlement, I was soon through Tarlton and heading back toward Kemble on a reasonably quiet one-lane, tree-lined road, perfect for running except that my feet were caked in mud and sheep shit.  Coming to a major crossroad a mile from Kemble I spotted the Thames Head Inn off to the left and popped in for a Wiltshire Gold.

The table nearest the door was occupied by these three old queens, landed gentry but absolutely screaming; I suspect it is overlooked around these parts the way every homophobe in South Carolina still votes for Lindsay Graham.  They were especially nice guys (unlike, I would imagine, our Senator Graham) and struck up a conversation with this old farmer near me at the bar.

His west country accent was as thick as the filth on my shoes and absolutely charming except that our conversation turned dark as he related the story of some young local just out of prison this week after serving half a three-year stint for vehicular homicide, killing his best friend while piss drunk.  Yikes.  I couldn’t linger anyway, but decided to pull up stakes as soon as the glass was dry.

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The day’s run had its most interesting sites behind it by the time I reached the Tunnel House, my turnaround point and the first of my pub stops.  It is a grand, old house that once served the Thames and Severn Canal travellers as they either entered or emerged from the two mile (plus) tunnel to/from Sapperton.  The tunnel is just wide and tall enough for a narrowboat, so it probably helped to have a drink before entering or immediately upon emergence.

The pub is fairly remote but it was hopping.  Folks drive the back roads to get here unless, like me, they have used one of the several footpaths.  The landlord is very friendly and the ales kept perfectly.  I had a Uley’s Bitter that hit the spot and gave me a moment or two to sit, scratch the ears of the little dog that trotted through, and marvel at the structure and the odd collection of characters attending. Very nice.

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A quarter mile from the station the Thames appeared.

 

It was a beautiful autumn day and by 2:30 I was dashing out of Kemble Station on the soggy pastures heading north.  The rain has been relentless these past several weeks yielding thick, slick patches of mud.  The fields were still saturated from the unusually wet summer when this most recent deluge started and are unlikely to dry without two to three weeks respite, so it seemed important to seize the sunny and mild conditions today.  Besides, Jackie was working all afternoon and this would give me a chance to hit a few new pubs.

The other goal was to tick off another Carling in the 100 Yellow Beers in 100 Places, so I grabbed a can at the newsagents near my house on the way to the station, cracking it at the monument and pouring the first sip for Father Thames.  I seem to be on a pace to have 150 for the year in addition to the 280 or so pubs (some overlap):

 

The disused Thames and Severn Canal is about a half mile behind this sign…

With the Thames Path complete (well, I’ve done all the bits from Abingdon to here, with some other bits in London and Berkshire thrown in) it was time to do some more of the Thames and Severn Canal (which I have hit bits of in Lechlade, Cirencester, and Stroud).

The first pub on this route was the Tunnel House Inn, at the southern end of the Sapperton Tunnel (a little more than two miles long and built for narrow boats).  The return trip was hillier and along fairly quiet roadways along which the Thames Head made a useful stop, followed by a clothing change and one more for the road at the Tavern Inn near the Kemble Station.

Leaving the pub I spotted a shellshocked and confused looking urbanite wandering around.  He seemed a bit dapper for the rural setting (I wasn’t the filthiest person whose path I crossed this day but he was positively resplendent .  In the station, a woman asked me, “are you Lee?  I’m meeting him here from London but we haven’t met before.”  I pointed her toward the lost soul who somehow gave her the slip and appeared beside me asking if I had seen a woman waiting here.  Sending him back toward the pub I spotted her across the tracks re-entering the station.  ”He’s crossing the bridge, now,” I yelled, pointing.  One good deed per day.

 

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The walk last Sunday was longer than I originally planned and I didn’t give consideration to the topography but the day was so glorious — perfect Autumn temperatures hovering in the low teens (Centigrade), sunny with only a gentle breeze and enough damp left in the ground to discourage casual hikers but not so much that our feet were soaked through our poorly chosen footwear — that it seemed as if all of Nature were there to serve and entertain us, alone.

The train arrived in Stroud from Swindon just as the fog was burning off and although some remained in the low-lying areas we were heading uphill most of the morning.  Early on in Stroud we encountered a number of nice old structures and I was really taken with the Sixth Form College (formerly the School for Science and Engineering).  Jackie identified the visage of Faraday, above (or as she refers to him, “that dishy Faraday”).

Out on trail, you could always spot a village a mile or two away but it was pretty peaceful away from the A46.  The trail markings were in place and the paths were more-or-less obvious without any blatant sabotage by the landowners.

Our turnaround point was Painswick, known as the Queen of the Cotswolds.  It is a truly ancient town (I may have already mentioned that the “New Street” was built in 1428 and groceries are delivered by donkey), but it is worth a visit for the more modern bits and bobs. For instance, the Church has some spectacular stained glass and the timber roof arches are buttressed by medieval sculpted heads.  The cannonball marks in the tower came from retreating Royalist troops holed up in the Falcon across the way and you can see bullet marks around, as well.

The stonemasons specialised in these raised altar style grave markers but as the decades turned to centuries the inscriptions have worn away.  Many, if not most, of the markers have been enhanced with copper plaques with the worn-away inscriptions transcribed.  I’m very surprised metal thieves haven’t targeted these, yet.

There are more than a hundred yew trees on the church grounds (according to the Church pamphlet and another census of these), but legend has it that the 100th is always killed by the Devil (so, it is good manners to agree with anyone that insists there are only — and exactly — 99.

 

The return to Stroud seemed more arduous although the climbs and descents along the Cotswold Way (our route so we wouldn’t retrace our steps) appear to be similar in height, grade, and number.  A National long distance path, I would recommend it for anyone that wanted to see the area and is concerned about getting lost; most of the trail markers are on posts with an acorn etched into them (so even if the marker is gone, the post makes it obvious you are on track) while others are of a more sturdy variety:

 

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Jackie never listens to what I mean to say to her and instead listens to what I actually say, taking it on face value when I say the walk is just 6 miles when it is in fact 9½ miles and even then I haven’t given consideration to the constant climbing of and descent from steep hills…silly woman.  So, with about a mile left in our return trip to Stroud I think I finally said as much, essentially saying, “if we just trudge on we’ll be sitting in front of a hot plate of food and some drinks within 15 minutes.”  But, in Stroud the town seemed to have rolled up into a protective ball with almost nothing but takeaways open.  We decided, in desperation, to give the Market Tavern a shot although it didn’t look too promising from the street.

It was pretty good, though as I had the Sunday roast (they still had a bit of it at 5pm) and she had some seared salmon which was fresh and not at all bitter or gamey as it can tend to be.  The roast was a bit tough, not a really good cut, but tasty albeit chewy.  The vegetables were fresh and only the broccoli overcooked and everything except the fish was local.  The gravy was suspiciously like Bisto, but I was at least as hungry as Jackie.

There were five hand pumps but only one clip facing out and when I ordered that one he said it had just gone but, while turning it and the Tribute clips around, said that they now had Tribute.  It was a better choice anyway, but I wonder why they just have the one.

 

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It was a beautiful day for an autumn walk and though the trail was steep and damp and the mud and sheep shite slick we managed to make it all the way to Painswick where we found probably the only pub in town but a very historic one (despite the modern interiors from some recent refurbishment).

The Falcon is fairly historic.  The bowling green on the grounds is the oldest in the world dating to the middle 1500′s.  During the Civil War, retreating Royalists holed up in the Inn and fired on the approaching Republicans leaving cannon imprints in the church tower across the road (I’ll put some pictures of this in the walk write-up eventually).  There is a [disused] cock-fighting pit below the floor.  And, most of the patrons are relics (I think these guys were the original grounds crew for the bowls club):

The service isn’t prompt on a Sunday but to be fair they do an enormous lunch trade.  The little side bar off to the right as you enter is a good place if you have just come from the trails with muddy shoes.

 

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Lilienthal Library

There’s not much you might consider remarkable about the September running streak, really, except that I managed to remain clothed in public the entire time (ie, only a streak in that there was an unbroken string).  I ran every day of September and (until I got the flu last week) I covered a minimum of 10 miles every day.  A semi-statistical breakdown of these follows, and there are a few photos that didn’t make it into other posts last month (maybe just a shot or two from Germany, who knows).  The total, 330 miles, is the most I’ve done in a month since my mid-30′s when, tripping and stoned almost continuously, I barely felt the effort (doing it piss drunk is quite a bit more difficult even before factoring in the extra 15 years or so of decrepitude).

Total: 330.2 miles
Swindon: 86.0 miles (10 runs)
other Wiltshire: 103.7 (8½ runs–crossed from Glocs)
Oxford: 40.0 (4 runs)
Gloucestershire: 18.4 (1½ runs–crossed to Wilts)
Devon: 21.5 (1 run)
Berkshire: 15.0 (1 run)
Wales: 23.3 (2 runs)
Germany: 22.3 (2 runs)

Had a trip to Germany for work toward the end of the month and with that and the change of seasons did both of my runs there in the pre-dawn darkness; a shame, really, as both areas (Hamburg near the airport and Borgfeld/Lilienthal near Bremen) looked very nice for this kind of excursion.  In Borgfeld, I stayed in a rental room across from this restaurant/microbrewery (the beers were fantastic):

…and the breakfast suited the post-workout refuel although within hours I was crippled with nausea, fever, a mid-range migraine, and a free-flowing waste-relief valve.  This continued the next several days, but once home I felt I could try for another — if shorter — run but only managed a mile before turning around and heading back to bed.  Yikes.

Big houses, safe streets, and loads of farm roads and wildlife preserves await you in Lilienthal and Borgfeld, if you go:

September 2012 was also the busiest month for pub visits (67  included the 1000th) since I landed in England, largely due to the unsupervised nature of my vacation (Jackie left me to my own devices for two weeks and, surprisingly, there were no legal or medical catastrophes).  I stopped including ‘dead pubs’ quite a few months ago unless they are of significant importance or beauty (and, for those, I will still follow the original set of rules); had this not been the case, I could easily have boosted the count by another 20-30.

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The Cotswold Water Parks is a series of reservoirs filling the marshland at the headwaters of the Thames.  There are sailing clubs, a pretty interesting overhead towrope system that allows skiers on this truly tiny pond to circle past the two jump ramps, and there are campsites and resort hotels all over.  Some of it is pretty nice, and a lot of it is horrible.

In the resort hotel/awful columns you would find the Old Boathouse listed.  It is neither old (it doesn’t appear on Google Maps aerial views as of this posting), nor a boathouse.  It looks for all the world like the common area of a modern subdivision (that’s American for ‘estate’).

Did I say, “common?”  Make that dead common, but they have resort prices so you really savour that £3.80 lager while they pipe department store soft jazz stylings out to the deck when you just want to enjoy the breeze through the rushes.

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Day 12 of the September running streak started from the Royal Oak in South Cerney but first I had to have a Sharps Tribute.  I was the first customer but a couple of hikers came in right after me, lost after some confusion near some gravel pits.  They tried to ask directions but the bartender barely understood their English (I thought she was Irish but maybe from farther afield).  I showed them my map and they seemed fairly happy with the help.

The pub is older than it looks from the outside and could easily be one of the older houses in South Cerney (which is full of ancient buildings but this structure backs up to a fairly modern estate).  There are at least two large bars with timber roofs, and the garden is sunny (or at least open).  I have never seen this pub before but have known it was here from a GMAP search a couple of years back…it is set back from the road but worth a stop if you are passing through (probably toward or away from Cirencester).  See if you can guess where the hostess is from.

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You wouldn’t imagine such a nice and spacious interior in a pub that looks like it suits the sort of urban-industrial neighbourhood Jack’s sits in as well as Jack’s does, but it even had room for a skittles/bowling lane without diminishing the size of the indoor drinking area.  I carried my kebab in (stopping to ask the bartender if it is okay to do so first–these things really reek in a closed environment) and got a yummy pint of Carling (doesn’t count for the Challenge, my camera battery failed after this shot so no documentation).

Good bar.  The music wasn’t shit and the customers seemed literate but not at all up their own asses (although I suspect a lot of the reading done is in tabloid form…at least they retain what they read and speak as if they understand it without accepting it blindly, better than I get at most Oxfordshire bars).  And, they tolerated my drunken ass until I dashed out to catch my bus to Stonehouse.

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Good batch of döner meat, great chilli sauce, the chips were tolerable, the salad fresh and  probably the first roughage I’ve had on this holiday.  The only downside was the price (£4.50), but the price of quality is sometimes a 50% mark-up…if you want cheaper, take your chances at one of the 400 other kebab places on these city blocks, but this is some good stuff.

 

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Camera battery failing, had to settle for the external shot from Google street view

With 20 seconds until time for the train to leave by the Station clock, I was running toward the cars when the platform attendant saw me and quickly put up his paddle and blew his whistle.  The train doors locked, I stood there apoplectic the five seconds after the clock ticked over before turning to him and asking, “you don’t wait till the published departure time, Snuffy?”  He smiled revealing his shit stained teeth (I assume) and pointed to the clock saying, “it’s 13 seconds after,” which by then it was.  I went to the adjacent Station Hotel to kill an hour till the next train.

The place had real flowers, a funny hostess, but mostly lager available so I got Carling #133 on the Challenge and had a look around.

With five more minutes till the next train, I took a moment to drain then dashed back to the platform passing the same arsehole.  As I reached for the door, this dickhead starts screaming “don’t touch that door, get away from the door, NOW!” at which point I could feel the latch mechanism throw.

The lab I work in studies lot’s of things, including doing fundamental research that will find its way into diagnostic and therapeutic uses for cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.  So, when I started back up the platform, it was with the thought of potential test subjects with similar genetics to human beings that I told him I hope his kids get ass cancer and he and his parents suffer gravely with dementia.  His mate said, “hey, that’s not very nice.  I have an Auntie with cancer,” but I felt it would be useless to explain that my wishes are not the vectors for dread ailments* and so, while that’s quite sad, my comment was meant to be not-so-nice.  ”Thanks,” I said while trotting off.

Hungry, I headed off for a kebab and thought maybe I should catch the bus to the rail station at Stonehouse.

[* as the complete and utter absence of Legionella at the Republican Convention two weeks ago attests]

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Except for the same two episodes always shown at Christmas, I have never seen an episode of Only Fools and Horses twice; moreover, I have only ever seen them in a pub in the middle of the afternoon.  So, today I caught the end of one involving reflective paint and another with the grandfather getting banged up in a Spanish prison near Benidorm for something he had done during the Spanish Civil War.  I had to look away, though when David Jason showed up in Speedos; fortunately my Thatcher’s cider awaited me.

The landlord had a new puppy and his wife was bringing pet supplies in, having to wrest the squeaky toy from him (the landlord, not the puppy).  She also had a bottle of spray ‘to neutralise the smell when he wee’s on the floor’ (puppy not landlord, I think).  ”First day managing a pub then?  The punters never wee on the floor?”

“Not TOO often,” she replied.

“Okay, then my apologies in advance.”