I hate to end a run with a dead-pub memorial (see the rules, here) but the landlady at the White Hart says the King George is being converted to a pizza place.  Calne is not saturated with pubs and this beautiful old house of Cotswold stone shouldn’t have seen the last of its good days [...]

I have been here to the Maybush three times and at each just missed the brief period it has been open for business on a regular basis.  The word at the Black Horse and the Bell (earlier on this run) is that no one can make a go of it because of the flooding of [...]

At the corner of Pavenhil and Dogridge I finally found the Royal George in the midst of my Sunday run but was really disappointed to find that the place appears to, once again, have gone out of business (like the woman at the Angel suggested on my Thanksgiving Day run last year).  A pity. I [...]

I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer.  No shit, but for a good cause.  The nearest place to my house I would consider either interesting or a licensed purveyor of alcoholic beverages happens to be both: The Princess has been derelict for a couple of years but recently refurbishment commenced and [...]

I needed to pick up my race credentials at the Croft Sport Centre so I hopped off before the Magic Roundabout, stopped by the Aldi for a bottle of that fine Clarkes bourbon (change back from a tenner!), and ran the hill into Old Town with the intention of stopping in the Royal Oak which [...]

When I packed for the run I loaded my flask with bourbon in the event that one of the pubs on my loop were, sadly, shuttered.  This didn’t happen, happily, but upon leaving the third one of the day I was incapable of reading my map and missed a cross-road that would have foreshortened the [...]

What a great disappointment: beautiful day for a run, did some hills, found some paths I haven’t been on before and worked my way over to the Shelley Arms only to find the doors shuttered with corrugated sheet metal. Shit.  AND: the shop next door was halal and probably (didn’t bother to check) doesn’t carry [...]

The Beaufort Arms isn’t just closed, it is burned to the ground although in Google Street View it still exists.  I was out for an early morning run and carried a beer because I expected to run past at least one closed pub in 15 miles in the countryside…and was surprised to get one half [...]

We had a nice evening out Saturday despite the Wildcats ignominious loss to Guildford Flames.  Next morning we were moving kind of slow and I eventually made it out at noon to pick up some groceries and stop by the library. Earlier in the year I stopped by the Duke of Wellington, a fantastic looking [...]

I was on a mission to drink at nothing but Red Lions today and so it was with a heavy heart only 3 miles away from my start that I spotted the metal shutters on the windows of the Red Lion in Middleton Cheney. The Dolphin was open just down the street, but I was [...]