BRAPA - Mobb Mentality, No Marstons in Marston & Moody Cricket

With just four current Good Beer Guide pubs to complete in Cheshire, I set off over the Pennines on Saturday morning full of hope and apprehension, with three of them in my sights, one of which had eluded me previously due to misleading opening hours.

First up though, we had Mobberley.  The good news is Mobberley has its own train station, bad news, it is 35 minutes walk to the pub.  Good news, the weather was great.  Bad news, the sun was shining on my phone screen and I only had one bar of signal, so it took me ten minutes to work out that I was walking in a pubwardly direction.

Pavements all the way despite the country lanes, now that is what we like to see.  You know what else I like to see?  An owl.  Mobberley had a fine example of one to raise the spirits half way through the walk.  I called it Chris.

England had a weird atmosphere about it on this particular Saturday lunchtime.  We had a Royal Wedding imminent, and an FA Cup Final in the offing.  Makes no difference to BRAPA, but there were so few people out & about, it almost made you feel you should be somewhere else.  A man on a bike with Oliver Cromwell's jawline said 'Good Morning', but that was about it.

I'd had a heavy Friday night in dirty L**ds, so I wasn't as prepared as usual.  No snacks, no drink, I assumed Mobberley would have some kind of shop, but if it did, I never saw it. All I did see was a Brewery Tap, a cattery and two pubs, one of which I HAD to go inside ......

1360 / 2106.  Bull's Head, Mobberley

Mid-Cheshire, they call this part of the world, and this pub was about as quintessentially GBG Cheshire pub as I've so far witnessed.  An obviously old building which has kept a foot in the past, but has also modernised to such an extent that although I wanted to love it, the Charge Sheet is fairly damning.  Unisex toilets being the biggest culprit, terrified every second I was in there.  Kale hand lotion, a wicker basket of logs doing nothing, a gin blackboard obsession and plenty of scatter cushions were the kind of features I needed to turn a blind eye to.  At the bar, I was greeted in friendly fashion, but my Storm beer needed more top-ups than any other beer I've had all year!  "A lively one this" said the young bar dude.  It was time to dust off my manual of 'inane bar pleasantries' so I told him that 'is probably a good sign' and 'good things come to those who wait'.  Despite hating myself inside, the beer was so welcome when it arrived.  Shame it was freezing, fizzy and boring.  I wish I'd brought my stirrer to knock out the bubbles.  I bet Nick in Erlangen would have brought his temperature gauge (to use in the beer, not to shove up a barman) - that was just one of many thoughts I had.  A barmaid downloaded the new work rota (I remember when these things were pinned to walls) and everyone gathered around excitedly to learn their fate.  "Ooh, I wonder if I'll be going to my own barbecue tomorrow?" said the guy who'd served me.  "Um, no you're not!"  replied a barmaid who'd read ahead.  Everyone laughed.  He looked tearful, and then spent the next 20 minutes trying to swap shifts with people.  Poor guy.  I was sat in the 'whisky snug' (where dogs are allowed) but can you really call something a 'snug' if the front door opens onto it?  The quirky landlord then strode into the pub and boomed "Good to see a few anti-royalists in today, rarrrrr!" like he was playing Blackpool's Rebellion Punk Festival.  We all nodded reverently, if that's what punx do.  He then slagged off Didsbury which he'd just driven through for resembling a scene from the end of the Second World War, keeping up Didsbury's uncanny record of always being mentioned wherever I go in the North West.

It was time for the hot 35 minute trek back to the station, had it really been worth it?  Well yes of course in BRAPA terms, but would a casual visitor do the walk just because they love the pub so much?  Hell no!

A couple of stops down the line, I reached Northwich, scene of my first ever Cheshire pub tick, the Penny Black Wetherspoons, which I actually loved!  I'd also been recommended a pre-emptive called Salty Dog, but didn't quite have time to fit it in, which means it'll definitely get into the next edition now that I've forsaken it.

No, the real reason for my visit was a village called Marston with no bus service, but at only a 21 minute walk, a lot easier to get to than the Mobberley pub!  The quirks of this country eh?

The walk was frenetic along a busy main road with thin pavement, but it didn't take long, and even passed the home of Witton Albion F.C., where Hull City once won an FA Cup replay away to Runcorn, which makes no sense at all!

The pub soon came into focus, just as I'd seen a load of American pensioners with cowboy hats, flowery frocks and sandals vacating the town.  Was this a post-royal-wedding buggering off?  It sure looked like it.  An amusing scene, a bit like something from an episode of Eerie Indiana.

The pub came into sight, and didn't look like the gastro-hell I'm sure I'd seen from their website, although randomly, I could've been looking at the Falmouth Packet in Rosudgeon ........

1361 / 2107.  Salt Barge, Marston

So as you can imagine, it came as a total brilliant surprise to find myself in a dark old fashioned pub, full of side rooms, warped beams, pictures of old salt mines with a sweaty grumpy landlord presiding over things with classic gallows humour i.e. he probably wanted to hang me for giving him more work to do.  I ordered a beer inspired by the band Charlatans, which was funny cos I had 'North Country Boy' in my head all morning, but something rings a bell they are from Northwich?  I was into them back in the day, but the ale excited me about as much as the Brains Steroephonics one and plenty of others - should be a lesson to me, not even been a big fan of Trooper and most people love that one!  I sat near two knights on some nice bench seating facing a screen of FA Cup build up.  A couple asked which ciders were on.  Mine host seemed to be a cider fan, and gave them tasters of a few unusual ones.  Then the wife says "don't they have Strongbow?" to her hubbie, and I could feel my toes curl with embarrassment.  Speaking of which, some 'lively' (i.e. annoying) locals came in armed with their own snooker cues, and had a session of pool which sounded like a pack of wildebeest rutting in the front room.  Is so much grunting and groaning really necessary for pool?   Mine-host was on the topic of the Royal Wedding.  "I had two blokes knocking my door down at 11:50am asking when I was opening and if I was showing it on my screens .... well I'd already told the wife if she wants to watch it, she's on her own!"  Proper pub this, an unlikely gem.

I now had to walk back into Northwich (proper!) where the bus stands are to take me to Davenham, home of the Cricket Club which wouldn't serve me last month at 4pm because they were having a beer festival (which started 6pm, on a Saturday, for FFS!)

A bus was waiting at Stand G (obviously the furthest one away) and I hopped on and remembered to correctly pronounce it 'Dave-un-um'.  "Oooh am not stopping right in the centre mate" warns the amusing bus driver, but do any buses?  He was stopping Green Lane, good enough for me!

So a real sense of deja vu, this next bit.  The main purpose of this bus seems to be to meander around Leftwich, a sort of broken Britain housing estate.  Everyone on my bus got off there, all were wheezy and obese, and I was the only one who made it to the top deck of the bus.  They should rename it Sandwich, really.

Finally I was there, ten minutes delayed, but good because it was now about 3:55pm, just like last time.  Of course, the cricket season had started by now, and the 2nd XI were at home to Heaton Chapel 2nds.  So you'd think extended opening hours, but the website still said "core" hours of 4pm .... so I couldn't take anything for granted on the walk up to the club.

1362 / 2108.  Davenham Cricket Club, Davenham

Plenty of people were milling around, doors were open, and we were between innings', the home side had just declared on 260/3, a tough ask for Heaton Chapel.  I found a bar, and tried to mask my delight at having made it.  Time to 'set my face' to that of a local, nonchalant if you like.  As if to say "I come here every week!"  as I didn't wanna get embroiled in the whole 'showing my GBG card, guide itself, signing guest books, paying nominal fees' if I could help it.  I like that there are Clubs in the Good Beer Guide because despite the peril of 'getting in' and the more family based atmosphere, which inevitably leads to more twildery, such negatives are usually over-written by the warmth and humour of the folk.  But not in Davenham.  Miserable from the outset, and that was just the barman's face.  And just the constant moaning about everything, jeez, I don't mind if it is done with humour but this was just misery for misery's sake.  One ray of light was when a twild wandered in, saw the BBC News showing highlights of the Royal Wedding and just went "Uggggh Dad, WHAT IS THAT?!" before jumping up on a bar stool, and tapping on the drip tray/mat until he got his can of Dr Pepper Zero.  A #PubMan of the future in the making there.  Then the Cup Final got the slating it probably deserved.  "It'll be 0-0, extra time, penalties, no shots on goal, nothing!"  A man came into the bar, slammed his glass down, and just said "REPEAT!"  I've heard people say "same again" but this was ridiculous.  Try as I might to smile at any given local, no one did apart from one lady.  Utterly charmless bunch (really good pint I should add for balance!), and I left with Heaton Chapel 4/0 off 2 overs, praying they'd win.  They didn't.

Quavers bloke enjoyed Gary Lineker's quips (not crisps) more than most.  Walkers fan?

Woman on right only one who smiled, so she wins 

Yes, as I walked out of the ground and dodged a van which was trying to mow me down, of course it did, Davenham hates me (from the second I stepped on that bus in April and pronounced it wrong it has been a disaster), it was time to chant my away team chant:

"Ohhhhh, Heaton Chapel,
You are good at Cricket Battles,
You might just be second eleveny
But your batting skills are heavenly
And you've got the Chiverton Tap
Which is better than this crap".

And there you have it.  SAME bus driver came to take me back to Northwich.  We recognised each other and smiled .... "You weren't long there lad!" he exclaimed.  "Long enough to see the Cricket Club" I replied.

But with the day still young, I had time for three more pubs.  All of which would be just over that Greater Mancunian border.  I'll write that up next time, but for now, have a nice Sunday .....

Si

BRAPA - Cambridgeshire II : Peru in Possible Eurovision Debut Shocker (Part 2 of 2)

Piggy time

So where were we?  Yes, deep in the South Cambridgeshire countryside with the venerable Martin Taylor for company.  We'd just been failed to be wowed by GBG mainstay the Queen's Head in Newton but happier times were around the corner.  And the other corner.  And down a country lane.  And another one etc etc.

Crikey!  If I think back to my formative BRAPA days, I remember once standing in my kitchen with a laptop in the dark back in 2014 spending about an hour trying to work out how to get to the village of Abingdon Piggots from East Bedfordshire strongholds like Dunton and Wrestlingworth.  It was impossible.  Little did I know back then, a man who probably isn't an axe murderer would volunteer to drive me.

I was so dying for a pee by the time we arrived in this picture postcard village with colourful thatched houses that I opened the car door before Martin had even parked up (I didn't go though!).  After chuckling at me and then partaking in the obligatory BRAPA photo outside, Martin then wobbled after an old bloke to hold the door open for him whilst his own trousers were falling down.

This was the most life Ab Pig had seen since July 18th 1744 when a sheep escaped from a farm, relocated itself to Litlington, and refused to return home.  The villagers hate each other to this day.  Did the pub know what it had let itself in for with us two?  Of course not.

1356 / 2102.  Pig & Abbot, Abington Piggots 

This was more my kind of pub.  Okay so the locals were every bit as 'silver spoon in mouth' as their Newton counterparts, but this place felt old yet kind of 'real cosy pub' as well, not like being in some Beamish style museum piece.  Carpets, deep red colours, fires, beams, inglenooks, even the 'piles of logs sitting there not serving a purpose' were hard to dislike. Though I'd chosen a guest beer before I went for my long awaited toilet break, Martin displayed his true #pubman credentials, asking the barman which ale had last been pulled through, so I was presented with a crisp London Pride instead, and bonus bag of scampi fries, equally crisp haha (sorry).  Such things will be taken into consideration when the Year End Awards are decided on 31/12/18.  Have you contributed to BRAPA in such a way?  Maybe you should.  You won't win an award, just the happy realisation you've done well.  We'll call it altruism, or something.  Martin took me back to the loo (not as dodgy as it sounds) to show me a fluffy owlet nesting in a toilet door, not a real one but the kind of detail I might have missed.  I'd built this pub up in my mind, but now I can sleep easy.  Another GBG regular ticked off, and attentions can now turn to my Huntingdonshire (as if that's a real county) trip next time out.  

The random pile of logs behaving itself

Old men in lycra are what makes rural GBG ticking so much 'fun'

Little owlet weird thing

Away from Cambs, there was plenty of time for more pub ticking.  We drove back into Royston (Hertfordshire).  It was that hazy time of day when only a 'Spoons would do.

If that E drops on my head, I'm suing the beggars

1357 / 2103.  Manor House, Royston

Quite light and airy for a 'Spoons, it had that classic quirkiness you'd expect more from one in somewhere like Rochdale or Maltby.  They showcased their locals in a series of side rooms, each like a little theatre production you could step in and out of, as if placed there for your own amusement.  There was almost something peep show about it (not David Mitchell or Robert Webb), but a bit less sexy but just as seedy.  I was 'feeling it' a bit by now anyway, and this combined with the reality of the situation made me feel a bit like I was in a Lewis Carroll novel, certainly more so than the Looking Glass in Warrington.  The staircase seemed sinister too, and you couldn't walk up or down it without an old person with the face of a rabbit making an amusing rhyming comment as they let you past.  I could tell I was starting to waver, as even though I was fully aware Martin had just sensibly ordered a coffee, which he had to go and get himself from some sentient machine, I still insisted on trying to pay with a Mudgie voucher, my last one for this quarter as it happens - so I still have one left to use in my next predicted 'Spoons, which may even be the Hain Line in St Ives, and I ain't even talking about the Cambs St Ives!  

Man dresses as Texas Pete from Superted to give his kids interview technique practice

Sinister staircase

They KNOW!

Martin left me, worried he'd left me in slightly worse for wear condition, and I took the 10 minute stroll back to the rail station.  Ten mins direct, half an hour for me.  But this was standard 5 pint feeling, and after a loud blonde girl made the London train reappear on the scoreboard by shouting a lot, I had two Juicy Waters, 8 cheesestrings, 5 chicken bites and a bag of mini cheddars, and by the time I woke up at Kings Cross, I was feeling fresh and ready for the late afternoon / early evening session. 

Okay, I only had £2.50 loaded on my Oyster Card but it was just enough at this stage.  

I had just the three Central London pubs remaining, two close together, so seemed a good opportunity to crack on.  I 'alighted' at Great Portland Street, and finally went to a pub I'd promised I'd do on about 6 previous trips and never quite got to it .......

1358 / 2104.  Stags Head, Fitzrovia

Despite the exclusive address, I thought this place looked like an estatey pub doss-house, the sort you'd have free bread & dripping in with a pint of Tetley's with yer Grandad in a ridiculously smoky atmosphere in South L**ds in the 1980's.  That actually sounds quite magical mudgical doesn't it?  Well. Anyway.   Inside, I was delighted that the pub had a dark understated comfortable feel, putting me in mind of the Calthorpe Arms at Bloomsbury and very few others in London.  Quite friendly too, but despite my recovery, I wasn't ready for an ale like this.  I tried to go local, something called Think Tank from West London.  Hops so chewy, I've had smoother steaks!  I leaned on the side wall admiring all the flags hanging from the ceiling.  Geared up for the World Cup a bit early aren't they, I thought, but then I remembered it was Eurovision tonight, so maybe it was that.  But are Peru in Eurovision?  Well Australia are, so probably!  If cask beer in Central London is enough to make the locals want to 'embrace' every style of drink under the sun, then the interesting folk of London can always be relied upon to make the ale more palatable through sheer amusement.   A lady had a 'head' on the table with her.  Was she a medical student/lecturer?  Or was she on a date with it?  I got my answer when a real human head arrived on the end of a human body and the poor 'head' was made to feel like the gooseberry.  Is it wrong I had so much empathy with it?  We've all been there.  The ale went down better after this, and as the lady and man left with head in tow (so it wasn't an amusing pub prop like the 1999 Good Beer Guide), I left aswell.

It even looks intimidating and Londonish now!

Ignore the footballs, probably becomes a hive of Eurovision campness later on

Happier times for Mr Head

Mr Head forced to face the wall.  Sob!

Time for one more then and break my six pub rule?  Absolutely.

I thought I'd found it but realised it was the wrong door, jeez, spending too long with Martin was obviously having an effect on me:

Don't be silly Simon, Draft Houses don't serve Bass!

It soon appeared, as the rain started coming down heavily.  Hard to believe Thriplow was only a few hours ago .......

1359 / 2105.  Draft House Charlotte, Fitzrovia

I'd heard a whisper that BrewDog were taking over the Draft House chain, so I wondered if this had any impact on their GBG entries?  Will they keep selling cask and continue to get in the Good Beer Guide?  Because my one remaining Central London tick is also a Draft House.  I'll probably do it anyway, still 3 months to go n all that, but is it worth it?  Anyway. this place.  Quite small and heaving with a hubbub heavy young crowd.  For once, I let the barmaid give me tasters of various ales as she so wished as I was trying to buy time, hoping a table would become available behind me.  It didn't.  EVER!  I resorted to standing under the awning in the rain, by the smokers, where I took a picture of a sign and an Irish man shouted "stop taking pictures and drink ya beer!"  It was sound life advice, even if I did mutter "bog brained Murphy twunt" under my breath at the time.  I went back inside, drippy and beaten.  The already smug clientele stared at my forlorn drippiness like you'd look at a stray cat ready to be consigned to South Cambridgeshire Pet Crematorium.  I tried to prop myself against a wall, but it was actually a side door and I got whacked in the arm.  This wasn't a lucky place!  Signs kept saying "Home of the Third".  Do they mean it as in, "a pint, a half, a third" cos pretty sure they didn't invent this?!  I was glad when I finished and could slope off back to the grimy North where I belong.

Must be nice to have a seat you privileged lot!

I spent ages staring at these 3 words wondering if they made sense in this order!

Goodge Street, always wondered what it was like.  Now I don't. 

No room at the inn, waaaaaah!

I got myself back to York with little further incident, though I did get cross with an 'Upper Crust' lady in Kings Cross station for not putting "The Italian" on.  First world problems and all that!  

I was back in time for Eurovision voting, and Peru didn't appear.  So now we know.

Si

BRAPA - Cambridgeshire II - I Don't Wanna Be Buried in a Pet Sematary (Part 1 of 2)

It was 10:40am, it was Saturday, and I was in the confusing Royston train station.  Why confusing you might ask?  Well, it is in Hertfordshire and not Cambridgeshire, not what any sane person wants to hear.  And it had two car parks so no-one had any idea where they were supposed to meet their chauffeurs for the day. 

To add to my early sense of chaos, I was wearing the BRAPA 'third kit', the large green one.  A real rarity.  My 'home' kit was in the wash, the away retro Bradford one was at my Mum's.  The BRAPA kit man has been sacked, I'm pleased to report.

My chauffeur, pubman, nice guy and Cambs walking knowledge font, Martin Taylor, sped into the car park apace, gathered me up, muttered a few unintelligible Fenland niceties / insults and we were on our way to pub #1.

First thing we passed was a pet crematorium.  Significant because I'd been contemplating getting a BRAPA cat mascot to go around my pubs with.  And as you know, the only cat that goes where you tell it to is a dead one.  "Ohhhh please can we go and dig one up Martin, pleeeeassse" I pleaded, but we'd already missed the turning. 

Duxford was our furthest point away but an 11 o'clock opener, so the ideal place to start.  Nostalgia for me, as we often came to the famous Air Museum when I was a Saffron Walden twild back in the late eighties.  Shame on myself for not nipping into this pub back then.  My two main memories are walking around Concorde (it didn't burst into flames, the engine wasn't on but that's no given) and having a massive nose bleed and an old woman (then sympathetic, now dead) looking into the car like she was worried I'd been beaten up by Mum and Dad. 

Martin says "I won't join you in this one, I'll go for a walk" in what we now know as the 'Ashley manoeuvre' so I said "but what if Bass is on?"  Next thing I know, he runs to the window and peers in towards the bar.  But it wasn't.  Still, I piqued his curiousity.  Sort of.  "It's 11:03, meet me back here 11:30" ordered Martin and strode away.

Stupid third kit!

1353 / 2099.  Plough, Duxford

27 minutes of fun then, I hoped, and to be honest, I was just happy that it was open.  If this was rural North Yorkshire, the landlord would have opened the door, stretched, yawned, and locked it again til 12 noon.  It's early days of Cambs ticking but I get the impression there's a lot of old fashioned pub tradition still scattered about the countryside.  This pub may have been foody to the left, but the right hand side (the better side of a pub in 76.8% of all cases, and that is a BRAPA fact) was pleasingly traditional.  The young barman was outwardly friendly, though there was an unsaid sense of "we don't recognise you, what are you doing here and what do you want?"  I think they were half expecting me to ask for directions, rather than a gorgeous dark Ram Tam from Tim Taylor's.  I'm not one of these Yorkshire nob-ends who take pleasure in ordering Yorkshire ales down south, but it made sense here.  To say the pub had supposedly been only open 3 minutes, a man in wellies propping up the bar looked like he'd been here all night.  Even more so, three local dominoes players, totally enthralled by their game.  Quotes included "I ain't won yet, I keep getting that cursed blank three", "Phwoaaaar, that's a good five" and "I've only been picking up sixes .... I've got so many spots, I can't see the end of my nose!"  This was glorious, the fact one of them had a Sid James laugh only added to the early morning mirth, no wonder the WiFi password was 'properpub' (lower case, even though the sign was in capitals!)  In some ways, this was BRAPA perfection.

It soon transpired Martin's watch was three minutes slower than mine, so I was back out at the car when he jogged around the block.  Back in the car, next stop was Thriplow just a few minutes drive.  It was a beautiful little setting, rather rural and again, Martin looked at the pub with slight suspicion and went on another walk, giving me the full 30 minute quota. 

1354 / 2100.  Green Man, Thriplow

First thing that annoyed me, they'd blocked you from entering to the more foody right hand side so you had to enter to the left through the 'bar' area, which means every man, woman and twild did, right in my eyeline.  I use inverted commas around 'bar' because this so called trad area was blindingly jaundice sepia style decor, gin menus, wanky blackboards, zero beermats, hanging hop bines and jam jars.  Or in short, a pub that's trying to annoy the rogue drinker!  The barman had an antipodean twang, and was a good guy, in fact all the staff were friendly, hard working and patient (we'll get onto that).  I guessed he might be actually from New Zealand, for he wore a lot of black and white, looked ready to break into the Haka at any given moment, and had he dealt with a fish & chips order, he'd surely have said 'fush and chups'.   A young local Prince Harry came in, lauded it over the pub, and smiled nicely at everyone but me.  The nicest customer was a quiet nervous man.  He was here for a date with a 'Jane' who'd reserved their table, he admitted he'd arrived an hour early!  Dutch courage on a grand scale it seemed.  Everyone else came in, demanded food, said they hadn't booked, but they wanted an table in the window!  This is where the patient barmaids came into their own, basically telling them in the nicest way possible that they were almost fully booked but could sit outside and if it rained, it was their own fault for not booking.  I was in survival mode by now, and had to grasp at the slightest remnant of 'comfort' so I picked up a book from the book case about two naughty kittens called Smoke & Fluff, probably named by Mudgie.  To cut a long story short, they behaved like dickheads throughout, especially upsetting their 'cook', hiding in cupboards, stealing tarts, getting flour everywhere.  Their Mum told them off on the penultimate page, but then forgave them immediately saying "kittens will be kittens".  Cook was fuming like 'WTF dude, I resign', and Cambridgeshire has never forgiven Ladybird books, hence Pet Crematoriums specially designed for kittens wherever you look. 

A local Cambs brew, started amazingly, soon got wearing.

And this was the pubby area! 

Again, I was back to the car first despite having taken 32 minutes, such was the gripping nature of Smoke & Fluff's adventures.  Martin bolted out the undergrowth like a proper Fenlander, and soon we were heading the short distance to Newton, probably walkable on a 'non-assisted' BRAPA day. 

"Ahhh, this is great isn't it?" I said to Martin as we sped down a country lane.  "What, the Cambridgeshire countryside or being chauffeured around the pubs?" he asked.  I laughed.  He knew.

"Do you know about this next pub?" asked Martin as we parked up, for it had been in every edition of the GBG ever!  Wow, I love ticks like this, as they are properly valuable (watch it get de-guided in 2019 now I've said that).   But would that be a guarantee I'd love it?  You'd think so wouldn't you?

 

Is that Anne of Cleves?  Much underrated.  

1355 / 2101.  Queen's Head, Newton

We wandered inside to find a series of Adnams barrels facing us.  Martin got something sensible cos he's a pub man, I got Mosaic cos I'm half millennial and make dangerous life choices.  No head on such beers of course, hmmm,  when in the south, do as southerners do.  Bet if those embarrassing Hull City fans who take a sparkler around the country with them brandished it here, they'd have it shoved right up their Hull.   The staff & punters had that whiff of superiority about them that you often find in pubs that KNOW they are good (so why try harder, right?), seen it in plenty worse York tourist ghost holes than this.  If the staff weren't chilly enough, there was that chill in the air that you get in ancient unchanged pubs where they can't really do much in the way of heating it up, or say they can't. You could even suggest that the pub tries a bit too hard to maintain a 'basic oldness' when you hear that food-wise, it is famed for this 'brown soup' which some may say is the same pot of stuff, stirred a couple of times a week, and that's been going round & round since 1729!  Only 18 landlords here since 1729 .... now I'm not saying what the brown soup is made from but .... Anyway, no sooner had we been served, found a seat to the right, when Martin tells me how posh everyone is in Newton, when a father, son and greyhound trio (all with the silky smooth voices of Roger Allam) walked in with their respective noses in the air.  After seating ourselves in the right hand side, Martin decided to give me something of a guided tour and opening a very closed door at the far end found apparent Cambridgeshire royalty, an ex CAMRA legend and ex landlord of Cambridge Blue, my first Cambs real ale pub back in 2003 and a very good one I might add.  Him and his wife looked unimpressed, so after the odd photo here and there, I shuffled off like the pub tourist scum I am.  Occasionally Violet the Greyhound would run over to us for a head scratch and probably say "Oh Terri, I don't like the cut of your jib", a quality dog.  But ultimately, the pub left me with that same feel that the Seven Stars in Falmouth did.  So old and famous, they make you feel like you should just be grateful for being here.  Grateful that pubs like this still exist, yes, but I can't remember the similar Bell at Aldworth or Birch Hall Inn at Beck Hole lacking 'down to earth' qualities.  It was a faint subtle detachment, like "yeah ok, don't come any closer, you can look but you can't touch", but it left me feeling a bit underwhelmed by the whole thing.   A pub that deserves any pub lovers attention, but gimme Roscoe Head in Liverpool any day.

Anyway, it was THAT time.  The key pub of the day was on the horizon.  Well, a very long and painful horizon but I will tell you about that, Royston ' Spoons, drunken Si and two London pubs in part two.

Si