Archive for the ‘G-had’ Tag
Warmest regards to Fatty from Tucson for spotting this beer label (if anyone knows where to get Fat Tire in Swindon or Oxford please get in touch)
It has been a good run — one of nearly 6 years, nearly 1300 different pubs, a few marathons and a bunch of halves (and shorter races), good entertainment, fulfilling work, and a couple of laughs. But, it is over … at this address, anyway: I’ll continue on in much the same vein at the Endless British Pub Crawl (continues) but this site will just be an archive for the first 1292 pubs and memorial to itself and a lot of ill-advised fun that went into gathering the material herein.
I want to do a retrospective of this blog’s 6 years but it deserves better than what you have before you. Them’s the breaks…here it is in tedious detail.
In 2177 days, there have been 2537 posts. Of those, 1292 were specifically for 1st time pub visits, 367 were for last year’s Daily Tipple (with added Haiku), 210 have been for the Chippy Challenge and the Kebab Challenge, and 169 were for the 2012 Yellow Beer Challenge. The remaining 499 involved running, mocking the serious beliefs of others, laughing at the weak, bitching and moaning about one thing or another, obituaries, and other things that serve to strengthen my bona fides of Britishness. According to WordPress, these pages have been visited just over 350,000 times…get a life, losers.
Most frequent pub names so far (and how many of each):
43 Red Lions
24 Crowns
22 Ploughs
19 (tie) Bells, White Harts
15 Greyhounds
14 (tie) Black Horses, King’s Arms, Queen’s Heads
13 (tie) Rose and Crowns, Swans, White Horses
Best names: Five Mile From Anywhere No-Hurry Inn, Far From The Madding Crowd, Cafe Rene, Sally Pussey’s Inn, The Bee’s In The Wall, The Roaring Donkey, Who’d A Thought It
Fuck that place: The Angerstein Hotel, The Woodman Inn, The Black Horse
Personal favourite pub write ups: The Chequers in Cottenham, hangover after a night in the King’s Arms in Ely, handing the puzzle over to the Dog and Duck in Linton (Cambs), the Crown in Penzance (a low-key 25th anniversary), the Glue Pot in Swindon after my first Wildcats Hockey match, the Blackfriar in London (not so much the write up as the architectural details), and the Rose and Crown in Chippenham for the fantastic people watching. Certain there are other decent ones but this list contains the two or three I’m really pleased with.
Other pubs worthy of mention (good or bad):
The Red Lion in Southampton for architecture and Henry V connection
The Hop Inn for the locals’ alternative names
The five Red Lion Run back in 2010
The New Inn, Blists Hill (a historic museum town)
The Goldfinger (accidentally found Ian Fleming’s grave on run to this one)
The Blue Boar, Aldbourne (Dr. Who link)
The Blind Beggar, Whitechapel (Kray Brothers link)
The Red Lion, Aston (a town of ‘tards)
The Brass Monkey, Teignmouth (George W Bush on their sign)
Wernham Hogg’s, Slough (The Office tie-in)
The writing isn’t brilliant but it was never meant to be stunning. I have occasionally stumbled into something I’m happy enough with (to mention here) but never anything I would attach a real name to. Some of those are:
“What a Bunch of Dicks” (September 2011)
“Our Ex-Neighbours” (September 2011, with links to the whole saga)
“Risk Assessment: Proper Use of Bins” (October 2012)
“British Citizenship Exam” (November 2012)
“My Pet Leeches” (September 2013)
“Me and the Queen” (June 2012)
It wasn’t all drinking and knob jokes. Occasionally I ran, sometimes quite a lot (although usually whilst stopping regularly for drinks and to tell inappropriate knob jokes). I even race a bit with some of my favourite racing efforts here:
Grunty Fen 1/2 Marathon and general thoughts on the finisher’s medal (September 2009)
Snowdonia Marathon pub crawl (October 2009)
The River Run — Cantabrigiensis HHH (October 2009)
New Year’s Eve 10K Little Downham (January 2010)
Historical notes on the 30 Pack Marathon (April 2010)
Thame 10K and morning chunders (June 2010)
Florence Marathon (December 2010)
Bupa 10K plus bailout for the London Hash (May 2011)
Run For Heroes 5K or thereabouts (August 2011)
Chippenham Half with a sponsored pub stop (September 2011)
Swindon Half whilst hitting every pub within 1/2 mile (October 2011)
Cricklade Half + 8 mile warm-up (October 2011)
London Marathon pub crawl (April 2012)
Great British Beerathon Like the 30-Pack only smaller and including food (August 2012)
Great Bustard 5 or getting there’s half the fun (July 2013)
Beat the Bore at Night (September 2013)
Malmesbury Carnival 10K done twice to hit some pubs after (August 2014)
Isle of Wight Marathon pub crawl (October 2014)
11:58 My big head notwithstanding, this is the Joe Strummer Subway
In fact, I started the blog for people in the States that already knew about my running idiosyncrasies (i.e., running to get to a bar, drinking heavily there or at one or more other bars, then running home). So, for them the “racing” entries are no surprise nor are some of the other efforts, which I enjoy as much or more. These three Birthday runs are typical:
2010
2013
2014
I also used to ‘hash’ before I found the one true way; my life as a hasher came long after I started drink-running (and drug-running, for that matter) and that it has become just a passing fad baffles some of those folk although I still encourage hash virgins to go to a hash as a kick start to Hashlam. I would, indeed, encourage all of you to go hashing at some point.
We saw some good shows and bad shows and some shows. I saw Springsteen in the Atlanta Fox Theatre in the 70’s but Jackie never had so we booked a trip to Maastricht to fix that…and it was awesome. We causght Neil Young in Hyde Park and Paul Simon there as well another year. Two of the best shows were Lloyd Cole in Stroud and George Thorogood in Cambridge, and you can’t go wrong with the BeatHoles.
Tourism ideas:
No trip to Wales is complete without a ride down this highway. (November 2009)
Find out why they refer to Oxford as the City of Dreaming Spires. (September 2010)
You can wait for English Heritage or the National Trust, but the loving family fits their own plaques (like this one to Arthur Stanley Eddington). (August 2011)
If you get to Germany, indulge in the local folklore like the Bremen Musicians. (June 2012)
Nothing is more fun than old buses. (June 2014)
Get out on the street furnishing trail, maybe starting with post boxes. (November 2014)
And, to be serious, here are a few ideas for London.
Recipes and food:
A friend that travels in China sent some delectable menu items to look for but I still haven’t found them in any Chinatown restaurants. On the other hand, you can find the most interesting spices in the Caribbean markets, here.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day so you shouldn’t shy away from complicated recipes like this one. Or, as an alternative you could start your day with one of these.
There were, of course, a lot of booze recipes, but these are worth the efforts involved and better than the pictures would suggest:
Lupini
Cassoulet (one of several versions blogged herein)
Rabbit
Finally, no look back wouldn’t include obits. Mostly, I obitted people I don’t know but knew of but on occasion I actually had a relationship with the deceased (Rest in Peace, y’all):
Vic Chesnutt (December 2009)
Bus Job (October 2010)
Andy Holden (whom I did not know but feel a special connection to, January 2014)
This blog (January 2015, which you are reading right now)
[The Chippy Challenge: to eat more fish and chips in 2014; see original post for details.]
Fish: cod
Sides: chips and mushy peas
Evaluation: Very good for a pub, especially good for a pub with so many mouthy youths around. Spectacular landlord here, though. You should go there.
I had originally planned on the Butcher’s Arms for the lunch at the mid-point of a 7 mile or so run but this was actually closer to my G-Had/hash prelay inspection. Just as well, in the long run.
Days since last: 4 (South Cerney Fish and Chips, South Cerney)
Map link.
Monthly consolidations/compilations: January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
Thirteen of the Daily Tipples were in the beer category with 12 pub visits (6 of which were Wetherspoons, 5 of those were the Four Candles). The highlight of the month had to be tasting the finished batch of Two Cures, though, with the worst experience of the bunch the very disappointing trip to The Lighthouse:
.
The Chippy Challenge dragged until the last week of the month but there were some spectacular examples (Crispy Cod and Robinson’s Traditional Fish and Chips) and some crimes against cuisine (Marmaris and WingLoon House):
.
The GHadHHH had two minor trails this month, one each versus the Oxford and Moonrakers hashes, both night efforts. More importantly was the treatise on IntifadHHHa and CalipHHHate differences in this confusing era of global Hashlam and its various pretenders.
Pub count: this month only added 8 more pubs to the total and all of them came on runs. Started the calendar year with 1197 and the blog year (19 January) with 1201 so it is shaping up to the weakest effort of the 6 years so far but at 1280 I hope to hit 1300 before the end of 2014.
New pubs to the blog count, all on two day trip to IoW
At first glance, October seemed a month of two halves — the first healthy and spry, the last stinking of death and decay. Yet, closer examination reminds me that I’ve been ill more or less constantly since the 10th of the month despite making the Isle of Wight Marathon trip, another cancer surgery (and spillage from the same), and having a busier than usual month at work. The weather has been spectacular, I’m told.
I added 11 pubs to the count entirely on the two-day trip to the Isle of Wight Marathon. Two new ones appeared in Oxford (old ones but with major refurbishments and name changes) but they will have to wait until November. The best of the new additions has to be the Red Lion in Southampton, but you could do a lot worse than The Crab and Lobster Tap (Ventnor), The Traveller’s Joy (Northwood), or most-up-my-alley The Painter’s Arms (Cowes).
The Daily Tipple list accurately represents the beer consumption for the month with a little more than half favouring darker varieties like stout, porter, and mild. Choosing one per day was really the hard part as almost every new pub mentioned above supplied local brews that I have never tried before and the Swindon Beer Fest introduced 7 beers and 3 ciders new to me (and scores more I didn’t get around to):
The Fish and Chips Challenge was in a lull partly due to the ongoing medical problems and partly due to the remoteness of new venues and my ability to reach them. My spreadsheet updates my days-per-fish rate and the minimum number for the year (based on one every 7 days until year-end) after each fish. The average of these two appears to be converging on 124.9 for the year (let’s say 125). I’m going for a pub fish and chip lunch when I finish this post, so this looks like a fairly good prediction.
The G-Had has started to make an impact. In October, the site had more hits than in all months prior combined. It also led to paranoid behaviour by North Wilts HHH when they tried to pretend a run wasn’t going to happen and then came up with a clever (but easy to defeat) trail marking plan to foil the IntifadHHHa. With local attention piqued and health poor, the war became one more of propaganda than contact but a fresh scalp was added courtesy the Isle of Wight HHH.
Also, the subtleties of the Intifad-HHH-a versus a Calip-hhh-ate became a matter of record, over on the G-Had HHH site.
Hiding/subterfuge.
Do not deny the True Path.
G-Had is patient.
Name: Inycon Pinot Grigio Grecanico
Type: white wine
Venue: house
Review/notes: Rushing from the bus to “Rodbourne” which I found as the location of the Moonrakers Hash House Harriers trail by using the cached version of their page (thanks, Google), I easily found powder but wanted to know which way they were going to run. I made a nice little loop past the most likely suspects (the Manor and the Southbrook) but it would have been rude not to stop in for a quick one. It also gave me the opportunity to plan where my additional run might go (GPS on pause). On arrival back at the G-Had Madrasa, I found that Jackie had prepped a stunning supper with a reasonably good line-up of wines, starting here. On-on.
[DT =Daily Tipple, explained in DT #000 here]
Monthly consolidations/compilations: January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
Another month and the fish continues to pile up. Of the three pubs, the Who’d A Thought It was the best with the Bear almost surprisingly stingy (but it has become a tourist venue). The winner as a chippy, this month, would be either the fish stand at the St Giles Fair or the J&J Fish Bar (both exceeding expectations enormously). The Shanghai Fish Bar should be closed down despite getting their cleanliness problems in order–they’re just very bad.
| # |
Name |
Where |
Date |
Venue Type |
| 92 |
Pisces Aroma |
Swindon, Wiltshire |
06-Sep |
Chippy |
| 93 |
The Crown |
Pewsey, Wiltshire |
07-Sep |
Pub |
| 94 |
St Giles Fair Fish and Chips Stand |
Oxford, Oxfordshire |
08-Sep |
Chippy |
| 95 |
The Bear |
Oxford, Oxfordshire |
12-Sep |
Pub |
| 96 |
Goujon Monkey |
Oxford, Oxfordshire |
12-Sep |
Chippy |
| 97 |
Red House Plaice |
Swindon, Wiltshire |
13-Sep |
Chippy |
| 98 |
Who’d A Thought It |
Lockeridge, Wiltshire |
14-Sep |
Pub |
| 99 |
Khan’s Takeaway |
Swindon, Wiltshire |
18-Sep |
Chippy |
| 100 |
Shanghai Fish Bar |
Swindon, Wiltshire |
19-Sep |
Chippy |
| 101 |
Robinson’s Fish and Chips |
Hilperton, Wiltshire |
24-Sep |
Chippy |
| 102 |
J&J Fish Bar |
Swindon, Wiltshire |
27-Sep |
Chippy |
This month’s Daily Tipples were weighted a little heavier on the beer and the haiku’s and descriptions a little more surreal. More than half the DT’s were in pub visits (some new ones).
The G-Had rolled on to trail #48 and enhanced (and was enhanced by) my enforced two week vacation at the end of the holiday calendar. Bicester HHH was marked due to the irresistability of a Bollard trail, K&A HHH notched a second attack, and my first Churn Valley HHH effort appeared. Ease of access and choices of venues were the main attractions for the Moonrakers HHH (twice) and the North Wilts HHH (three times), and with the North Wilts 1500th next weekend in my favourite corner of Shropshire maybe the G-Had will get a chance to branch out a little (it would be nice to make the 50th GH4 coincide with another hash’s milestone).
The Blue pins are the September G-Had strikes
A modern Marston’s pub looks like any other modern Marston’s pub, but the help at the Red Admiral were attentive, intelligent, and funny. You can’t ask for much more than that. I was in the Hilperton shops to grab a cod snack but with my bus stop only a quarter mile away thought it worthwhile to pop in. As it is more restaurant than anything else, I stashed the fish in my backpack until I left.
Not nearly as charming as the Lion and Fiddle a half mile away, I have seen worse by far.
Dennis Hopper says,
“Heineken Schmeineken, fuck
That shit. Pabst. Blue. Ribbon.”
Name: Marston’s Pedigree
Type: bitter
Venue: The Red Admiral, Hilperton
Review/notes: Two G-Hads in about 3 hours with a 1 hour and 20 minute bus ride between them makes for a thirsty bunny. Pedigree was the only thing on the taps that hasn’t already been represented in the Daily Tipple but it is a completely suitable rehydration product and should be available in the gym. Not as suitable as, say, PBR but beggars can’t be choosers.
[DT =Daily Tipple, explained in DT #000 here]
Monthly consolidations/compilations: January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
The lesson today:
Whining gets you what you want.
So sayeth Twitter.
Name: Popham’s Pride
Type: bitter
Venue: New Calley Arms, Wanborough
Review/notes: So, I was going to tweet about my Swindonian adventures for the next two weeks anyway and had decided this long before the ADMIN post requesting volunteers ever went up. The post on this blog, yesterday, had no more merit (nor should have been taken any more seriously) than this one from back during the 100 Shit Beers in 100 Places Challenge. The beleaguered list admin wrote me a nicer email than I deserve and offered me a week, so I’ll actually do it legitimately for half my holiday. I only want to point out that his capitulation sets a bad precedent.
Beer was good, and the Calley is always a pleasant visit. I sat alone in the tiny bar about a third of the way through my run home (the second third taken up with marking a trail for the G-Had Hash House Harriers) and got a much closer look than my first visit in the midst of a half marathon.
[DT =Daily Tipple, explained in DT #000 here]
Monthly consolidations/compilations: January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
A relatively busy month just passed. Here’s the short version (somewhat longer versions available in the blog).
Ten new Chippy Challenge entries include the southernmost and westernmost, circled here:
At 91 for the year so far, I predict a year-long tally of about 125 (definitely more than 109 and up to, at the current average rate, 137). The venues themselves were:
#
|
Name
|
Where
|
Date
|
Venue Type
|
| 82 |
Three Goats’ Heads |
Oxford, Oxfordshire |
01-Aug |
Pub |
| 83 |
Dolphin Fish Bar |
Calne, Wiltshire |
02-Aug |
Chippy |
| 84 |
PCR Cafe, Dept. Of Physiology |
Oxford, Oxfordshire |
08-Aug |
other |
| 85 |
Fish and Chips Takeaway |
Bath, Somerset |
10-Aug |
Chippy |
| 86 |
Seafoods |
Bath, Somerset |
10-Aug |
Chippy |
| 87 |
Buckles |
Chippenham, Wiltshire |
16-Aug |
Chippy |
| 88 |
Cove House Inn |
Isle of Portland, Dorset |
18-Aug |
Pub |
| 89 |
The Old Harbour Fish and Chips |
Weymouth, Dorset |
19-Aug |
Chippy |
| 90 |
Bobby’s Fish and Chips |
Swindon, Wiltshire |
23-Aug |
Chippy |
| 91 |
Golden Dish Fish and Chips |
Malmesbury, Wiltshire |
30-Aug |
Chippy |
.
Of course, the Daily Tipple trundles along easily and the Haiku are not yet becoming repetitive (albeit, enough of them are entirely derivative). We drink a lot of wine seems to be the take home message of the DT:
.
With a bit more travel than normal this month, I was able to add a few new pubs this month, bringing the blog total to over 1250 with 20 new ones this month. The new ones, few though they are, are shown here and, easier to see, on the map link:
My running mileage is nothing special (170 miles this month) looking back over the previous years, but it is back up to a sustainably middling-to-long-mileage level. While still short of the planned 2015 ramp up (I’ve got some upcoming surgery that will slow things a bit), I’ve got a good baseline level of fitness for the advanced (and ever-advancing) age.
Largely due to the extra mileage and the aforementioned local tourism, the G-Had is starting to bleed into new realms and I have a few potential recruits (although they may, just as easily, become hashers). The missions completed in August hit 3 sites with new attacks against Bristol HHH and Wilton HHH. Taken from full map at http://goo.gl/maps/aR9JU :
The approach to Colerne from Corsham was steep downhill to a creek and steep uphill to the village and about four miles of rocks, mud and pasture. Except for getting a brief start on the G-Had HHH trail as I reached the area near the church, I made a more-or-less direct path to the Fox and Hounds for a well-deserved (I thought) beer.
There were four ales on tap although the gents lining the bar were all quaffing lager. There was a house ale with the landlord’s face on the pump clip but I opted for the other one I had never seen before, a Cottage Brewing Sunset that was sharp and floral and very refreshing as I continued to pour sweat throughout the tipple.
The pub looks very old and the afternoon clientèle seemed intent on quietly murdering their beverages, but there are loads of indications that you can party at this pub (mostly the signs hung around the walls — and on the pub website — that say, “Party at the Pub”).
I had never seen the Raven although I have passed it dozens of times on visits to town. From the outside, it looks like a very posh shop perhaps dealing in corsets or lavender scented bath items, but inside it is a regular boozer with wood floors and a grand landlord with a spectacular West-country accent.
I was in town to ‘do’ a G-Had trail over and in addition to the North Wilts Hash House Harriers scheduled trail purportedly starting as soon as their train arrived. It was to finish at the Raven so I made concentric and criss-crossing paths seeking the prelay before time and the live trail after the appointed start, yet to no avail. Giving one last try from the far side of the river at opening time (12:30) I gave up when the Raven once more appeared before me.
I sat near a British family in for a lunch of pies (the house speciality). It was a mum and dad roughly my age and a son roughly 25-30 years old. The fourth member of the party was the son’s girlfriend who was the only one that seemed comfortable in her own skin. I could have sat and watched the unease with which the stilted conversation progressed for hours, but I wanted some lunch myself before the train back home and pies were not going to do it for me.
Although not a big fan of the modern, shopping mall-style Wetherspoons pubs, I was in Bath early on a Sunday and they were the only place open before noon. They are cheap, have a great selection (including today’s Daily Tipple) and there’s free wifi. Any port in a storm (in this case the storm was the remnants of Hurricane Bertha, by the way).
An hour to London.
Pleasant, but what about the
Depressing ride back?
Name: Corncrake Ale
Type: bitter
Venue: King of Wessex, Bath, Somerset
Review/notes: I went to Bath Spa today for a G-Had HHH trail versus the North Wilts Hash. However, today’s Haiku relates to another short trip.
Last night, an acquaintance from the depths of time made overtures that Jax and I might meet up with her and her’s during their upcoming trip to London. On the train to Bath, I became convinced that I made the right decision to beg off this invitation: except for a few shared experiences three decades ago we really have nothing in common (even though, since raising my head above the parapet, I have found her little blog entertaining enough as well as comforting that sometimes very little in this world changes).
The bad thing about reunions, though, are the expectations that inevitably are dashed during the meet-up (which almost always is finished long before it ends). It may seem selfish that I am sparing myself an uncomfortable hour-long train ride; bear in mind, I am sparing her the same misery on a twelve-hour journey back to L.A.
You’re welcome.
[DT =Daily Tipple, explained in DT #000 here]
Monthly consolidations/compilations: January
February
March
April
May
June
July
It was meant to be a rest day from the marathon ramp up but duty called me to the Bulford Barracks to wreak havoc on potential Hashing trails, this time versus the Wilton Hash House Harriers with whom I have no prior quarrel nor, indeed, any knowledge of except that they do not lay live trails and they occasionally cross bus routes I can reach from home…and, they were using a pub I had not yet been to, the Rose and Crown.
The architecture of the pub is red brick and flint which is more striking than the photograph shows. It is a big house and bears a plaque commemorating the Canadian paratroops billeted here during WWII. The run was slow going after yesterday’s 15 mile slog but I found likely shiggy as well as easier footpaths into the gunnery fields.
I had to hurry after the run so only refreshed with a pint of Thatcher’s cider; the original plan was to chase down a squaddie bar at the other end of the encampment but it seems to have been replaced by a hair salon or an Indian takeaway (or my map was wrong). Even if it had turned up, it may not have been open before noon, either, but it was with this dashing of great hopes that I returned to the R&C. The pair running the Rose seemed fairly nice in our brief encounter, though; still, with a bus to catch at 1pm I lit out toward the Plough shortly.
The frequency and intensity of my running has increased with the rise in temperature this summer so I find myself ducking into pubs for respite more than in recent months. Beer and cider are featuring more so than dinner wine in the Daily Tipple log as a result:
.
.
.
Having logged all the chippies near work, I also find that pub fish and chips — at least in Oxford — are the way forward in the Chippy Challenge. I’m also having to travel farther afield from Swindon although there are still a good number of fish and chip shops near enough home to add to the list. The Chick-O-Land in Salisbury is the new southernmost member of the list:
.
.
Red markers are July additions, go to full map by clicking on one of these graphics.
The G-Had also continues to develop with July trails overlapping a Didcot HHH trail (the inaugural Didcot clash, in fact) and a Bicester HHH trail that was more personal than it probably should have been. Those make G-Had HHH trails #36 and #37.
The new pub count (as in the Count of Pubs New to this blog) stalled the first week of June and I almost went the entire month of July without an addition to the list. This was corrected last Sunday with an 11 mile / 6 pub jog from Amesbury to Salisbury largely along the River Bourne. With the woman working Sundays and every other Saturday the numbers should pick back up in the coming weeks.
G’s will shall be done
By the faithful with powder
And some stamina.
Name: Brains SA
Type: bitter
Venue: Red Lion, Kidlington
Review/notes: Eight hot miles into a G-Had effort (note: this link will be valid late 28 July 2014) and I really needed a break…and by ‘break’ I mean a tasty beverage (and a short walk afterward while I scarfed down a greasy piece of fish). There is little that is tastier than Brains SA, too.
[DT =Daily Tipple, explained in DT #000 here]
Monthly consolidations/compilations: January
February
March
April
May
June
Highworth on the hill:
Rich in pubs and takeaways
And, the rich, of course.
Name: Tyskie
Type: lager
Venue: wooded area near the Brewery Street bus stop, Highworth, Wiltshire
Review/notes: The beer was a bit warm but it helped clear the fish bits from my teeth. I picked it up in the Co-Op after a run and G-Had effort followed by a stop at the Dolphin Fish Bar.
This is a little unusual, but I am posting this in both the G-Had blog post and here because I was especially pleased with the interaction:
“Oh, you must be one of those Hash House Harries,” the cashier stated as I proffered my bottle of Tyskie. I had just jogged in drenched with sweat and wearing the Now It’s Time For My Real Job: Getting Loaded t-shirt. I furrowed my brow.
“The What Where Whom?” I asked and she repeated herself. I continued, “What are those?”
“You know, they run and drink. They’re a club.”
“They sound like assholes. Are you sure you didn’t just dream this?”
Offended, she took my coins and sent me on my way.
[DT =Daily Tipple, explained in DT #000 here]
Monthly consolidations/compilations: January
February
March
April
May
The 14 Fish and Chip meals this month marked new extremes, namely the westernmost (Pig and Fiddle, Bath), southernmost (Star Fish Bar, Warminster) and northernmost (Ye Olde Black Bear, Tewkesbury) fried fish this year. I fully expect the German and Dutch visits to find either proper fish and chips or local delicacies (herring, of course) that fit into this challenges remit and blow the doors off the Eastern borders. Until then, the May tally included:
#
|
Chippies
|
| 51 |
Gill’s Fish Bar |
Swindon, Wiltshire |
03-May |
| 55 |
Noffs Chippy |
Swindon, Wiltshire |
13-May |
| 56 |
Blue Sky Chinese Takeaway |
Swindon, Wiltshire |
15-May |
| 57 |
Roughmoor Village Fish and Chips |
Swindon, Wiltshire |
17-May |
| 59 |
Market Square Fish Bar |
Bicester, Oxfordshire |
23-May |
| 61 |
Star Fish Bar |
Warminster, Wiltshire |
30-May |
#
|
Pubs/Other
|
| 58 |
Dosa Park |
Oxford, Oxfordshire |
19-May |
| 49 |
Waggon and Horses |
Southmoor, Oxfordshire |
01-May |
| 50 |
Seacourt Bridge |
Botley, Oxfordshire |
02-May |
| 52 |
Far From the Madding Crowd |
Oxford, Oxfordshire |
07-May |
| 53 |
Pig and Fiddle |
Bath, Somerset |
08-May |
| 54 |
Wig and Pen |
Oxford, Oxfordshire |
09-May |
| 60 |
The Victoria |
Oxford, Oxfordshire |
29-May |
| 62 |
Ye Olde Black Bear |
Tewkesbury, Gloucester |
31-May |
The DT’s continue unabated, as well, and while a colleague said of the Chippy Challenge that, “[I’m] going to swell up like a tick,” instead I think I’ve gained girth (though not weight) as a result of the daily drinking. Mind you, I always drank copious amounts but this challenge puts me on a daily path at many times that I might have skipped a day or two (or more!). Blasphemy, I know, but there you have it. The tally this month entailed:
BEER
.
WINE
'
CIDER
The Daily Haiku has been fun and I plan to continue through the year but I won’t review these till the end of the year, perhaps to rank a top ten or twenty of my favourites but so far all but a couple are rubbish even when including the background info that helps explain them. I become more and more convinced you don’t have to be clever to be a poet at the same time that this project steers me in the direction of poets I consider remarkably clever.
And, so art brings me to religion or, at a minimum, dogma. The G-Had has been going on for a while now since my initial treatise on Hashlam. The Combat Season has given way to the Summer, it seems, with only the Bicester Hash taking a hit in May. Still on 1-per-month or more, but the prophet hasn’t been speaking to me (or through me) these past few weeks; plus, no one is ever hashing near a pub I can add to the list at a time that I can set aside to help them find The Way. And, so on to June.
Fortieth birthday*
Celebrations this weekend:
Bicester HHH.
Name: That One
Type: bitter
*Not my 40th…that was 12 years ago in Holland.
Venue: The Penny Black, Bicester
Review/notes: It was a day of mis-direction, starting with the G-Had against the Bicester Hash and moving on to the beer order: “I’ll have That One.” “This one?” she asked, pointing at the pump. “Yes, but no…That One.”
The sleight of hand continued with the pint as it looked and even tasted like a thin mild but was still 4.7% abv. Not much flavour to this one, but with the mouth of a mild, maybe I should have tried a different one.
[DT =Daily Tipple, explained in DT #000 here]
Monthly consolidations/compilations: January
February
March
April
The Endless British Pub Crawl 
Warmest regards to Fatty from Tucson for spotting this beer label (if anyone knows where to get Fat Tire in Swindon or Oxford please get in touch)
It has been a good run — one of nearly 6 years, nearly 1300 different pubs, a few marathons and a bunch of halves (and shorter races), good entertainment, fulfilling work, and a couple of laughs. But, it is over … at this address, anyway: I’ll continue on in much the same vein at the Endless British Pub Crawl (continues) but this site will just be an archive for the first 1292 pubs and memorial to itself and a lot of ill-advised fun that went into gathering the material herein.
I want to do a retrospective of this blog’s 6 years but it deserves better than what you have before you. Them’s the breaks…here it is in tedious detail.
In 2177 days, there have been 2537 posts. Of those, 1292 were specifically for 1st time pub visits, 367 were for last year’s Daily Tipple (with added Haiku), 210 have been for the Chippy Challenge and the Kebab Challenge, and 169 were for the 2012 Yellow Beer Challenge. The remaining 499 involved running, mocking the serious beliefs of others, laughing at the weak, bitching and moaning about one thing or another, obituaries, and other things that serve to strengthen my bona fides of Britishness. According to WordPress, these pages have been visited just over 350,000 times…get a life, losers.
Most frequent pub names so far (and how many of each):
43 Red Lions
24 Crowns
22 Ploughs
19 (tie) Bells, White Harts
15 Greyhounds
14 (tie) Black Horses, King’s Arms, Queen’s Heads
13 (tie) Rose and Crowns, Swans, White Horses
Best names: Five Mile From Anywhere No-Hurry Inn, Far From The Madding Crowd, Cafe Rene, Sally Pussey’s Inn, The Bee’s In The Wall, The Roaring Donkey, Who’d A Thought It
Fuck that place: The Angerstein Hotel, The Woodman Inn, The Black Horse
Personal favourite pub write ups: The Chequers in Cottenham, hangover after a night in the King’s Arms in Ely, handing the puzzle over to the Dog and Duck in Linton (Cambs), the Crown in Penzance (a low-key 25th anniversary), the Glue Pot in Swindon after my first Wildcats Hockey match, the Blackfriar in London (not so much the write up as the architectural details), and the Rose and Crown in Chippenham for the fantastic people watching. Certain there are other decent ones but this list contains the two or three I’m really pleased with.
Other pubs worthy of mention (good or bad):
The Red Lion in Southampton for architecture and Henry V connection
The Hop Inn for the locals’ alternative names
The five Red Lion Run back in 2010
The New Inn, Blists Hill (a historic museum town)
The Goldfinger (accidentally found Ian Fleming’s grave on run to this one)
The Blue Boar, Aldbourne (Dr. Who link)
The Blind Beggar, Whitechapel (Kray Brothers link)
The Red Lion, Aston (a town of ‘tards)
The Brass Monkey, Teignmouth (George W Bush on their sign)
Wernham Hogg’s, Slough (The Office tie-in)
The writing isn’t brilliant but it was never meant to be stunning. I have occasionally stumbled into something I’m happy enough with (to mention here) but never anything I would attach a real name to. Some of those are:
“What a Bunch of Dicks” (September 2011)
“Our Ex-Neighbours” (September 2011, with links to the whole saga)
“Risk Assessment: Proper Use of Bins” (October 2012)
“British Citizenship Exam” (November 2012)
“My Pet Leeches” (September 2013)
“Me and the Queen” (June 2012)
It wasn’t all drinking and knob jokes. Occasionally I ran, sometimes quite a lot (although usually whilst stopping regularly for drinks and to tell inappropriate knob jokes). I even race a bit with some of my favourite racing efforts here:
Grunty Fen 1/2 Marathon and general thoughts on the finisher’s medal (September 2009)
Snowdonia Marathon pub crawl (October 2009)
The River Run — Cantabrigiensis HHH (October 2009)
New Year’s Eve 10K Little Downham (January 2010)
Historical notes on the 30 Pack Marathon (April 2010)
Thame 10K and morning chunders (June 2010)
Florence Marathon (December 2010)
Bupa 10K plus bailout for the London Hash (May 2011)
Run For Heroes 5K or thereabouts (August 2011)
Chippenham Half with a sponsored pub stop (September 2011)
Swindon Half whilst hitting every pub within 1/2 mile (October 2011)
Cricklade Half + 8 mile warm-up (October 2011)
London Marathon pub crawl (April 2012)
Great British Beerathon Like the 30-Pack only smaller and including food (August 2012)
Great Bustard 5 or getting there’s half the fun (July 2013)
Beat the Bore at Night (September 2013)
Malmesbury Carnival 10K done twice to hit some pubs after (August 2014)
Isle of Wight Marathon pub crawl (October 2014)
11:58 My big head notwithstanding, this is the Joe Strummer Subway
In fact, I started the blog for people in the States that already knew about my running idiosyncrasies (i.e., running to get to a bar, drinking heavily there or at one or more other bars, then running home). So, for them the “racing” entries are no surprise nor are some of the other efforts, which I enjoy as much or more. These three Birthday runs are typical:
2010
2013
2014
I also used to ‘hash’ before I found the one true way; my life as a hasher came long after I started drink-running (and drug-running, for that matter) and that it has become just a passing fad baffles some of those folk although I still encourage hash virgins to go to a hash as a kick start to Hashlam. I would, indeed, encourage all of you to go hashing at some point.
We saw some good shows and bad shows and some shows. I saw Springsteen in the Atlanta Fox Theatre in the 70’s but Jackie never had so we booked a trip to Maastricht to fix that…and it was awesome. We causght Neil Young in Hyde Park and Paul Simon there as well another year. Two of the best shows were Lloyd Cole in Stroud and George Thorogood in Cambridge, and you can’t go wrong with the BeatHoles.
Tourism ideas:
No trip to Wales is complete without a ride down this highway. (November 2009)
Find out why they refer to Oxford as the City of Dreaming Spires. (September 2010)
You can wait for English Heritage or the National Trust, but the loving family fits their own plaques (like this one to Arthur Stanley Eddington). (August 2011)
If you get to Germany, indulge in the local folklore like the Bremen Musicians. (June 2012)
Nothing is more fun than old buses. (June 2014)
Get out on the street furnishing trail, maybe starting with post boxes. (November 2014)
And, to be serious, here are a few ideas for London.
Recipes and food:
A friend that travels in China sent some delectable menu items to look for but I still haven’t found them in any Chinatown restaurants. On the other hand, you can find the most interesting spices in the Caribbean markets, here.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day so you shouldn’t shy away from complicated recipes like this one. Or, as an alternative you could start your day with one of these.
There were, of course, a lot of booze recipes, but these are worth the efforts involved and better than the pictures would suggest:
Lupini
Cassoulet (one of several versions blogged herein)
Rabbit
Finally, no look back wouldn’t include obits. Mostly, I obitted people I don’t know but knew of but on occasion I actually had a relationship with the deceased (Rest in Peace, y’all):
Vic Chesnutt (December 2009)
Bus Job (October 2010)
Andy Holden (whom I did not know but feel a special connection to, January 2014)
This blog (January 2015, which you are reading right now)
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