Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: UK

  • Liverpool – Sanctuary

    I’m not sure that I’d have come across this pub if I hadn’t seen it listed in the Good Beer Guide, but it’s a relatively new opening for the city. It’s good to see that the signage promotes the pub as a “dive bar”, which seems to be a common attribution in the US, but can be seen as a negative one in the UK. The phrase should definitely be reclaimed as a force for good.

    The cask and keg list.

    The bottles and cans lists.

    The Good Beer Guide book notes about this pub suggest that it’s designed to look like a “run-down 1920s hotel”, although I’m not sure that I’d have guessed this. The internal decor does give it character though.

    The back bar. There were no staff visible when I entered, but the staff member who did come and serve when available was personable and seemed to know most of the customers. The whole pub vibe was welcoming and comfortable.

    The pub regularly has the Plum Porter from Titanic Brewery on, which is one of my favourite beers, but I’d already had this at an earlier pub. So, I opted for the Stour Valley Old Growler, meaning I’d come all the way from Norfolk to have a Suffolk beer. But, all was well with it, at the appropriate temperature although the taste was perhaps unexceptional, but very drinkable.

    All in all, a rather lovely little pub, and it has a micropub feel making it all on trend and contemporary, without it being formulaic or forced. Another pub which in my, rather irrelevant, view is quite rightly in the Good Beer Guide.

  • Liverpool – Richard John Blackler

    I’ve been to this pub a few times before, but it’s in the Good Beer Guide and I haven’t posted about it, so I thought I’d better come and have a fresh look. It’s JD Wetherspoon operated, so I was expecting a decent choice of real ales.

    It’s an intriguing pub name, it’s named after the Blackler’s department store that opened here in 1908, owned by Richard John Blackler. The building was badly damaged during the Second World War, so the current pub is of a later date, but incorporates a little of the original that could be salvaged. One other claim to fame for the site is that George Harrison worked at Blacker’s as an apprentice electrician.

    And the pub didn’t disappoint, there are some interesting selections along here, including one of my perennial favourites, the Mauldon’s Cherry Porter, which I don’t see often enough. I’m not entirely sure that I’d call the Banks & Taylor SOD as a porter in the way the pub has, but, any which way, it’s another decent option. Incidentally, I’m not sure what price the pub was trying to display for the Mauldon’s, I assume £2.49 rather than £2.99.

    The downside was that the service in the pub wasn’t what I’d call ideal. I did hear another customer complain they’d been waiting twenty minutes, which I’m sure they thought was accurate, but it wasn’t. It was around seven minutes and I only know that as they arrived after me. The manager was flapping around serving customers randomly along the long bar, seemingly confused that people were telling her that she was serving out of turn.

    But, I was in no rush, so I waited by the Mauldon’s Cherry Porter, and I would have asked for a sample of Banks & Taylor SOD, but the staff looked so harassed that I thought I’d better not add to their burden. I never did quite work out how four bar staff could take so long to serve the grand total of around ten customers, but life’s too short to worry about that. Although, admittedly, not so short that I won’t write about it the day after.

    The beer was marvellous, the Cherry Porter had a depth of flavour, was light, had lingering flavours and it was at the appropriate temperature. Clean flavours, which is, to be fair, more than could be said for the state of the pub. But, for the price, it’d be hard to complain and the pub’s place in the Good Beer Guide seems entirely reasonable.

  • British Airways (Berlin to Heathrow T5)

    Every time I fly back from Berlin Tegel I wonder whether it’ll be the last time I visit the airport, with its replacement seemingly having been nearly ready for nearly ten years. Tegel has long since been unable to comfortably cope with the volume of passengers and it feels crowded and uncomfortable.

    The boarding process is unusual as the BA lounge is landside, so then there’s a long queue for the security and border checks. Above is a photo of the queue for the flight at the next gate, it’s one of the few airports I can think of where the queues to board are within a five second walk of the terminal entrance.

    The British Airways check-in desks. It took over 40 minutes of queueing to board the aircraft, with no seating for those who needed it. Interestingly, or at least I was interested, my battery pack was examined by the security personnel for compliance, which has never happened before. It is a large battery pack at 20000mAh and I was quite impressed that it was checked, since it is only just under the allowable level.

    The aircraft was G-EUPE, an Airbus A319 that British Airways have operated since it came into service in 2000. I had a window exit row seat, which was sufficiently spacious and clean. It was also a busy flight and was at near capacity, although fortunately there didn’t seem as much pressure on the overhead lockers as usual. Then flight left around ten minutes late, but the captain gave updates and it seemed to be because there was a slight delay with getting everyone through the security process.

    The crew were professional and the buy-on-board (BOB) seemed to be popular, with a new menu having come out at the beginning of October. I still don’t think it’s a very innovative on-board menu, although my views on this are a bit irrelevant since I never buy anything on board British Airways flights anyway.

    The DHL truck had appropriate branding for where I had just flown from.

    The flight arrived into London Heathrow T5 at the expected time and the disembarkation process was efficient and timely. It took around twelve minutes from the airport doors opening to my leaving the terminal, allowing me to leave Heathrow in good time.

  • British Airways (Heathrow T5 to Berlin)

    Today’s expedition was to Berlin Tegel airport and, as usual, I arrived hopelessly early in the day to ensconce myself into the BA lounge. It was evident from the volume of rain hitting the roof of Heathrow T5 B Gates building that there were going to be some weather issues, although there were only a few cancellations and relatively minor delays.

    Fortunately, my flight was only delayed by around an hour, although there’s always the fear of a creeping delay where that one hour turns into two or three.

    Boarding was from gate A2 and I fail to understand why BA don’t make this process easier to understand. They did have separate queues for the different boarding groups, with groups 1 and 2 each having their own lane, and groups 3 to 5 were merged into one lane. But, in a piece of design brilliance, the lane for groups 3 to 5 was in front of groups 1 and 2 and so the others couldn’t be easily accessed. I’m not important enough for group 1, but I can sneak into group 2 and it took quite a determined staff member to get me, and some others, to the right place.

    There’s the aircraft at the end of the airbridge, which was registration G-EUOE, an Airbus A319 which British Airways have been using since it was manufactured in 2001.

    The aircraft was clean, although the crew had their usual challenge of trying to fit all the hand baggage into the overhead lockers. It’s the one disadvantage of exit row seats for me, having to engage in this whole overhead baggage game. This is a problem for me as my bag is relatively small, and usually there is someone with a ridiculously sized cabin bag who takes great exception to my small bag being in the lockers. So they try and shove it somewhere else. Always unsuccessfully I’d add.

    Waiting on the tarmac for departure, with the captain sounding professional and fitting the British Airways brand perfectly. I was also pleased to note that there was silence during the safety demonstration, it makes things feel so much calmer. Indeed, the whole flight seemed calm and the crew were efficient and polite.

    We landed around sixty minutes late, with the pilot being able to make up a few minutes of the delay en route. I flew to Berlin Tegel around five years ago and thought it’d likely be the last time there as operations are being moved to Berlin Brandenburg Airport. Unfortunately, this is currently one of the world’s most mocked projects, with an opening expected nearly one decade late. All of which means that Tegel is looking quite rickety and spending more money on it is pointless given that it will all be demolished soon.

    Anyway, this flight was a Reward Flight Saver (RFS) so it cost £17.50 plus 4,000 Avios points.

  • Shoreditch – Brewdog

    Having arrived into London Liverpool railway station, I had no shortage of food and drink options in the Spitalfields and Shoreditch area of the city. I’ve been converted to Brewdog now, after initially taking a slight dislike to them for their corporate practices (which seem to have  now been moderated somewhat), so I thought that the ten-minute walk to their Shoreditch location was worth it.

    Not particularly busy at 16:00 in the afternoon, although it did get busier later on. Lots of different seating styles, including bar stools, tables and booths. All clean as well, with the surfaces not being sticky, which is an irritating feature of some large pubs.

    The Brewdog beer fridge, with choices to take away, or for a premium, drink at the pub.

    The beer choice, but my preferred option of Zombie Cake had run out and the only other dark option was an imperial stout and I didn’t want that strong a beer.

    Half a pint of Dead Pony Club and a sample of Clockwork Tangerine. There are a lot of hops in the Dead Pony Club, which is fruity and citrusy. Not my preferred type of beer, but full of flavour and very drinkable. Incidentally, I didn’t think that the Clockwork Tangerine had quite the strength of tangerine that I was expecting, but it was also light and drinkable.

    The meat feast pizza, which was a slight challenge to eat as the ingredients slid off the base with some ease. But, food should sometimes be messy, so it’s all about the taste. Actually, it’s about the temperature as well, which was very hot and I was a bit too eager to get started so nearly burnt the top of my mouth.

    As a pizza, we’ve established it was served at a hot temperature, but the ingredients were decent, the base was light and the sauce rich and flavoursome.

    The manufacturers of Dalston chillies say that “there is no junk” in their products and I have to say, I liked it. Quite a powerful little kick without being stupidly hot, so this complemented the pizza well. Although I might have got a bit exuberant with the amount of the sauce I put on one piece of the pizza, which required another emergency drink of beer.

    It’s painfully clear from the customers that this is a very on-trend brand and it’s perfectly suited to Shoreditch. There’s a contemporary and modern feel to the whole proceedings, which is also coupled with excellent customer service.

    If I could find fault, it’s one of those locations where some of the staff seem to be doing the majority of the work, whilst some of the others were perhaps preening themselves just a little too much. But, all told, the surroundings are comfortable and everything was as I’d like it to be. Other than they needed more darker beer selections.

  • Great Yarmouth – Forged Chain Sculpture

    The forged chain sculpture at the entrance to St. George’s Park in Great Yarmouth, designed by blacksmith artists Nigel Barnett and Ros Newman. It was installed in 2008 and represent chains from harbour with seagulls flying above them. It’s a pleasant addition to the area around the park, although I’m not entirely sure that the town needed any reminder of seagulls, but there we go….

  • Great Yarmouth – Row 46

    This is one of the longest of the rows and is named after Sewell family who had a grocer’s shop here, which explains the alternative name of Grocer’s Row. The Sewells were Quakers and the last owner of the shop was Edward Sewell who died in 1870.

    The old way of identifying row numbers and although this one seems to have been repainted recently, there are some examples on other rows which I’d guess are from the nineteenth century.

    The row is also home to the entrance from the Market Place of the Back to Backs public house, which is the remaining section of the now closed Prince Regent pub.

  • Great Yarmouth – Row 38

    There were a group of people I considered to be slightly frightening, and I don’t claim to be particularly tough, down this row when I visited and so I decided taking a photo on this occasion. These rows aren’t really locations that the majority of visitors to the town would take a photo of, so I didn’t feel an altercation was worth risking.

    Ferrier’s Row, or Row 38, takes its name from an early bailiff of Great Yarmouth, Richard Ferrier, who lived at a property on this passageway.

    Helpfully noted by a plaque in the above photo, this site is near to the location of where Boulter’s Museum operated from 1778 until 1802, although this was in a property by Row 35 which has long since gone. This was the first museum in the county and was opened by Daniel Boulter, a local Quaker and it remained open until his death. He had collected items which were initially more curiosities and put them on display, with more items relating to natural history being added later on which included items returned from Captain Cook’s voyages. And he also put the dried hand of a woman on display as well for a bit of variety.

  • Great Yarmouth – Row 44

    Angel Row takes its name from the Angel Hotel which once stood looking out onto the Market Place, which was replaced by a drab and boring building which was occupied by Woolworths and, more recently, Poundland. Unfortunately this demolition took place as recently as 1957, depriving the town of an interesting old inn which had been standing since the mid-seventeenth century.

    Like many of the rows, these are gloomy places and it’s not hard to imagine dark deeds which have taken place in the past. In the case of this row, many bad things have happened, including a murder which took place in February 1898. A jealous and drunk man killed Thirza Bensley, before trying to, unsuccessfully, take his own life. The killer was Samuel Frederick Steel, a railway carman, who used the defence that he suffered from epileptic fits and was insane.

    Bensley’s father attended the inquest into his daughter’s death and the inquest jury decided that Steel was to blame, although this was a separate proceedings to the following court case. Steel in the actual court case was again found guilty, but his pleas of insanity were enough to save him from being hanged, instead he was given life imprisonment.

    In 1903, there was a case in the row of unlawful wounding which took place in the row, perpetrated by John Fleming, a Scottish fisherman, and a witness commented Fleming and a friend had “they said something in their own language”. Justice Lawrance, who I assume considered himself something of a wit, commented “did they say hoot mon?”…… He then sentenced Fleming to 14 days hard labour though.

  • Great Yarmouth – Old Cemetery (Robert Rising)

    This grave in the churchyard of Great Yarmouth Minster is that of Robert Rising who died aged 55 on 5 February 1854. Rising was the son of Captain Tilney Rising of Exmouth, Devonshire.

    Reason’s death certificate.

    Further tragedy struck the family in January 1858 when Robert Rising’s son, Robert Tilney Rising, was killed at the age of just 23 following the sinking of the Catharine Adamson ship near Sydney. The ship ran aground during its voyage from Falmouth to Sydney, with 4 passengers and 17 crew killed.

    Robert Tilney Rising isn’t buried in Great Yarmouth, as the bodies were placed in a mass interment  and given a burial together, along with victims from the Dunbar clipper which had sank just nine weeks earlier. His name is though at the base of his father’s gravestone.