As evidence that I need to get out more, I was overly excited to see that British Airways have replaced Kettle chips with Tyrrell’s crisps in the lounges. Not that there’s anything wrong with Kettle chips, but a change is as good as a rest or whatever the phrase is. Hopefully they’ll change the flavours about a bit and won’t try and stock the vegetable crisps that Tyrrell’s make….
Category: UK
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Heathrow – Ibis Heathrow
This is what I think is my seventh visit to this hotel, and also the third time that I’ve posted about it. I might need to switch to a different Accor hotel for future visits to give me something else to write and moan about….
No welcome gift, which is mildly irritating since I’m trying to compile a list and it’s constantly this hotel that fails to deliver one. It’s not important at all in the scale of things, although Accor themselves said that customers should rate the hotel down on review sites for this, which is probably not what the hotel franchise holder wants to hear. On more important matters, the room was spotlessly clean and was well provisioned, so no complaints there.
For the second time this year, the hotel didn’t offer me a drinks vouchers. I had to query it, at which point the staff member discovered that it should have been given out.
Service at the bar was polite, but the staff were serving customers out of turn. Since I wasn’t buying anything, just getting a free drink, I’m happy for them to serve their paying customers first, but the staff didn’t know at that point that I wasn’t buying anything…. The drink is again under-measured and the staff member slid it across the bar at me. That requires some confidence, as if a staff member gets it wrong then the drink will go crashing into a customer.
The free drink is though generous, it’s any drink other than champagne, so I went with the reliable if unexciting London Pride. What more interested me though is that another customer asked if they had any craft beer. This was a very good question, and one I haven’t bothered to ask as I knew the answer. The hotel doesn’t have any incidentally, although it really should….
The hotel doesn’t have any information in the room about, well, the hotel. So I had to go and take a photo of the breakfast sign I had noticed by the lift to get the times. I’m not sure why the hotel can’t provide this information in the room on an information sheet that nearly every other Ibis does. Anyway, the room was quiet and I didn’t experience any issues with noise either internally or externally. The wi-fi was also fast, efficient and easy to connect to.
I hadn’t noticed this book corner in the hotel before, looks good.
Well it looked good until I saw what they had done with this book. Grrrrr….
I went down for breakfast at 06:29, a precise time as they were serving the hot food from 06:30. I had a yoghurt and fruit selection whilst waiting and the hot food was brought out pretty much exactly on time at 06:35 or thereabouts.
The hot options are fine, although the sausages are of an unexceptional quality. The bacon was what I’d consider part-cooked as the bacon wasn’t rendered enough for me so I was left cutting bits of fat off. But, I’m irritating like that, I’m sure most customers were entirely content with the bacon. I don’t usually eat scrambled eggs, but another customer asked for fried eggs and a polite member of staff said that the kitchen couldn’t offer those.
These pastries really aren’t great, although I still suspect that they’re sourced from a central supplier agreed by Accor, so it’s hard to blame the hotel. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if these are from Brakes. The staff were all efficient at the breakfast area including one who was using customer’s first names, which is unusual, but adds a bit of personality to the event.
Overall, the hotel came in at just over £30 as part of the Black Friday offer from Accor, so given that includes breakfast is a very reasonable price. There’s some tidying up needed on how they deal with the ALL (Accor’s new loyalty scheme) as they’re well behind most other Ibis hotels, but their reception staff are helpful and efficient. The bar staff, as I’ve noticed on my previous visits, verge between helpful and hopeless, but there we go. Still recommended, although I saw people using the Hoppa service again when they could have just got on any TFL bus free of charge to the airport….
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Flights – Heathrow T5 to Bucharest (British Airways)
My flight today was the 10:05 BA886 service operating from London Heathrow T5 to Bucharest in Romania. I haven’t been to Bucharest before, although I’ve been to Romania when I visited Oradea a couple of years ago. The aircraft being used today was G-TTNC, an Airbus A320 which was acquired new by British Airways in June 2018. The aircraft had come from Toulouse this morning and after it had returned from Bucharest, it then flew to Brussels.
The boarding process was well managed and the boarding by group was enforced. One of the staff was quite forthright in dealing with customers who tried to board before they were meant to, but if there’s going to be a policy on things like this, it may as well be enforced. I was surprised how many customers tried to ignore the instructions that the staff members were making and although some might have been lost in translation, there were a few customers with headphones who seemed just a little oblivious to everything going on around them and they just wanted to board.
I had an emergency exit row seat, so there was plenty of space, and no-one was seated next to me either. I felt sorry for the crew, playing Jenga with bags to try and fit them all in the overheads. They had to put some bags in storage elsewhere on the aircraft and so they were perhaps fortunate that there were twenty or so seats which were unused. As I’ve posted about before, the amount of bags that are brought on board is going to have to be reduced at some point.
The emergency exit row.
This is the first short-haul BA aircraft that I’ve been on which has wi-fi availability. I can cope, well – just about, without Internet for a couple of hours, so I wasn’t tempted, but it’s a useful service.
For those who do want to use it, the wi-fi service costs £2.99 per flight, which seems reasonable enough.
The descent was quite bumpy, with one customer walking down the aisles stumbling somewhat, but the crew were on hand. The crew were always pro-active and helpful, offering a really friendly service which always felt efficient but unhurried. The flight arrived in around ten minutes before its scheduled time and the pilots offered useful and timely announcements. The flight wasn’t the cheapest at £66 return and it would have likely been cheaper with a budget airline, but the cost wasn’t unreasonable and I felt that £33 for each journey was entirely acceptable.
Incidentally, the border process at Bucharest Airport was efficient, although the staff took quite some time with every incoming individual and so I’m not sure what they were checking. There were lots of signs about the coronavirus as well, with a fair few passengers wearing face masks. Anyway, what I was going to mention was just as I was being called forwards, a customer came from the back of the queue to ask the member of border staff to hurry up. He was ushered away by another staff member in what was a polite manner, but I have to say that any customer who is rude to border or customs staff is taking a huge risk….. I suspect that his request for a swift route through the border wasn’t granted.
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Acton – George and Dragon
This was the second Good Beer Guide pub that I went to in Acton, the other being the Red Lion and Pineapple. It was a strange first impression, as I entered the pub and the first room was empty (well, it had furniture, just no people), then the second room was the same and then the third room, which was the bar, was empty other than for a member of bar staff who seemed to be cleaning. It was one of those experiences whether I was wondering whether I’d wandered into a pub that wasn’t open yet.
But, all was well, it transpired that the pub had just opened at 16:00 and I’d meandered in a few minutes after that, so they likely weren’t expecting many customers at that point. The staff member was friendly and engaging, willingly explaining that there was one dark beer option that met my requirements.
This photo is of the main bar area, with fermentation tanks at the rear of the room, as the pub brews its own beer, trading as the Dragonfly Brewery. In 1958, the pub was advertising that it had opened a new ballroom and restaurant, which I assume would have been in this room. They also advertised “West End Cuisine at Moderate Prices” and this is clearly a location that has seen many weddings and functions over the decades. Like most pubs, the premises were also used to hold inquests into deaths, something which might be seen as a little macabre today. I’m not sure that the Queen of Iceni would be an ideal location to debate how someone had died whilst people are queueing for their unlimited refills of coffee.
The pub actually has a screen which lists the beer, which is clear and well presented, although I didn’t see it at first as it’s only noticeable when leaving the bar.
The beer that I opted for, the Clout Stout from the Clouded Minds brewery. It might have been because the beer was served just a touch cold that I struggled to get many flavours from this stout, although it had a generally pleasant and refreshing taste to it. There are meant to be tastes of malts, cocoa, dried fruits and figs, although they went over my head (or over my palate, whatever is the most appropriate phrase).
This is the second room that I mentioned earlier. There’s a lot of history evident in this building, something that I very much like. This was once a pub that was a stop-off for anyone travelling from London to Oxford, and they’re proud of their list of landlords dating back to 1759 which are on a board in the pub.
And the first room, where customers enter from the road. It seems that this first room dates to the eighteenth century, whilst the second room is earlier, from around the seventeenth century. The building itself wasn’t mauled about in the nineteenth century, a fate which befell most other similar premises in the area, but was originally two separate houses when it was constructed in the seventeenth century.
This is a communal table, a nice idea for when the pub is busy. There’s also a bit of a stage in this room, as there is live music offered, something which reading in old newspapers the pub has been known for over the last few decades. The pub also serves Thai food, although I didn’t see any menus, so that might start a little later on in the evening.
I sufficiently liked this venue to make it my first candidate for my pub of the year….. There’s a quirky edge to the pub, which is clearly full of history, with a welcoming feel to it. All very lovely.
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Acton – Red Lion and Pineapple
I had some spare time en route to Heathrow, so I had a little stop in Acton to visit a couple of pubs listed in the Good Beer Guide. This one is a JD Wetherspoon operated pub, which they took over in the early 1990s from Fuller’s. There seem to be different stories about this pub’s history, but it was the Red Lion until around the 1960s, when the Pineapple bit was added to prevent any confusion with other pubs with a similar name (of which there are no shortage). Part of the building is from an older pub which was mostly demolished to make way for a tramway project in the nineteenth century.
That’s the story anyway, but an 1880s map shows that there was nothing here at all, but a pub was built in the 1890s which I suspect is the older part of the current pub. It was all one building by the 1930s, so the new pub building seems to be from the early twentieth century. Anyway, whatever the truth, it’s an interesting building and the main part of the pub has a large circular bar which dominates the interior.
A sufficiently well balanced beer selection, with the Gothick Dark from Twickenham brewery having rather an attractive pump clip. The taste of it was a little less exciting, the faintest flavour of chocolate and not much else, although it’s something different at least. The staff member was conversational and engaging, so all entirely welcoming.
Anyway, onto TripAdvisor, which is something I haven’t been able to do for over a month, as there are few ridiculous reviews on Polish bars, restaurants and hotels….
“We went for a bottomless brunch nearby and here straight after. We bought a round of drinks and all was fine however, one of our party went to ask for tap water and they refused to give it as we had been to the brunch. Apparently police have asked them not to serve Aeronaut brunchers – but really? Water?”
The Aeronauts is a nearby pub which offers unlimited alcohol for brunch. The pub’s management replied that there’s water on the bar (which there is) and no-one was refused access to it.
“I too was in the group mentioned previously (in fact I bought the initial round of drinks which was a decent bit of business for yourselves and which, presumably, you would have foregone had you known we had committed the terrible crime of attending the Disney singalong brunch before attending your vile establishment).”
Calling a pub vile because they were nervous about serving drunk people? I think it’s clear what’s happened here….
Another customer questioned the management response, posting:
“I think management have got our group confused with someone else as no-one was ‘shown where the water dispenser was’ or ‘helped bring water to our table’. I do understand previous people from the brunch may have caused trouble but when you can see a group of friends trying to enjoy your pub and not causing trouble a little more compassion wouldn’t go a miss.”
But the entirely unnecessary “vile establishment” comment is hard to ignore….
“I felt i was been badly patronised by a team of youngsters who, put togheter, would have reached the age of 70y.o so,as i felt hungry,discretelly,i went accross the road and i got myself a portion of chips”freshly done”. I m sitting in the pub having my beer and a proper portion of chips till the extremelly young table service boy comesto my table and start telling me off about the chips,i explain that what i ordered and what i was served wasnt the same thing and he kept on repeating what he had already told me. This went on three times at which point i decided to make a fuss and asked to speak to the manager(probably around 20y.o)i explained what happened but,obviously,her experience in dealing with customers amounting only to speaking to drunken sods(and there were a few of them around the room).”
Astoundingly, managers aged 20 can be incredibly good….. This customer wasn’t satisfied with his chips he purchased from the pub, so instead of asking for them to be recooked, he got some from the chip shop across the road. Which seems pretty passive aggressive to me, but each to their own….. It’s hard to imagine many more non-violent ways of making more fuss than bringing in food from another establishment…..
“Male staff seem to focus on serving the many elderly, single men who frequent this place and ignore female customers”
I have no idea whether this customer comment is true or not, but it’s the first time that I’ve ever heard a complaint that male bar staff ignore female customers…. I’ve heard the reverse complaint very many times.
Anyway, the pub was all clean and organised, with an interesting choice of beers. My beer was £2.25 (or £1.75 with the CAMRA voucher) which is excellent value…..
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Greater Anglia : Norwich to London Liverpool Street (New Trains)
This is the first time that I’ve had chance to go on the new train between Norwich and London Liverpool Street, I seem to have caught the older rolling stock over the last couple of months. The train was the 11:30 from Norwich, which seemed relatively quiet, even though it was taking passengers from the 12:00 service which had been cancelled. The new train has twelve carriages, and they’ve been made by Stadler in Switzerland.
A screen showing customers where everything is on the train.
It’s possible to see all the way down the train, but there are closeable see-through doors along the carriages. The design of the seats is clunky and rushed, the heater unit on the side is in the way of customers, as is the table’s central support which is just where knees might otherwise go. There is now just one power point between two people (unless one has a USB) and for reasons that I cannot comprehend, plugs don’t fit into many of the power sockets as the base of the seat is in the way. I was able to plug my laptop into the power sockets under the seats on the other side of the table, but only because there was no-one sitting there. It’s an unfortunate bodged job from Greater Anglia, arguably unacceptable given the price increases that they’ve introduced which should have meant they had more than enough money to do this properly.
This slightly irritated me, some idiot putting their feet on what are nearly new seats. Fortunately, it also irritated the guard who politely, but firmly, told the passenger to stop this behaviour when he saw her.
And safely into London Liverpool Street, all on time.
The old rolling stock on the left and the new rolling stock on the right.
Taking everything into account, I prefer the older train. It’s more comfortable, it’s better designed and I think it’s more functional. However, there are two caveats with that, the older train isn’t easy for those with disabilities and it also doesn’t hold as many people as the new train, so these are two big advantages with the upgrade. It’s all very nice that money has been spent on new trains, but I’m hoping that they’re taken in for an interior refit soon to try and give the finish a slightly classier and more functional edge.
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Norwich City Council and Cycle Lanes
Whilst I’m on the subject of Norwich City Council and its random placement of bins, without any care or foresight, I noticed this little arrangement around the corner. I can’t claim to be much of a cyclist, but I’m still not entirely sure whether cycles can go after they leave the end of this road.
I assume this means that cycles can still use the road, but it’s so faded as to be unclear and its placement is moderately random towards the end of the road. What is surprising is that the building at the back of this photo is Norwich City Council’s offices, it’d be nice if they could at least make an effort in the area near to them. And I like the professional repairs that have been made to the paving by the utility companies…..
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Norwich – Paolo’s Restaurant and the Bin
I saw in the local press a couple of weeks ago that Norwich City Council has taken the initiative to place a bin right outside a restaurant, just under their menu board. This seems an unkind and unhelpful thing to do given that the owner of the restaurant has said that the council didn’t bother to tell him that they were planning to do this.
The EDP reported that the owner said:
“I’m a struggling business as it is, as lots are at the moment, so this is just so frustrating. Since the bin has moved people have been standing smoking outside the restaurant and the noise when bins are emptied is horrendous – it just doesn’t help me at all. There’s no point in me having tables and chairs outside at the moment because it’s too cold but in the summer it’s an important part of our business. Now, who is going to want to sit right next to a bin?”
He seems very sensible and it seems that the council haven’t bothered to do anything about it. It’s unclear to me why they can’t put the bin in a location on the other side of the road, which is outside of their own offices…..
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Little Witchingham – St. Faith’s Church (Robert Bateman Grave)
The churchyard of Little Witchingham church doesn’t have many gravestones remaining, the whereabouts of the older ones is unknown to me….
This gravestone, located near to the church’s porch, commemorates the life of Robert Bateman, born in 1802 and he was buried on 15 March 1868. He was an agricultural labourer, married to Sarah Bateman, and he had many children, including Susan, John, James, Mary, Martha, Ruth and Elizabeth. He was born in Swannington and later moved to a property in Little Witchingham.
Unfortunately, that’s about the limit of what I could find out about him, or indeed, any of his family. With the exception that John Bateman pleaded guilty to be drunk and riotous outside Great Witchingham church in 1881. It seems a shame that this seems to be all that’s been recorded in the local press about the family, which was no doubt hard working.
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Norwich – Plasterers Arms
This is one of my favourite pubs in the city, definitely deserving its position in the Good Beer Guide. It’s in a residential area and this is one of those pubs which could have easily been lost over recent years, especially since Adnams sold it in 2011 and it is only due to good pub management that it survived. It is formerly a Morgans, then Bullards and then Watney Mann pub, but is now free trade and its future seems much more secure.
Titanic are one of my favourite breweries and it’s a delight to see something a little rarer from them, which is this Chocolate and Vanilla stout. As a drink, it’s beautiful, a lovely smooth rich beer with the chocolate and vanilla being evident without being overpowering. The service in the pub was friendly and there’s always a relaxed feel to the proceedings.
The former location of the pub’s bar billiards table….. It’s the removal of this which has also coincided with my not visiting the pub as much, it seems a shame to have lost such a wonderful piece of gaming and the pub’s web-site still has the bar billiards table as their main image on the front page (NB, as a more recent comment, it doesn’t now, the web-site is now also bar billiards less).
Voodoo Daddy’s was once the supplier of pizzas here and although they’ve moved on, the pub still sells pizzas and also loaded fries. It’s a while since I’ve eaten at the pub, something I must rectify later on in 2020.
The choice of beers here rarely disappoints me, and I’m not sure that I can remember when it did actually disappoint me…. The staff are knowledgeable and engaging, so the environment always feels welcoming. All rather lovely.
