1999 and the Cemetery Hotel was the destination. Discovered by chance, My first Good Beer Guide was 2 years away. Marvellous pub. But then a load of Tiger hooligans trashed it, and the guv'nor banned Hull City fans for life. I was sad. So was Daddy B. We aren't hooligans, but we were tarred, I tell you, tarred. But not feathered. Then we lost 3-0 on Sky. It was awful.

But dry your eyes mates, Rochdale kept giving from that moment onwards. That pub across the park in the rain where I had the best Game & Guinness pie ever. That incredibly old fashioned pub at a busy road junction with an ancient couple in charge, roast beef sandwiches, ancient photos, pre-war music. Magical. And in more recent times, POTY The Baum, wowww! Flying Horse, superb. Even that Bombay Brew, okay so the cask was shit and we end up on bottled lager but what lovely people and nice food. Yes, 'Dale delivers time after time after time.

Until today that is. What a sorry shithole D'Ale House, Rochdale (2652 / 4813) is. Unsmiliest guy ever in charge, he looked positively pissed off to have me on his premises. Three locals at the bar grunt and barely move. Ignorant. To be fair, barman had me pegged as a CAMRA member straight away, like the most proper pegged ever, even Prince William would be blushing. Discount, so fair play, though I struggle to find my CAMRA card just to ramp the awkwardness up another notch. Beer pretty decent too, from that old stalwart Phoenix, a tasty porter. I should count myself lucky, my old mate Quinno had a beer nightmare on his recent visit here to the point it got awkward taking so many back. The place is chilly, lacking character and of most prominence is a wet floor cone and faint smell of cleaning products, yet it still feels sticky. The loos are a Central London style vertical drop, so that was 'something', but jeez, Micro + Rochdale = I'd been expecting so so so much more.

Over at the nearby bus station, it is time to get out onto the Bury Road as far as Bamford, important to get this one ticked today or it'll become an outlier.

I get talking to two old lads, very casually off to the football considering it is 3:05pm. They don't even know who 'Dale are playing and have to check! I say cheerio to the undynamic duo at Spotland (or Wilbutts Lane if you ever played Championship Manager '93) and we chug along to Bamford.

'Careful what you wish for!' I hate people who use that phrase, usually pious, wise-after-the-event boring cunts who have never made a decision in their life. Basically, in the modern parlance, bottling their own existence. (This is turning into a therapeutic blog!) But whilst Hare & Hounds, Bamford (2653 / 4814) offers initial promise with an atmospheric Thwaitesy stone clad interior, it is desperately foodie, and 'lovely and warm' can become 'stifling and stuffy'' very quickly when everyone around you has their faces in the nosebag. But it is the beer that really jars. This Brown Ale, Stephenson, is undrinkable on account of being put on too soon. That weird chemically apple taste. But I (rightly or wrongly, probably wrongly) refuse to return it on account of having no faith in the young staff to recognise a beer issue outside of 'vinegar'. Sure I'd get short shrift with a "but that's what it's supposed to taste like!" reaction, so I simply order half a Gold. Fizzy, farty, but at least I can swallow it down. My other trip to Bamford two years back also yielded questionable fizzy ale. I'm glad to get out, shame I couldn't get a D'Ale House quality Phoenix Porter to take out, and drink it here.

The bus continues to chug in a Bury-ish direction, rain pissing down now as it tends to do up here. But it all adds to the feeling you've been in a scrap of a day, and boy, this afternoon was one hulluva scrap.

I WhatsApp Dad, now 'safely' in the Huddersfield away end, to tell him he's missing nowt pub wise. I vaguely contemplate a bus to Ramsbottom or Greenmount, but as a sneaky raindrop slivers down my back, I decide a Manc bound tram is the wisest idea, hopping off for a couple of ticks on the way. Sunny 12 noon Halifax felt a world away.

But what wasn't a wise idea was my failure to realise that the Radcliffe pub is a 28 minute walk from the Metro stop.

Oh well, I'm committed now so there's no choice but to crack on. Despite my soggy state, it didn't feel too bad of a trek, and opening my mouth meant I could gargle rainwater to alleviate some of Bamford's dogshit beer.

New Inn, Radcliffe (2654 / 4815) was, at face value, the most promising pub of this challenging afternoon, with its circular symmetrical bench seated area facing the bar, bubbling fire beneath a Soccer Saturday screen telling me Hull City were 1-0 up with ten to play. I squash in beside the locals, the 'welcome' is disappointingly muted, as is the carpet, for what seems your archetypal main road Greater Manc boozer. Still, that powerhouse of an ale, Windermere Pale by Hawkshead, is a darn sight better than what has gone before, though not a patch quality-wise on many other Windermere's I've imbibed down the years. I'm willing for full time to flash up in our game, all the other matches are. Then, like a knife through the heart, it flashes up Huddersfield 1-1 Hull City (90+2). The locals studiously ignore my anguished theatrics. But to my amazement, it almost immediately flashes up Huddersfield 1-2 Hull City (90+4). I want to do a lap of honour, but I'm a bit boxed in. So I tell the couple closest to me. "We don't like football, not at all, not interested" they tell me (jeez, way to kill my buzz guys!) and are just about to add that the mere sight of a football fan makes them convulse and start screaming, when a lady they know crashes through the door. She's WELL ANNOYING, cooing and whooping and telling everyone she's here to get the party started. She instructs the bar staff to put some music on and turn it up! ANNOYING. Her plus point, she orders the football miseries to move to another seat at the back of the pub. Good riddance to those buzz killers. The loo decor tries for a late not very WokeSi2024 morale booster, but even that felt a bit hollow. Bus to catch.

The rain is easing off a touch, but my miserable afternoon (despite Hull City's heroic contribution) continues as the bus fails to show. I look at live bus times. There isn't even a bus travelling in this direction. FFS. Taxi goes hurtling past, so I manage to grab it.

Our mate Mohammed is loving my 'football haters killing my Hull City buzz' tale and makes a very good point. If they were massive Tiddlywinks fans and their team Radcliffe Borough TWC had just won the World Championship Finals against Burnage Casuals, he suspects I'm the kind of guy who would be pleased on their behalf. You ain't wrong Mo. Deserves his tip for that alone. Even if he struggles to find my final pub of the day.

I manage to do the BRAPA side shuffle, an old technique I picked up in East Bedfordshire, and it works just as well as it had in Dunton and Wrestlingworth, and the pub appears on the left hand side of an obscure precinct.

I suspect I take the name Keg, Cask & Bottle, Prestwich (2655 / 4816) rather too literally as I approach the bar with some urgency, as though Bertie Wooster has dialled 999, and exclaim "Urrrm, yes, hullo, I select CASK. You do have cask, yes, what?" Part of my panic is the incredibly complex beer ordering clipboard system, not what you want on pint seven. Headache inducing. But this is a chilled out breezy jolly place where everyone is wearing chunky knitwear, and geeky quirky youthful vibes dominate, so I remove my coat to reveal the now iconic stripy woollen cardigan and put Ivor Panda on the table in a desperate attempt to fit in. But I'm a poor chameleon. My Fyne Highlander is only my second truly loveable pint of the day (first was in Grayston Unity), but an ESB at 4.8%? Pah, taking the Mick a bit there, ain't ya Fyne?! Just when I thought I could finally relax with an uneventful drinkable pint, more bad luck strikes on this most trying of days. Rainwater has got inside my phone, I'm on 1% battery, it refuses to charge for fear of damaging itself! Then it dies altogether so I'm sat there trying to dry it off every which way I can, panicking it won't ever return to health, and I'll be stranded in Prestwich for eternity. Thankfully, it recovers ten mins later, but still isn't charging up effectively. Then I notice the cable on my portable charger is frayed! Seriously, could anything else go wrong? I neck this shamefully easy to drink ESB, and get myself back to Prestwich Metro, praying I don't get struck my lightning or a falling meteor!

Thankfully, there's a Victoria to York train nicely timed so there we go, it isn't all bad, although there's this messy group of drunk Middlesbrough girls at L**ds (why always Boro?) The crying drunkest one who fell over and muddied her dress, Holly, reckons I'm actually called David and I've just forgotten. She may be right, I may be crazy.

Phew, a real tough day but it is all a step in the right direction of GBG completion (providing at least one of the afore mentioned pubs ends up in my overall completed GBG circa 2043, which on this evidence seems unlikely).

Si

With time of the essence and a delayed bus, not to mention gridlocked traffic & roadworks in the centre of 'Fax, I used my current safe word 'UBER' and soon, I'm stood with Daddy BRAPA atop a big 'ill waiting for 11:30am opening, recreating some of our favourite 'Happy Valley' moments:

The flag is hoisted up the mainsail and the club has obviously opened early because one short sharp push of the door at 11:29am reveals a scene throbbing with happy drinkers.

Greetland Social Club (2651 / 4812) is a fitting place to end WY ticking on, sun streaming in onto a 9/10 carpet, no questions asked, and a helpful local around the cask side turns the two pump clips around so we can see what is on. Daddy BRAPA chooses best with Vocation Bread & Butter. My Bosun is, funnily enough, a bit too 'bready' for my tastes. Ladz start the streaming in like the sun. Pre-match Shaymen, or those unfit sportsmen who have 5 chip butties, 7 Madris, and then run around the park for ten minutes? Dad is quite taken by my new stripy cardigan (see below, not the carpet), and sends a photo to Mummy BRAPA saying he wants one! "You won't need a pub mascot if we turn up in matching stripy cardigans!" he exclaims. Shuddering at the thought, I hastily send Mum a message telling her to ignore anything he's said. The bus is ages away so I summons another Uber. 1 minute away, our man Mehrbahn has just dropped a lad off here in his Hyundai Ioniq. So I have to neck my ale quicksticks, button up and rush for the door.

Giving Mehrban a premature tip was a mistake when I look up and realise he's dropped us an eight minutes walk from our intended destination!

And that intended destination is the new Grayston Unity, Halifax. Another one of those pesky 'let's move premises just to mess with pub tickers'.

Unlike the Pub in Todmorden, this was a sympathetically done nod to the original (why are pub conversions always described as 'sympathetic', why never callous, merciless and disagreeable?) It has the signature fusty old smell, mismatched plush plunging armchairs, an 8/10 rug, great 3.4% Saltaire beer, and fairy pipkin staff. Ivor Panda went flying late on and this lad looks up like "why've ya got a panda?" No time to explain.

Time for a quick half somewhere, so I opt for a return visit to Kobenhavn. Impressive when visiting it as a pre-emptive with local hero Chris Dyson ("Nobody has more knowledge than Chris" to quote Alex Quosh in 2018) and I knew Daddy B. would appreciate the Scandi-noir Ikeatastic minimalistic interior just as I had.

Highlights involve ridiculous glassware and a visiting Woking fan with silly shoes and a football shirt that said 'Pure Genius'. Still, if you have ever been to Woking and enjoy your ales, you can fully understand the 'kid in a sweet shop' joy on his face throughout, and I wasn't going to quell his buzz. I'd have my buzz quelled in Radcliffe later, and it isn't nice.

But my abiding memory will be Daddy BRAPA's assertion that in this day and age where the UK is chock a block with microbreweries (and considering all the modern day talk of carbon footprints, low emissions, saving the planet etc.), it seems very wrong that the only dark beer available should have travelled all the way from North London. And not even good North London. Spursy North London. I totally agree, surely there's any one of amazing local breweries who should be supplying this pub? Hardcore beer chat. But he ain't wrong is he? Was a lovely beer btw, don't get me wrong.

I say goodbye to Dad at the station as he needs to get his replacement bus to Huddersfield to watch the mighty Tigers, whilst it is back to the BRAPA coal face for me with a bit more Greater Manchester ticking. The train was packed and I became the designated 'toilet monitor' ......

I'll tell you about GMR tomorrow, where the pub standard was about to decline dramatically. But then again, Halifax is a hard act to follow.

Si

The magic of my Todmorden debut, on a replacement bus Sunday back in January 2014, is yet to be beaten.

On that day as I walked to the Staff of Life pub, birds of prey shriek, torrents of water cascade down the valley around me, there's even the threat of alien abduction! Everyone I encounter has a flat cap and wellies and says 'ey up', and I then end up in a pub called the Polished Knob after a visit to a very pink bottle shop. I promise I'm not making this up.

'Never go back' they say. Alan Buckley, Dr Clive Gibbons, Fleetwood Mac, Dennis Lloyd, can all testify.

Pub ticking doesn't allow such luxuries.

Don't get me wrong, Tod is a 'nice' place, but I preferred its former East Lancs village pie munching, ferret punching self rather than this current (Tod)modern incense stick smelling, crystal selling Hebden Bridge wannabe.

Maybe my heart wasn't really in it. After all, The Pub, Todmorden (2647 / 4808 ) is only a required tick because it has moved into larger premises in 2022. Three small cottages joined together? It lacks the slimy dank inner wall / multi levelled character of the original, and I wasn't even too impressed by that. The barmaid is only present physically, the ale an unnoteworthy pale, the aesthetic is bland. There's a man up a ladder fixing a door on the way out, and that is honestly how exciting it got.

But cheer up chickens! Only one West Yorkshire tick left which I'd hope to do two days later.

And in even more pleasant news, Accrington was on the horizon, a town that never disappoints. "The most Lancashire town ever!" to quote Daddy BRAPA in 2017. Unlike Tod, it felt reassuringly unaltered. Pub looks nice too. A mobility scooter and defib presence is no surprise.

Arden Inn, Accrington (2648 / 4809)

Barman is temporarily AWOL so I'm forced to nestle alongside a bulbous nosed Irishman with a jaunty hat and a taste for stout, and an excitingly haired tattoo Strongbow pint can drinker. It is half term, and a giant family arrive thirsty for Madri and Fruit Shoots, so I have to make myself visible to ensure I'm served first. Titanic Cherry Porter, very cherry, very Titanic, my heart will go on, as Celine sang after visiting an East Lancs pub with a defib. In a cute lounge room, in the shadow of St George Cross and demonic Elvis prints, my peace is shattered when the Madri Familam discover the olde worlde comfort in here. To keep the kids interested, the parents tell them "it's just like Harry Potter in here isn't it?" Kids don't look convinced, and neither am I, no Leaky Cauldron, that's more the Alehouse in Reading. But pub of the day, and my first alphabetical tick in Lancs.

After sheltering from the rain in the giant Tesco canteen without buying anything and contemplating the true meaning of life, it was time to take the train to Burnley. Not sure I've ever seen the sun out in Burnley, or the ground dry, but I'm sure it has happened.

Buoyed to see one of my old football favourites, Inn on the Wharf, back open (would be lovely if they could get Ministry of Ale back too), I slip slide into the heart of town for my third tick .....

Boot Inn, Burnley (2649 / 4810)

This former Thwaites chunkster, now a 'Spoons, is about 30/70 in the Thwaites/Spoons ratio. I assume the sorry carpet is a Thw. throwback, it needs ripping up and a Timbo special laying if I'm being truly dispassionate, but (in Linda Barker voice) it works really really well with the tiling around the bar. Makes you smile. As does £2.13 for a Theakston's Old Peculiar with a Mudgie voucher. The clientele is a classic mixture of soggy shoppers, after work hi-vizzers, bored half termers and elderly wanderers, not from Bolton. Superb.

Finally, my outlier, and so impressed was I by last Thursday's Ormskirk Ubering, I ring for another as the rain is pissy, buses hourly and traffic rush-houry.

Due to roadworks, our man Mohammed has me running the Burnley streets to get around the cordon (not James, that'd take forever) but then he rings me to say "good news and bad news, I've actually got to your original pick up point so you'll have to come back!" So I run back around.

Dear reader, I'm still waiting for the good news.

Anyway, nice guy, explains he's more of an Oldham chap which explain much, good BRAPA chat, and he drops me off at the pub and bugger me it is virtually next door to that micropub I did when Daddy BRAPA moved our seat and belongings when I went to the loo to try and make me think I was going mad! What a joker.

Old Bridge Inn, Barrowford (2650 / 4811)

If I could have my time again, I'd forgo a bit of extra personal space and sit in central bar area with my Moorhouses Premier Bitter, and almost certainly get chatting to the locals. My zillion toilet trips told me this was a top East Lancs hospitality destination, so many smiles, admiration for my new fluffy cardigan perhaps? But in sitting in the back room, I cut myself off from humanity and didn't really give the pub a chance to shine. It wasn't old or heritagey enough to 'speak for itself'. The barmaid sounds Scottish when she's outside, Lancastrian when talking to the locals. One couple eyeball Colin from a distance, then pull out their own (vastly inferior) mascot, glancing over like "how do you like them apples, BRAPA?" The playlist is, hopefully intentionally, water based - 'Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls', 'River of Dreams', 'Why Does it Always Rain on Me?' Decent place which I should've made more of.

Join me later this week for more tales from the North West. I'm probably unavailable tomorrow and Tues but I'm going to cancel #ThirstyThursday this week so I can catch up and be nicely organised before my first official BRAPA holiday of 2024. Stay tuned!

Si

A brisk stride up to Cheadle Hulme was exactly the tonic I needed to clear the sticky cobwebs from my Wobbly Stamp mind, and speaking of tonics, pub #4 was offering a nice change of pace from what had gone previously.

Never has a defib looked so perfectly situated as on the front of this Hyde's main road groaning heart bruiser boozer with a couple of reassuring twinkling lamps to offer hope.

Cross Keys, Cheadle Hulme (2645 / 4805)

Packed out again, but this time with the space to accommodate such shenanigans, which seem to be centred around Six Nations rugby. This surprised me, as we aren't in Beds, Bucks or Berks, I assumed they'd be fans of the proper code up here, i.e. League. But then I glance over and the even busier bar is watching unknown football. Phew. The staff are personable, down to earth, look you in the eye old fashioned, which makes a huge difference to people like me. I pick the Hyde's Original over Lowry, and by gum it is drinking well. The 'type' of GBG entries in this part of the world might not always be to my taste, but although Rustic was a rare anomaly, the quality of the ale is almost always second to none. Soon the rugby ends, and is switched over to the modern day Jeff Stelling. Fittingly, my very last act as I button up my jacket, sling my bag over my shoulder, and return my empty glass to the bar, is to glance up and see Hull City 0-1 Swansea full time. I emit a 'HAH!" even bitterer than the Hyde's Original, and push the door in disappointment. Good pub.

I stomp across to Cheadle Hulme rail station in anger, and a couple of stops down the line, I alight at Heaton Chapel.

It isn't the easiest walk to pub #5, down a few leafy lanes, a dirt track, then tucked away in the 'burbs, it is now dusk as it comes into view, a 4pm opener even on a Saturday so I was chuffed to get this one done.

Beer Shop, Heaton Moor (2646 / 4806)

Relieved to find this place a lot more 'bar' than 'shop'. I'd been imagining an old lady (we'll call her Betty) wheeling a trolley around a giant warehouse in search of Old Specked Hen for her grandson (we'll call him Simon). May I suggest a name change? 'Eatin' is Cheatin' in Heaton'. Striking and fun. Our main man is Finnish, a good chap, pulls me this decent stout by Torrside, I once rolled one their empty barrels through Clitheroe so I'm probably entitled to a 20% discount if you think about it carefully. Everyone's favourite Finn since Craig or Tina Thomsen has obviously been to the Thanet School of Micropubbing when, on seeing my wide-eyed 'where the heck will I sit?' panic, tells me "sitting vhwere you vant, it eeez fair game here!" Music to my ears, I only wish Botoxed Wizardora (who I don't like to talk about) was here to be schooled in Beer Shop etiquette. A group of gents about my age kindly allow me to share their table. Most are Man City fans fresh from their Everton win. A fisherman is telling them that they are all free to fish on his private property next time they're in the neighbourhood. I make a brief Hull City comment and put my GBG on table, fully expecting conversation to shift, but to my surprise, they all stand up as one, tell me to 'spread out' and sit at a recently vacated table on the other side! I don't know whether to be happy or sad. So I choose the former and finish my stout like Heaton Moor's first ever Billy no mates.

A bus just around the corner takes me back into Manchester, and for the second time today, I find myself the only passenger willing to sit in that usually popular spot, top front of a double decker. I suspect the for the genteel folk of South Manchester, this is just a bit too much of a white water ride.

The bus chugs straight down Oxford Road, which is good because one of my remaining four Manc ticks is right here, good location too with York trains in mind .....

Bundobust, Manchester (2647 / 4807)

The intoxicating aroma of Indian Street food in a boisterous canteen surroundings might not tickle the BRAPA sensibilities in the same way a pint of Holt's Mild in a carpeted smoky pub with a fire would, but I tell you what, Bundobust is darn good at what it does. Note to Rustic in Alty, this was how to combine food n beer. Speaking of which, I'm thinking the one handpump, by Thornbridge (booooo, only joking, I'm over it, sort of) is looking a bit sorry for itself and isolated in a Kingdom of Fife kinda way, but by 'eck, Pint Of The Day make no mistake. I'm moved off a 'too good to be true table' because it is reserved for invisible diners, but for once, I don't have the urge to shout 'fart arse ponce burger!' and instead I happily perch on a narrow shelf. The staff are SO lovely. Despite being busy, Ozan Toucan gets lots of attention, I'm offered a photo which I decline (don't want Colin to get jealous), and when my GBG and highlighter go flying as a result of silly narrow shelf, three cute elfin creatures scurry to pick them up. Only thing I don't like is the unisex loos. Call me old fashioned, but I feel uncomfortable washing my hands next to a woman. Men are bad enough, well, when they wash them at all ugh. Luckily, this lady was even older and more uncomfortable than me. We get chatting and she reveals that she originally thought the harsh low flung stainless steels sinks were piss troughs for the blokes! I can see what she means and we have a good laugh about willies out in public, so even this became a positive in a pub experience which against the odds was always destined to remain a good one!

And there we have it! I did (unwisely) pop into the Thirsty Scholar for a beer I couldn't quite finish next to a DJ on a Space Invaders table, I love this place because it gives me Manchester Punk Festival memories.

The journey home was straightforward, I had just one too many bits of chicken on my KFC, and as a result which was in no way beer related, struggled to do much on the Sunday.

Join me this coming Sunday, when we'll hear about the time I straddle the West Yorkshire / East Lancs border.

Si

Last time out here, September 2022 and the death of QE2 is announced over the radio in Stalybridge's Cracking/Crafty Pint just as I'm wielding the Stabilo for the final time that year.

Plenty of gaps had opened it in the intervening two GBGs, so I do what I always do in this situation and begin at the beginning ..... of the alphabet. The letter A was flashing. And A was for Altrincham.

Manchester Piccadilly is chaos. Just like last week, Everton are the 12:30 kick off, but this time at Manchester City, though it is that weird breed, the football tourist, who are causing the problems, walking backwards and the wrong way through the Metro system, and having to be re-routed.

I also slip on my bum again due to Converse with no grip, I need to save these for dry days only.

A few ticketless twammers (tram scammers who are twats) get chucked off which is nice to see, and I hop off early too, at Stretford, where a new micro is lurking down a precinct. 11:59am so I sift through the plushies who are whoring themselves out, but they lack Colin's class.

Longford Tap, Stretford (2642 / 4802)

Already two lovely codgers are inside with drinks, FFS, I thought I was being respectful waiting until 12:01pm. Pub Of The Day as it turned out, of course I didn't know it at the time. Maybe it's a sad indictment of modern humanity but I was really impressed how the guv'nor told the person on the other end of the phone that he was going to have to hang up, so that he could give me his full attention. Despite the modern interior, codgers combined with a luminous old skool jukebox and an even older skoolier fruit machine, plus an ambient temperature gave this place a great feel, not to mention the cracking toffee porter. And when the codgiest codger shuffles across to replace auto shuffle Nick Kamen with manual swinging Glenn Miller, things took an even better turn, spoiled only latterly by too many arriving dogs attached to owners displaying limited social skills.

Back on the tram and up next was the whole reason I was ticking south of Manchester today, because as you know, A is for Altrincham.

Rustic, Altrincham (2643 / 4803)

An American fast food joint masquerading as a craft beer bar, three handpumps seemed to be pushing it a trifle, and my Beartown Kodiak wasn't bad, but it was 'kept up all night by a teething baby' kind of tired. In happier news, sprained wrist burger & fries man allows me to go first, recognising a wet-led dude when he sees one, and the barmaid is super smiley. The highlight is going upstairs to find the loos in total darkness and no light switch. When I go back down to question it, she says "awww shoot!" and you couldn't meet a lady more likely to say "awww shoot!" than her. She chases me back upstairs and flicks a hidden switch. After that, my only joy is in wielding the green highlighter pen, dreaming about an Ashton-under-Lyne future and watching two Mum's stuff mac 'n cheese down their throats.

That nice X/Twitter guy Russ/Neil/Ruddles Neil / Russell Neil / Neil Russell warns me Rochdale fans are in town today, and when I arrive at the station, a load of 'Dale lads are scaling a wall and weeing in empty bottles like pissy Spidermen.

It must affect my cognitive abilities because I WRONGLY cancel my train (changing at Stockport) and decide to take the bus up to Cheadle instead.

BAD MISTAKE. Let's just say I wish MY water bottle was empty by the time we chug up Cheadle's main drag. Talk about going round t'houses, Audenshaw hospital a big favourite, it feels like the Road to Domestos. At least I got my quiche, Sunbites and cake bar all eaten which is important when you're in a dark beer mood like I was today. Time for pub #3 and last in this section.

Wobbly Stamp, Cheadle (2644 / 4804)

Despite my bladder woes, I feel it important to frame the photograph with a postbox in the absence of Daddy BRAPA! I reckon this could be a promising micro at a 'quieter time', sadly this Saturday afternoon was not it. Messy basketcaseness abounds, the highlight coming in the opening minute as my fantastic Slowly Hammered Stout is pulled by this sound lad, a cheeky old chap says how much he loves my long black jacket, even giving the arm an even cheekier stroke on his way out. This gives me the confidence I need to fight my way down the pub where I find the one remaining table 'twixt loos and this chaotic extended family. Grandad won't sit still. Granddaughter is moody but most sensible, cradling the fugliest puppy you've ever seen, Quasimodo. Quasi is showing great discipline regarding a half eaten salmon and cucumber sandwich. Mum, we'll call her Waynetta, is wearing a manky tracksuit to match the sandwich. Twild boy is either swirling a birthday helium balloon around or doing Klinsmann dives across the benches. Even when a 'booth' comes free, I don't feel any safer, and I'm just writing on Untwappd what an f'd up pub atmosphere this is, when twild sends a drink crashing to the floor! And to compound the misery, Hull City have gone 0-1 early at home to Swansea.

Could Ozan Toucan recover? Could I recover? Join me Friday 9pm for part 2 of this exciting little soiree, which seems to be the hardest word.

Good luck, Si

Uber number 3 of the day took me to the canal side outpost which is the Ship Inn Lathom (2638 / 4799). Lathom was a hard one to fathom (thanks!) because the village of Lathom just east of Westhead was nowhere near the pub. The GBG reckons Hoscar station is your best bet, but I'm calling bullshit on that, and on a sunnier day I think a walk from either Burscough would be preferable. Our latest Uber man, James Bernard Peter ("just call me Jim") is a sound bloke, and he tells me the pub is nicknamed the 'Blood Tub' due to black pudding shenanigans of the past. A real grower this place, initial thoughts are a bit chilly and barren but the bonhomie knows no bounds. Barman and barfly, both cracking lads, confirm the 'Blood Tub' legend, but tell me there's in fact two possible stories, though thankfully both involve Black Pudding. I tell them I buy Bury Black Pudding from Sainsbury's on a regular basis (cool story bro), and walk my Pendle Witches Brew (strong and light, with a hint of eye of newt) to a beautifully upholstered bench, 9/10 in the absence of a carpet. Staff smile at every passing opportunity, and a succession of dithery elderly lovelies keep popping over for a chat. Zimmer lady admires a Valentine's Day / Pancake Day / Half Term / Easter notice and remarks "always an event on these days!" to which I reply "NOT that we need an excuse for a drink, eh?" She shuffles off, her daughter in hot pursuit. The Uber's have been so efficient, it is nowhere near 4pm, the time my next pub opens, so I go for a half of the Laughing Gravy to tide me over. A truly excellent pub this, a match for the Prince Albert and Kicking Donkey, if not better.

Fourth and final Uber to take me back to Ormskirk station, and ITMA James Bernard Peter. He's glad to hear I've had some Blood Tub chat, and back at Ormskirk station, time to reflect with a crustless quiche and packet of sweet chilli bites.

It had been fun dicking about South Lancs in the snow, and a nice aperitif re what I hope is to come in the coming months (AKA : full Lancs completion for the first time ever!), but for now, eyes firmly on the prize, could we get Merseyside done with these two meanie opening hour pubs?

First stop, back to Maghull. Maghull PROPER this time, none of this Maghull North nonsense. The inevitable 20 minute walk, my phone dies just as I'm trying to work out the location, and with the snow now melted, I drop it in a puddle and a woman wonders why I'm scrambling around on the floor.

Still no sign of the pub. Maybe I could camp out in this coffee shop for bit, and ask while my phone recharges?

Maghull Cask Cafe (2639 / 4800)

Wait a second! This leafy coffee joint is heaving with blokes with bellies that you don't get from drinking frappe skinny lattes. Could it be? Handpumps galore. "Coffee place by day, pub by night!" exclaims our jocular host. Not truly accurate as it is 4pm, but 10/10 for the theatrical way he delivered the line. Very jolly rosy locals but standing room only and a hazy fuggy atmosphere, so I take my beautiful Piccadilly Porter walkies to the long slim back bar. Problem is I'm directly opposite the loo, and I'm pretty sure this is our old mate Big John from the Whitley Bay comments section breathing into the single cubicle. Oh no, stinks, I swiftly move all my stuff to a table even further down the room. Nice candle, mood lighting and smells a lot fresher down here, but away from any semblance of pub hubbub, which would be my one regret of this nicely cultivated secret squirrel coffee shop.

ONE TO GO! I could smell the finishing line now. And it smelt better than Big John from Whitley Bay.

A bus around the corner takes me back into the 'Pool, from where I trot down to Lime Street and after a coffee of my own (must've been the power of suggestion), I hop aboard the next available service to Whiston, which is halfway back to York if you think about it, sort of.

Now please forgive me for fearing the worst (well, second worst, worst would be a shut pub!) but as I see it tucked in a row of shops between pizza place and offie, with its inappropriate capitalisation (oh, Beer EnGin .... Beer Engine / Beer n' Gin, just got it!), I'm thinking in a moment of alliterative genius, 'more mediocre Merseyside misery' ....

But I'm wrong, very wrong as I'm not sure you can even have a mediocre level of misery, as we end on a high .....

Beer EnGin, Whiston (2640 / 4801)

Always important to complete a county with a cracker. It's still with a tinge of regret I recall how disappointing it was to complete Derbyshire a few years back with a pint of vinegar disguised as Bass, served by a bloke who'd stopped caring cos he was grieving a dead wife! But I'm taken under the wing from the start here, Leanne behind the bar is the star of the show and the locals really buy into the friendly warmth and positivity, and openness to strangers. Take that Botoxed Wizardora of Hoylake. Take that Trap n Hatch. Take that Norfolk which has nothing to do with Merseyside but I fancied a dig anyway. Leanne has to tell me cash only about 4 times before I get the message, and then (not that I need it) talks me into this wonderful North Riding Oatmeal Stout. She points to this cute dog, Flo, who's supping it for proof! Better than 'tasters' any day is dog recommendation. A jolly chap at the far end (hopefully not Big John again) points at Colin and shouts 'WHAAART'S THARR?' so I have to have a cross-pub Colin chat, always difficult! One of his mates, a Bridlington lover (good taste!), comes down cos I think he needs a wee but he must have a stronger bladder than me cos he's still chatting and jiggling 10 mins later. Leanne swoops in to do the Highlighting, which means three counties complete, and I've not done one final tick myself! Selfless you see. Daddy BRAPA and RetiredMartin are the other two if you wondered. And I'll be forever grateful how great this unassuming micropub was.

Of course the train out of Whiston was delayed 16 minutes, but not to worry, I got a good connection at NLW and then it was plain sailing home to York. Felt I should have a celebratory night cap, but made it a cup of tea cos I was starting work at 7:38am! Exact!

See you all next time, when we'll learn that A is for Altrincham.

Si

Wednesday 7th Feb, and I'd booked myself a hotel for the night at Liverpool with the aim of completing my three Merseyside ticks, before getting back to York at a reasonable mid-afternoon time the following day.

But what I stupidly failed to realise was that just because a pub opens at 4pm on a Thursday, you cannot assume it does the same on a Wednesday. In fact, two of my three required don't open at all on a Wednesday, what a donkey!

No wonder I look manic as I marched 17 mins down a road in Maghull (pronounced M'gull, as in "I've lost my albatross and mislaid my arctic tern, but I'm keeping a close eye on m'gull").

HOW DOES MAGHULL HAVE TWO TRAIN STATIONS WHERE BOTH PUBS ARE ALMOST 20 MINS WALK FROM EACH? HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE?

And this all came after a torrid journey from Manc Occy Road where two student rugby teams were being intolerable in cramped conditions. It is with great relief when tonight's only pub tick lurches into view.

Frank Hornby, Maghull (2635 / 4796)

First thing I notice, as is so often the case in 'Spooooons, is the carpet. But not in a good way. Like a magic eye puzzle combined with staring at static on an old TV, it does something to my brain and eyes, making me nauseous and dizzy. Slow service at the bar isn't helped by chatty local chap hellbent on discussing nitro Guinness pouring techniques as I battle to tell the barmaid I wish to redeem a last gasp Mudgie voucher. Whilst this new Oakham is certainly a top drink, hard to enjoy as I cannot look past that carpet, quite literally. Frank H. deserves a better tribute, I hadn't realised that along with model railways, he was also the brains behind Dinky toys and Meccano. Not to mention his hit single 'The Way it is', an absolute banger, plus his book 'Fever Pitch' I really enjoyed. Is there anything that man can't turn his hand to?

Back in the 'Pool, I check into my hotel, squirt on some deodorant, change my top, buy a cheese n salad roll, bottle of water for the inevitable 3:30am dehydration wake up, and head back out into that vibrant studenty night sky, passing a Japanese girl in John Lennon fancy dress looking like she's worried this wasn't such a good idea.

I'd been recommended a few pre-emptives over the past month, and whilst I won't go into detail until they make a GBG, here's what I did:

The Vines (Big House), recently refurbished, and architecturally speaking at least, the highlight:

I also really enjoyed the Queen of Hope Street. Such a great atmosphere, I'll be amazed if this doesn't make the 2025 GBG. The kids are alright.

Then a pub so new, The Engineer, it didn't appear on a map! You can also walk through the White Hart (formerly Clove Hitch, which I've done) to get to it, or walk around the back of Arrad Street to the official entrance. HATED the barmaid here, shouldn't be allowed in a customer facing role, but the place itself was pretty good.

I end with a Plum Porter nightcap at one of my old favourites, The Dispensary, great chat with barman over all these new ale pubs owned by the same bloke behind the new to GBG Red Lion. Apparently, he came into the Dispensary with a notepad, stayed for 4 days, scribbling notes and observing! No wonder his pubs all have such promise.

That leads us onto Thursday morning, and despite a noisy extractor fan, it hadn't been a bad sleep.

The rain was turning to sleet as I made my way to Moorfields station, purchasing another brill all zones Saveaway ticket (thanks Eddie!) , glad I had my Icelandic woollen hat, walking boots and thermals!

I hit Ormskirk a bit early for the 29 minute walk to pub one, and with the sleet now heavier and rapidly turning to snow, one of the best decisions I made all day was to camp out in the local Spoons, Court Leet, for 20 mins. It was a real win win win.

Pre-emptive tick so only half a 6% Peerless required, I needed a poo, and this was a great opportunity to then loiter on the stairs in the dry and see if I could get an Uber. A bonkers elderly couple took the lift up to smoke outside on the roof terrace! Taxi was only 4 minutes away, it is now 11:45am, perfect timing.

Great guy is our taxi driver Robert John (less stern than Stern John), follows a lot of travel style YouTube vlogs and loves the BRAPA concept so much that when we park up, he takes a note of my X/Twitter handle and says he'll follow me.

Pub looks a bit dark so I'm relieved to see the outer door open. Beautiful old building.

Kicking Donkey, Ormskirk (2636 / 4797)

Posh bloke is warming his legs on a fire that needs a bit more zhuzhing, I say "oooh you've got the right idea haha!", he looks a bit startled but thankfully his wife gives me a sympathetic smile. Long wait for service, a theme of this overnight stop. Frank Hornby, The Vines and Court Leet all similarly painful. Kitchen-hand sees me, does bugger all, but nice platinum blonde fluffy jumper lady jumps in and tells me it is cash only cos they're old skooool. 'Embrace Adventure' seems an apt bitter and I look out to see huge flakes of snow coming down heavily now. It is about now that I decide to turn today into a guilt-free Uber day. Distances aren't long, but getting from A to B, to B to C, is far from easy, yet every journey cost only £6-7. It made a lot of sense, and although a bit of lunch is going on around me, I don't feel at all out of place here with my Cauli due to a farmhouse / labourers ambience of ancient times.

Uber 2 is outside the gate already, I'm fully expecting to see Robert John again, but no, this time it is Imre (not Varadi) who had made great ground from Skelmersdale which apparently is pronounced Skemmersdale! Less chatty this guy, but super efficient and deserves his high avg rating and £1 tip!

Worth pointing out that my average Uber rating is 4.73/5 - I'll take it. If I was a 'Spoons carpet, I'd be excellent.

I'm in love with pub two before I've even stepped inside, this Tetley frontage with a stained glass inner door and tiled floor make me purr.

Prince Albert, Westhead (2637 / 4798)

The guy in charge is front of house, back of house, and middle of house too most probably. He's hugely impressive, a sort of younger, camper Andy Hamilton, attentive bundle of energy. One of those who even knows I need the loo before I do. The smell of the toilet corridor down to the Gents by the way is magnifique, evoking a candy cigarette suppressed memory of yore. Although I'm not convinced it was even my yore. Your yore? I'm both surprised and not at all surprised to see plenty of lunches going on, but the central corridor and distinct areas mean it doesn't jar. In fact, the pub puts me in mind of a scranny Swan in York, and I can't pay pubs much higher compliment than that.

We'll leave part one there because I know you enjoy a shorter one from time to time (oooh missus!) but I'll hope to return tomorrow evening to tell you about Lathom and the time I completed Merseyside for the first time in BRAPA history.

Have a good week, Si

If I'd been pleasantly surprised to find Waterloo's excellent Four Ashes open an hour earlier than expected, what followed was a bit of a head-scratcher.

2pm advertised not only on both Facebook and Google, but on their own front door for heaven's sake! It was after 3pm now.

Shutter down but lights are on, how odd!

I cross the road to see if I can find a secret door, but as you can see, there weren't many options shy of hurdling that brick wall!

I'm just about to give it up as a bad job when this Cheeky Mass of Ginger Stubble bounds down the road. "Opens when he wants really!" laments CMGS when I express confusion.

The Mass continues to loiter without another word. Then two other men arrive from a different angle. They loiter too All three blink expectantly at the pub for two more minutes. 15:15. I see a blind wobble. Then, a hand appears! Addams Family : the Craft Reunion?

Trap & Hatch, Waterloo (2632 / 4793)

All I can think is that these regulars are part of some 'Trap & Hatch WhatsApp group' and they got the nod from the guv'nor to head down for 3:15pm, for this was no coincidence. I guess I was fortunate I'd been waylaid enough to not give up on it. Seems a decent man does our Rob, if that is indeed his name, and I feel confident enough to question things, to which he looks rather sheepish before muttering "errrr, yeah, I got a bit held up!" This is more dive bar than micropub, tatty, chilly, faintest whiff of cannabis in the air, and the pub dog is a livewire sniffer who won't leave my bag alone! One of those places that feels a 'run for his mates' type of bar. Slightly cliquey but not utterly uncaring. Absolutely nowt wrong with the 8 Sail beer, but Lincs beer outside of Lincs? I feel I had my fill in 2023.

Time to escape Waterloo, and by now I really wanted to. FIVE MERSEYSIDE TICKS REMAIN. And I'm on an open ticket back to York (I realise only now, nice bonus) , so no reason not to push myself a bit further.

I stay on the train and cross my legs as we cross through the heart of Liverpool, and alight at this unlikely stop called St Michaels (not M&S), closer to the pub than Aigburth Station despite Aigburth being embedded in the pub name.

Make it make sense Merseyside ya weird buggers!

Little Taproom on Aigburth Road, Aigburth, Liverpool (2633 / 4794)

A huge improvement on what had gone before, just lacking one specific ingredient which would've had it competing for pub of the day, and that was 'BRAPA engagement' (not A BRAPA engagement, I mean I'd propose to my cauliflower tomorrow if it wasn't weird). It rankles with me that in such an (on the surface) cheerful, bright, breezy hospitable micro, I never quite made a connection. I don't always welcome it, but it would've felt right in the here and now. I'd had a jolly chat with the barman re the 'dangerous' 5.8% 'Get Locky' beer which tasted about 10% at this stage. I ask two ladies if I could perch at the end of their table. They agree, it is a fairly large table, they were deep in chat and probably 15 halves of stout deep. It's not like anyone is 'Hoylake Botoxed Wizardora' levels of harshness, but no one is 'Butcher's Arms Herne Grey Codgers' or 'Gateshead Microbus Jury Duty Couple' buoyance either. And I was so central to a fairly intimate space, smiling my face numb around the room but trying not to look needy. Finally, the ladies notice a bloke perched uncomfortably opposite. They shout over, does he want to join us too? He does, that starts some nice chatter amongst the four of us re micro etiquette, but too late, my glass is empty! And poor Ivor, didn't get a look in. Would Colin have sparked a better reaction? Oh, and both loos are occupied so I don't even get a farewell wee - FML!

More frustration at the bus stop as this girl steps forward to flag the bus down, so I step back a pace, but at the last minute she realises it isn't hers, steps back, waves it away, it careers past the stop, and seconds later she flags down when she does want, bound for Liverpool, like WTF ya selfish cow! Or should I have been more alert? Bit of both maybe.

Yes, Aigburth hadn't been a lucky place for poor ole' BRAPA!

But I was still determined to get a final tick. So after an unsly wee, I hang around and get the next half hourly bus. We chug up through some weird suburbs, I'm dozing off as the sun suddenly sets like we're in Madeira, and we're plunged into darkness. I snap out of it just in time to press the bell at (ALMOST) my exact stop. Hurrah!

Cask, Stoneycroft (2634 / 4795)

A micro with a carpet! The ultimate prize after a difficult couple of hours. This nice dude Tom on Twitter is trying to get me to admit it is a shit carpet, and it is, but doesn't matter mate, a micropub carpet IS a micropub carpet and you need to double the score. 8/10. Linked to the Bard in Prescot we did recently, but this is much warmer and softer. Steamy, beery pongy, bald thick necked men and noisy dogs jostle for position. I'm too comfortably numb in the fug of it all to get upset about trivialities like twoggery. The beer is a welcome delight. 3.3% effervescence brewed in some obscure Somerset shithole, I think they call it Somerset. Joking of course. I LOVE the cricket team. Everyone is very smiley, this is what the latter half of today had been lacking. And it feels good. And talking of feeling good, just THREE pubs now remain on Merseyside.

For the FOURTH time of asking, despite having three or four decent pre-emptive shouts back in Liverpool City Centre, I forgo them in favour of a Costa Coffee on the station.

And that kids, is why I won't finish the GBG until I'm an old man.

C'mon train doors, open sesame, I'm getting chilly .....

See you all on Sunday 9pm for part one of an extended #WobblyWednesday / #ThirstyThursday overnighter. Would Merseyside finally fall?

Si

Nine pubs left to do on Merseyside, and I was aiming for six of them today, providing I didn't do anything stupid.

So it was quite stupid to sleep 40 minutes through my alarm, giving myself just 15 minutes to squirt on some deodorant, throw on clothes like I'm a human clothes horse, give my hair a quick fluff up, grab my fridge snacks, and scoot on down to York station where I nearly skidded on my bum outside the shitty Windmill pub because it was damp, and my purple Converse have zero grip.

But I made it.

A tumultuous start for new mascot, Ivor Panda.

At Manc Occy Road, the connexion (thanks Poirot!) was tighter than it should've been, so I had to dash over the footbridge, where I piled into a tiny train with a boatload of Everton & Spurs fans (12:30pm kick off at Goodison Park to add to this painful morning).

An innocent Spanish lady next to me asks if I can open the window as the carriage smells of arse. She ain't wrong.

In Liverpool, I purchase another amazing Saveaway day ticket (thanks Eddie F!) but my woes still aren't over as a load of sticky Toffee puddings squash onto my delayed train as far as Kirkdale.

Having finally seen them off, or so I thought, I alight at Orrell Park, down this grotbag main road, and into a grim looking 'Spoons slightly raised with a 70's arcade awning.

Raven, Walton (2629 / 4790)

The tempestuous swirly carpet is a nod to Edgar Allan Poe, whose stories were illustrated by a local man. I was involved in a Media Studies production of 'The Tell-Tale Heart' whilst at Uni, so I know all about Ed, though personally I think he sold out when he went on to present Crystal Maze. I rate 'Swords of a Thousand Men' though, a banger. I still hadn't quite seen off the last of the Bluenoses, necking rushed lagers, dashing for a final wee, a fleet of taxis waiting for them outside. The barmaid scrutinises my Mudgie voucher like a girl with trust issues which we must blame her ex for. But the Skylark Pale drank chirpy cheep cheap, and Ivor Panda got through a tricky pub debut unscathed.

'Eight Merseyside's to go, c'mon we can DO this' I say, psyching myself up, for that rushed morning routine meant that even now I felt half asleep.

A change at Sandhills takes me to Waterloo (not the London or ABBA one) where three of those remaining eight were - all micros too. That's the Scouse gamble. I had a moan to a nice old lady and a rough-arse dude with warty hands about the lack of open toilets on Merseyrail stations.

The early opener (well, 1pm) is my furthest walk, so I tackle that first ......

Old Tap, Waterloo (2630 / 4791)

The lovely bar manager (not owner, I wish these people wore badges so I knew their rank!) in his Rosenioresque scarf greets me warmly in this chilly box micro with plenty of heart. He makes the mistake of asking what I'm doing with my Saturday, so before long we are comparing GBGs, and he's giving me the low down on bus routes south of Abergavenny. My 'Land of Chocolate' beer lacks true chocolate oomph and might be better off being called 'Suburb of Chocolate' or 'Hamlet on the South Downs of Chocolate'. Asda lady arrives, smiles a lot, and drops off some dog biscuits, bleach and a handful of limes. A good evening in prospect. Finally, a Northern Irish couple arrive and get the same line of questioning that I did. They announce that they are breaking 'Dryanuary', in a defiant tone evoking Ian Paisley. "We shall never surrender ...."

I was not expecting my next closest pub to be open until 3pm, so what a Barry Bonus to find the blackboard declaring 'OPEN' at 14:13 .......

Four Ashes, Waterloo (2631 / 4792)

A family of four with the surname Ashe, I peer around the door and tell Mr Ashe I'm surprised to find them open, he is surprised I'm surprised, but tells me it is a recent change, and a check confirms Google STILL haven't updated the new hours despite being told twice. A gripe I hear a lot. I guess Facebook is the best source, providing it is an active FB page? Mug's game really this ticking malarkey. This is my pub of the day. Ambient temperature, cosy, great Wigan Brewhouse ale and Mr Ashe is such a great human being, like talking to an old friend. Talk about immediately feeling comfortable in someone's presence. Helps we have similar views on our pub loves/hates! No other customers until I'm on my dregs, then a group of local blokes arrive one by one. Ivor Panda even agrees our new friend should be allowed to do the greening.

So we end part 1 on a high. Would it last? Don't be silly, this is BRAPA.

See you on Thursday or Friday for part 2.

Si

Impossible to rank these 7, I don't think any of them are in contention for my overall 'BRAPA pub of the year' but if someone mentioned them, I would make an interested noise of approval from the back of my throat.

7. Lord Aberconway, Liverpool Street

I walked straight past this hidden scaffold-clad gem hiding just yards from the entrance to Liverpool Street station. Expectations were low, but wow, it had booths, multi-levels, ornateness, and it had Plum Porter, Old Peculiar and Old Rosie. This pub wasn't messing about, son. Plum Peculiar anyone? Half n half, tot of Rosie in the top? I chicken out of asking. Maybe just as well. I spin around looking for a seat and a couple with West Yorkshire eyes tell me they can budge up, but I decline cos a booth has just come free. Downside is a tattoo necked dude prowling like a caged tiger, hands free headset, complaining to a customer service team. He's actually really nice! And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, Axholme Rob and Punk Mate come in. Always imagined finally meeting Rob in a two-bit North Lincs village, but here we were! 22+ pubs on his amazing piece of paper, I could never! Amazing effort. As for me, it is only my Plum Porter stopping this grand pub from making the top 5. It kept repeating on me, like someone had dropped a killer peanut in it.

6. New Inn, Sandwich

There's something magical about walking into a pub, 11am on a weekday in winter, and seeing a healthy hoard of locals huddled around the bar (I won't call them 'blockers' because they turned to greet me, smile and have spatial awareness). The barman is equally hospitable, and I think I earn brownie points as I get a respectful nod when ordering the Gadds' No.5. Do I wanna be in their gang? Yes! Talking of brownies, I was in urgent need of 'big toilet' and I'm delighted to find fairly clean lockable cubicle. Without going into detail, I didn't ask too many questions of the loo bowl, but the flush mechanism is incredibly weak and even after three tries, I'm not totally satisfied! Back in the pub, I sup my wonderful pint guiltily, smile a lot, even more locals stream in, including a tropical shirted 'Bunny' from Harry & Paul. Probably a quare. Back to the loo to improve the earlier situation further, before a quick dash to the bus stop.

5. Chequers, Swinford

This pub looked even more #ShutPubAlert than the nearby Cherry Tree in Catthorpe, on a day of chunky closed doors, but to my surprise, I turn it and we're catapulted into a warm, joined up one roomer with a few old gents watching Maidstone stuff it up Ipswich. Doom, Bass or Landlord. Looks like it has been an unchanged line-up for years. But the Bass bubbles up and dies, nooooo, so it is all aboard the Timmy T. train. Like me, Dad just cannot work out which football man of yesteryear the bronze statue is meant to be. Then it occurs to us, IT IS THE GUV'NOR. We'd been encouraged to say hello to him, long standing Brian here for 34 years, by the lovely man from the Cherry Tree. Sadly, Brian is less complimentary about the CT, but he tells us the statue was commissioned by Sky/BT when Leicester won the Premier league and this place was big news. He had to go to Pinewood studios to get his measurements taken(!) and Robbie Savage unveiled it. Amazing what you find out by going to pubs!

4. Butcher's Arms, Herne

With opening hours of 5:30-8pm Wed-Fri, it is fair to say the trailblazing original micropub is being run as a hobby these days, if it was ever anything else! And even these times weren't adhered to on our visit. Me and Richard Pitcher are stood in the chilly wind outside from 5:30-45 trying to convince ourselves that a few more fairy lights have lit up inside since we arrived. Eventually, we give it up as a bad job and trudge back to his car disconsolately. "I'll drive past it one last time just in case, so keep your eyes peeled" says RP, more in hope than expectation. But as we turn the corner, well bugger me it is all lit up and a 'Micro Pub Open' sign is on the pavement outside! We laugh a bitter laugh and Richard spins back to the car park and we trot back down. The place is already filling up with the same grey haired elderly local man x12 drinking bitter by the jug. Intimate doesn't cover it and we do amazingly to keep a bench throughout. Main man Martin is in South Africa, so stand in man tries the trad. grumpy guv'nor schtick but I see through it, a sweetheart really. Cash only but no one wants to take my money til I force it on them! The Iron Pier stout (in Bass glass) is insanely good quality. 5*. And the locals love the BRAPA concept. We also learn the new opening time is 6pm! "Any later and they'll be calling last orders whilst they are pulling your first pint" I whisper to Richard, not the kind of place where whispering is easy. But despite all the trials and tribulations, once you're in and settled this place has genuine quality.

3. Stilton Cheese, Somerby

Ah, the mid afternoon closure. Nearly 10 years into BRAPA and I'm still no closer to understanding the machinations behind it. Only once have I heard a last orders dong, and that dong was years ago in the St Vincent Arms, Sutton upon Derwent. This place closes 3pm, even on a Saturday, tsk, and being 2:32pm, I'm getting paranoid about being denied my tick, especially when Daddy BRAPA starts fumbling around in the car cos he's lost something (the above photo was taken on the way out because I strode ahead). The bar area is a mass of jolly locals deep in drink, I peer through the gap, and get a Citra because whenever I swerve it, I get punished by the Oakham gods! Dad is soon on the scene unable to fathom the lack of stilton on all menu items. A local tells him about a stilton soup that doesn't exist, and when I return from the loo / admiring the selection of historic GBGs, same bloke has his phone out and is showing Dad photos of his brother's classic 70's cars! We cannot escape to the furthest corner quickly enough! My Citra goes down well, time progresses as it tends to, and suddenly about 15:05, I look up and we are the last two people in the pub. No last orders dong, no 'TIME AT THE BAR' cry, no passive aggressive lights turned off, chairs put on tables, outside doors opened. The locals just knew instinctively their time was up, and scatter like Granny's ashes over Bempton cliffs. A relationship obviously built on trust and respect. Organic. Perhaps the most fascinating detail of pub culture to me.

2. Bluebell Inn, Lound

"Eeey up, you can tell we've got a bit more northern" observes Daddy BRAPA out of the corner of his mouth, surveying the lived-in no nonsense village scene here in North Notts. He is a man who knows his north from his south, his east from his west, his left from his right, and on today, his 77th birthday, it was all about making northerly progress towards York so he could arrive back home for his aubergine surprise at a reasonable hour. There is a mystical Celtic ring in the head of my beer, but it tastes ok. The carpet, fire and dog's bottom all scream 'the olden days'. At the bar, Lurch from the Addams Family declares that he's been sat on cold concrete steps outside a courtroom all day, and up til now, has only had a pint of Guinness to show for it. A fine anecdote befitting a fine pub.

1.Red Lion, Milstead

I could come here 99 further times and not find the pub as magical as I did on this dark Thursday night. Richard Pitcher, the true man of Kent, had heroically driven us down a myriad of country lanes to get to this rural outlier. I remember Frank Skinner's football trivia poser "When did Hull go down as a result of Man Utd beating Inter Milan 2-0 in the Champions League?" as Richard points out the grand property where Rod fell to his death, adjusting his aerial on the roof. The pub is inevitably dining, but is nicely segregated from the dimly lit main bar area, electric atmosphere, glowing fire, incredible Goachers Imperial Stout, and to top it off, the most giant bowl of complimentary crisps I've ever seen! And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, Richard reveals he isn't a cheese & onion fan, so I get to scoff the lot myself. Perfect pub experience.

And that's a (b)wrap!

Join me on Tuesday when I well tell you about my latest attempts to mop up Merseyside as I tackle six of my remaining nine pubs.

Have a good week, Si

A record breaking January with 47 ticks means I've really hit the ground running in 2024.

And with only one day of annual leave taken, it just shows what can be achieved if you makes the most of #ThirstyThursdays. 58.3% of the GBG complete at time of writing.

40 pubs back in 2022 was my previous best, the monthly average remains a modest 29.6. How you visit 0.6 of a pub I don't know, but I'm sure it is possible. Signal Box in Cleethorpes?

Big credit must go to the pubs and punters themselves. Those (mainly micropubs) who said they were closing to go to Torremolinos for a couple of weeks made it clear on social media, and I also found most pubs busy. Two things that haven't always been the case in previous years.

I've made gains in a whopping EIGHT counties. Let's take a look at how it's going and what the BRAPA future might hold for them ......

COUNTY OF THE MONTH - MERSEYSIDE (24 TICKS)

Apologies for the patchy green highlighting resembling a 3G football pitch. This is what happens when you switch from Stabilo to Staedtler halfway through the season.

Merseyside has been THE county. I now know my way out of Lime St station blindfolded. Never thought I'd say that.

Only 9 remain. I'm determined to cracke most of them in the first half of Feb. Whiston has become a bit of an outlier on the evil Merseyrail line but with three of the nine in Waterloo, most look nicely do-able. Just a shame most open late!

Pub of the Month - Coach & Horses, Greasby

RUNNER UP - KENT (9 TICKS)

Much neater!

I had zero intention of doing any Kent in 2024 after flogging it like a dead south eastern horse in the 2022/23 season and reaching 90% completion.

But a long standing Premier Inn booking in Absolute Bobbings on the outskirts of Shittingbourne, yes that is the correct spelling, which I'd re-booked three times, had to finally be honoured. I booked a day off and spent a couple of nights daaahn here.

Richard Pitcher is the hero who chauffeured me around, and with this equally lovely chap called Paul Godden threatening to do the same for me in the coming months, plus Daddy BRAPA's enthusiasm at an easy Thanet train day, not to mention a possible return to the village where Grandpa BRAPA convalesced from bronchitis, I can see a bit more surprise Kent in 2024.

Amazing pub county. Should've known it'd lure me back in.

Joint Pubs of the Month - Butcher's Arms, Herne / Red Lion, Milstead

THIRD PLACE - Leicestershire (4 ticks)

Shambolic! I shake my head in disgust when I think how I've laboured on my Leics ticking over the past nine months. Very 'pregnancy', probably.

A massive Leics GBG churn in September didn't help either, and with a couple of lovely lads enticing me back to rural Derbyshire (which I fully greened back in 2018), I refuse to dodge Leics any longer and could really do with spending some quality time here. Locations + opening hours aren't helpful.

Enter heroic chauffeur 2, Daddy BRAPA, on Saturday just gone, who drove me round four of the more difficult entries.

Remember how Lincs was a very 'driven' place for me last year? Well DB seems to think that maybe Leics could be its natural successor, though a lot of it is still attainable on buses/trains. In any case, it continues to live rent free in my head.

Pub of the Month - Stilton Cheese, Somerby

And now for the best of the rest.

In Central London, I ticked three, very much enjoying Liverpool St's Lord Aberconway and Aldgate's Craft Beer Co.

In North London, I did two astonishing Kilburn's though once I'd got over the novelty factor in both cases, they fell a little London flat.

Two apiece in County Durham and Tyne & Wear. I'm down to just the one tick in Co. Durham up at awkward Edmundbyers which might pair best with a Northumberland summertime jaunt.

Three remain in Tyne & Wear, Whitburn I'll likely leave til 2024/25 but I hope to have a stab at Newcastle bus duo, Old Ryton Village & Newburn.

Honourable mention for Notts, just the one tick, up in Lound, but it was excellent. And if you wondered, I have visited other Notts pubs but can't be arsed to waste valuable Staedtler ink on it in 2024 but that could change!

In other news, I'm hoping a new mascot will arrive just before the Pub Ticker Transfer Deadline Day Window slams firmly shut tomorrow night, on its way from BlackpoolJane F.C. Can we get the paperwork done on time? Will the fax machine jam at 11pm?

And a new upstart pub ticker has been in touch with me, asking for hints and tips on getting started / how to best organise / spreadsheets etc. LOVE helping out newcomers, though part of me wants to say 'save yourself now, before you get hooked!'

As for Feb, Hull City have mostly home games, so like Wham before me, I'll be mainly ticking solo. Expect a lot of North Western trips, and my first official holiday is at the end of the month so I'm looking to book a county I've only dabbled my toes in so far.

Thanks for reading, keep on pubbing. Si

This lot were difficult to rank, in fact there's nothing much between them and the eventual winners.

Let's kick off, and head back in rural Kent last Thursday afternoon.

13. Five Bells, Eastry

With the hourly village bus to Sandwich hurtling past, this lumpy village alive-hole had me panicking in mid-afternoon closure paranoia - not one of the doors at the front were open, and not one light shone bright. But sneaking through a cat-flap around the back next to the kitchen takes me into what at first whiff is suffocating stuffy geriatric dining hell. The Musket Ball Puller tastes like all Musket beers, southern bitter, and I'm wondering if the Black Sheep would've been a better option. And yet a 7.5/10 hotel style carpet, bristling fire and happy selection of local drunk oddities mean this squid game of a pub hooks me with it's tentacles and drags me under. Diners disperse, a Mum and daughter come in for food, upset to find they've missed the boat. They are encouraged, however, to return for a very popular clairvoyant evening, which should really have garnered the sarcastic response it deserved.

12. Sun, Faversham

My mini-holiday started on Wednesday night here in one of Kent's prettier towns. Unlike my rubbish Bear experience two year's back, this was quality Sheppy Neamo on it's home patch. Sad to see Bishop's Finger turned around, but I'm northern enough to still get a twinge of excitement in the groin when I see Spitfire on cask. Well kept. Hoppy, wooden, creaky, wheezy, ancient, and that was just the punters heading through to an out of sight back room where some bagpipers play a three minute gig (that's more than enough bagpiping for me), to rapturous applause. Burns Night had come 24 hrs early in Fav. They all eff off immediately, no post-bagpipe drink. My barman is brought a small red pudding in a dish, I say it looks nice, and the beanpole chef smiles like he's never been paid a compliment before. First GBG appearance since 2008, and on this evidence, a welcome returnee.

11. Carlton Tavern, Kilburn Park

Rebuilt brick by brick after an evil prick by prick knocking down incident, I scrutinise the building as best as I could after 4 strong pints of dark stuff and couldn't see one gap. Barmaid is delightful and forces tasters on me, a stout and London Lush. She even tells me that my face reacts better to the 'Lush' so I should go for that! I sit at the end of a long bench, beer incredibly good but I must confess much of my initial joy is diluted as London suburban familiarity kicks in. A couple order fish n' chips. It doesn't take long to arrive but she's on her laptop and he's left the pub to do 'some business' so their plates are just sat there getting cold for about twenty mins! Gives me anxiety. When he does return, he accuses them of changing the fish type, he prefers the old one. London. Funny ole' place innit?

10. Black Lion, Kilburn

One of the most astonishing pub interiors I've witnessed in my pub-ticking life, this GBG debutant had me gawping around ceiling and walls for the first ten minutes before I finally remember this pint of soupy Poinsettia Glasshouse wasn't going to drink itself. Shame! Tough going. Young Liam Rosenior behind the bar had me pinned as a CAMRA member before I'd even opened my mouth. As Friday evening kicks in, the place fills up, more's the pity. Like so many historic London pubs, they speak for themselves and don't need a mass of punters to improve them (same can't be said for most places across the UK). It is a transient atmosphere, perhaps no surprise being on the busy Kilburn High Rd, and soon toddlers, buggies and gin Mummies are all vying for position. A brief chat with a toothless Jamaican and his Irish stepdaughter offers hope, but here's proof that just because you are ornate National Inventory, it is no guarantee of overall pub 'experience' greatness. Still, a must visit.

9. Cherry Tree , Catthorpe

Hallelujah and praise the lord for Daddy BRAPA, who picks me up in Rugby and drives us to this awkward village on the doorstep of the M6/M1 crossing, nowhere near a bus route. A pub has never felt so much like a community run local despite not actually being one. Looks shut when isn't. Limited opening hours, airy olde farmhouse feel, one wall is quirky insipid yellow and human zebra, rest at pains to recapture the traditional. Oatmeal stout from Hinckley is hairs-on-the-chest stuff, but I should've gone with the Dow Bridge brewed in the village. Colin gets a taster. Lucky boy. Guv'nor is the decisive factor, waiting patiently for Dad to finish a breakfast anecdote about Mummy BRAPA eating half her beans on toast in the Middlesmoor Crown, before giving us a potted pub history and directions to Swinford. The BRAPA handshake follows, which I don't just dole out to any old staffer.

8. Craft Beer Co. , Aldgate

Obviously I had an idea which pubs were on my hit-list for this long weekend, and a pre-conceived notion about those I'd enjoy more than others. Not for a SECOND had I thought that this Mon-Fri opener in the shadow of the Gherkin would provide my 'moment of contentment' of the week. I just felt SO happy here and I've been to other Craft Beer houses and they are all dull as a dishwasher. I'm not claiming this was 'cosy' but it was certainly a vast improvement. And the 'Fairytale of Brew York', first time I've seen it on cask was magical. 'Yes' by McAlmont and Butler has never sounded punker, and even snoggy nervy couple with hopes of pizza and Prosecco who almost sat on my face couldn't dampen my spirits. Oddly great (the pub experience, not the almost face sitting).

And there we have it!

Join me at the slightly earlier time of 7pm tomorrow for the January MONTH END REVIEW. Then I'll return on either Friday or Sunday for the final part of this.

Si

Over the next three days, I'll attempt to count them down from worst to best in some sort of vague ranking order, so let's kick off with this horror ......

19. Fountain of Ale, Sittingbourne

Having found it shut early for the night at 9:45pm the previous day, I was already taking a dim view of this station-side pub in the disappointing town of Sittingbourne. Lively tonight, like a dysfunctional youth club, B.O. sweaty gurning twentysomethings seem hellbent on making an impression on me, before falling over each other playing darts. The one ale on, Master Brew, tastes like Uhu glue. Barmaid seems quite proud when I ask about yesterday's early closure. "Yeah, I think that was me locking up!" she reminisces with a triumphant look of power flickering across her face. Just when I didn't think I could dislike it more. For balance, was nice to see yoofs havin' a good pub time even if I was cowering in a corner, and the bar area isn't without a hint of quality. But this was evokes East Hull docks in truth. I love the 2024 GBGs commitment to rougher readier boozers, but there's a line between worthy ones and shitholes.

18. Crown Inn, Finglesham

This rural Kent GBG regular is well clear of the Fountain, with a fantastic barman, perky and personable helping me with both loo directions and WiFi code. We even had time to laugh at a forgetful delivery man, who I hope didn't actually have a neurological condition or I'm going to hell. A dishwatery pint of Adam Henson's Rare Breed, or 'Cuntryfile' as only I call it, had me wondering if the Hophead would've been a better choice. The pub had nooks and crannies but was an identikit dining shambles, and with an angry Brian Butterfield glaring at me over his mystery meat and bonbonbonbons, my highlight here was wielding the green Staedtler and being photographed by the 'Ham Sandwich' sign nearby by a farm lady in wellies.

17. Railway. Rainham

Nothing to hate about this 10am 'Spoons, it just wasn't the 'happy' experience it might've been. Sun streaming in, and a great carpet had me feeling like I was in the Borneo jungle with Attenborough, but with more condiments. Friendly twitchy barman serves me an acceptable pint of Gadd's 'She Sells Seashells' which I inevitably trip over. Not literally. A loud lady is telling her tolerant friend about her kids' morning routine. Charlie's toothbrush seems the biggest pain point. From the far end, I'm being glared at by a sinister fake Jaz from the Traitors. Relieved when he falls asleep at his table, but the staff are less happy and wake him up. He rushes over for a coffee refill, and then resumes his glaring. So I leave.

16. Ship, Tower Hill

A rose between modern depressing thorns, this up & down boozer of much history and quality is part of the Central London GBG crop rotation system (I did mean 'crop' didn't I?) A first appearance since 2012 is a slight red flag. The City toffs are high on testosterone but short on brains and spatial awareness, and I have to step between them to reach the bar. Thankfully, they depart for their stocks and bonds shortly after leaving a litany of three quarter drunk Guinness's behind. Space is limited down here, but I guess that's half the charm, right? Sailor's hats hang from the ceiling and the death defying staircases look exciting. Barman is a good lad, but the London Pride isn't up to scratch, and the place just feels a bit grubby, deserving of more care and respect.

15. Alma, Painters Forstal

In deepest darkest North Kent, I needed the pub chauffeuring heroics of gold medal #PubMan of the week Richard Pitcher to reach this one (Daddy BRAPA took silver, Axholme Rob bronze, if you were wondering). This weatherboarded village inn had a South Essex aura, the tiny front bar is excellent but so limited, one darts match fills the entire space, and sadly that's what happened so we're relegated to the restauranty back room, where food smelt amazing. My pork cylinders I'd been nibbling all day obviously weren't cutting it! The Master Brew was kept very well I thought, sadly it isn't a beer I enjoy even when it is 100%. My northern tastebuds maybe? Regular readers will know what Sussex Best does to me. Barmaid really needs to make effort re welcoming strangers at such a remote location, but to be fair, she's a lot cheerier on the way out. Glad to see the back of me? Not a bad pub by any means, but ranked #15 cos the standard was high overall.

14. Wheel Inn, Branston

The lowest ranked Daddy BRAPArer in this line-up, it is important we are clear that I recognise the quality, professionalism and effort that goes into this isolated North Leics brickie. Standard of the ale eclipses all we've seen so far, 3.4% Merino Juicy Pale by Salt is a thing of beauty. Sadly, the pub is a 'greatest shits' of everything I despise. Space so limited, bulging lycra clad twyclists on posing stools, stone floor blocked by dogs, all with the faces of former West Hammers - first I nearly step on Whippet Pardew and when Doberman Frank Lampard Snr lumbers across my path, I have to pat him like a small horse. When this isn't going on, a toddler with yellow booties has been let off the leash by a lackadaisical Twummy and I'm nearly treading on her at regular intervals. And EVERY table is kitted out with knives and forks. It is a small place but with this amazing fire going, and one small corner table a mass of magazines, it felt a wasted opportunity to shoehorn the odd drinkers spot. Barmaid's proper spirited, I love it when I'm moaning about the Gents being in the 'wrong place' and she shouts 'don't blame me, I didn't put them there!' I respect this place a lot, but I don't have to like it!

So, as we say in the punk world, 'oi oi that's your lot'.

See you tomorrow for part 2 when we'll go from 13 to 8, or I might break off for the month end review.

Thanks for reading,

Si

Saturday 20th January 2024

From the near deserted First Class section of the Grand Central service from York to Sunderland, having just finished my complimentary coffee and shortbread, the train pulls into Hartlepool and the spidey BRAPA senses start tingling.

How about alighting here instead of Sunderland? I think we could get to Seaton Carew quicker this way. Surprised it hadn't occurred to me earlier. In fact, it is ONLY a 48 minute walk, mostly along the seafront. "What say you Daddy BRAPA?" I think that was a muffled 'I'd love to!' from beneath his hood, Kenny from South Park style. He won't get that reference. He's upped his Mr Motivator morning workouts recently. Healthiest 76 year old I know. So off we set.

The wind is Arctic, or is it Baltic? My face is numb. No wonder John Darwin preferred Panama. There IS a topless man on the beach just getting out of the sea. His friend gives him a towel to cover his extremities.

Our favourite part of town? The art deco bus station. Had a bloke on a Gondola sailed passed, I could've convinced myself this was downtown Venice.

Pub time was finally upon us as we hit 12 noon. The barman is smoking outside. Always a good sign.

9 Anchors, Seaton Carew (2606 / 4767)

Door is a bit sticky, so don't be shy, give it a good yank. I'd hate you thinking it was shut and walking away, because this is a gem of the ages. Don't miss out! RetiredMartin went recently and was so inspired, he wrote 9 blogs about the place, one for each anchor. A concept piece. 8 only available on his patreon. That's a BRAPA fact. One of those nautical carved wood masterpieces - I love a micro that goes full beans on the design. A photogenic dream. Part Sunderland Saltgrass, part Margate Fez, and I've never even been to the bastard latter! Barman is cellar man, not owner. A great guy. His grounding came in the mean streets of 'Spoons, he tells us. Great employers, great grounding. So stick that up your jumpers Spoons deniers. The worst type of deniers since Holocaust deniers. This place has been open a good few years but his ability to keep kwality kwask is the reason it is finally GBG ready. Samson in a nonic, ye can't beat it marras. Get yourselves doon today, that Durham Mocha Stout might be ready by now ......

Only four pubs were on our agenda today with Whitburn's Blues Micropub closed for the rest of Jan, so a good job we didn't have football to worry about too cos nee way we'd have managed to get them all done. And we didn't loiter. And nothing went wrong transport wise.

Just one of those days where everything took forever!

Next stop Seaham and I'm not surprised RM gets confused by all the 'Seas'. Seaton Sluice, Seaton Carew, good ole Seaton proper, Seaham, Saltburn, Jessie Seaton, Seahouses. North East just a little bit too obsessed by being on the coast.

The 'Boro to Newcastle train via Hartlepool and Sunderland was terrifying. Gargling loud tanned lasses off for cocktails til 3am, teenagers sucking blue lollies and vaping apple sourz meant it took the entire 13 minute walk from station to pub two before I can breathe proper fresh air again .....

Hat & Feathers, Seaham (2607 / 4768)

A boisterous motivated 'Spoons, Dad immediately goes to the loo but I then have to circle the pub twice before I find him hidden in the one quiet corner by the disabled loos, where a man with muddy trousers takes 20 minutes, eww. People keep wanting his seat, we have to keep telling them it isn't up for grabs. Never mind, this pint of Maxim Stampede is even better than the Samson, and the peacock feather inspired carpet is pushing an 7.5/10. But there's no time to lose, we have to get back to the station and cross the border into Tyne & Wear.....

... which we do via a Heworth Metro change and a wee almost as unsly as my Newark debacle, walk downhill in the direction of the Tyne, and hey presto, the pub appears under a railway arch on the right.

Microbus, Gateshead (2608 / 4769)

Not much sign of 'dryanuary' today, especially not at this packed to the rafters boozer of some distinction. After the triumph of Seaton Carew, here was further evidence that I really need to stop classing micropubs as micropubs, and just see them for what they are, 'pubs wot serve'. Still, not easy when the word 'micro' is embedded in the title. The bus concept makes sense, as the train one has been done to death. Care attention and money spent goes a long way here - ranging from real bus timetable, to a fake bus stop in the centre, and bar & edges carved into bus frontages, lots of trinkets and nick naks. As Dad jostles for position at the bar, I spy two available seats squashed in the corner. Apprehensive after my Hoylake Botoxed Wizadora experience, thankfully this lovely couple have been to the 'Thanet School of Micro Etiquette' and are lovely to chat to - whether it be jury duty, child sex abuse or BRAPA! They leave, I sing the Playdays/Playbus theme tune, recall Mummy BRAPA's terrible Whybird impression, and that is that. Quality establishment.

Back to the Metro where a lass is blubbering on the floor in the corner, whilst four station station staff form an unconvincing shield between her and some angry looking girls. "YOU'VE GOT A BIG FAT HEID" screams one of them, storming past her. Bit uncalled for. She was no Steve Bruce or Harry Maguire.

Down on the platform, an announcement over the tannoy "To those bully bitches who attacked the defenceless lass, we've locked all station exits so there's nowhere to hide. CCTV has captured it all, the police have been called, and you are in deep shit!" was the message in not so many words.

Heavy stuff! By contrast, Boldon is the poshest place on earth. Has it always been like this? Every business is a dog grooming or chakra meditation solutions centre. It seemed to be doing it's best Marlow impression whilst wearing a comedy wig.

The tonic is our fourth and final tick of this fun but difficult day ..... time to pose fruity.

Mid Boldon Club, East Boldon 2609 / 4770

It takes two firm presses of the intercom at this Fort Knox bricked building, but to my relief, a kind old lady opens it up, asks no questions, walks us past some pool players and a few other dudes who say 'aye' and 'canny' a lot, before presenting us with a crackin' stout by Allendale, before you can say Jim Robinson. Carpet an intriguing 8/10, the place is very well appointed and down some stairs so we can smuggle some homemade sausage rolls slightly out of view from the confines of a spongy leather settee. A battered old JVC plays Kylie briefly, and the landlady later wanders through to tell us she's gannin' home for tea but will leave us in the capable hands of a young chap in case we want anything else. A nice personal touch from a club I enjoyed.

We had to leap like Jumpin' Jack Flash to reach the far side of Boldon Metro station for Sunderland before the barriers came down and trapped us on the wrong side, but we make it.

It had all been on just to make our connecting train home to York but suddenly we were in a position to re-visit an old classic, so after a contretemps with a Bridges Shopping Centre Ozan Tufan (not a toucan), we end up at the Peacock (formerly the Londonderry when I went at Uni). Very lively, and a band called 'Caught by the Fuzz' are playing Britpop anthems of the day as we once again sit with canny strangers. The Lambton drinks better than Lambton ever did in the late 90's.

And despite a bit of train slowness meaning we miss our connection (no Grand Central trains home so we had to do it via Redcar/Darlo), we were soon home relatively sober and happy. Just the 4 ticks but excellent progress towards NE completion.

See you tomorrow, for Part 1 of my Kent-London-Leics long weekend.

Si

A sparse spartan ice block of a micro can still achieve a positive BRAPA review, providing the beer is 5/5 and the owner is as brilliant as Patrick was here at the Bard, Prescot (2603 / 4764), or to give it its full not at all pretentious name, 'Bard's Hamlet by Cask'. These bearded jolly young Shakespeare's huddled around the bar were exhibiting shaggy Shetland grazing goat behaviour, and weirdly all sounded North Welsh from a distance. This could be because my beer was from Mold or because I was thinking of another famous Patrick publican, from Bangor. Close up, everyone is more obviously scouse. Patrick is impressed with my 58% GBG progress, even though I've always considered myself the Bristol City of the pub ticking world, a perennial lower mid table candidate with lofty ambitions above my station. I was never in danger of removing coat, hat, scarf or gloves here, but you know what, against the odds I really enjoyed it and Patrick sends me away with a few pre-emptive foods for thought.

Next up, I bond with a zimmer man (not Bob Dylan) because we both impatiently take the wrong bus to the top of Whiston when in fact we are trying to get to Rainhill. We change onto the next bus.

As long as I keep my discipline and don't linger, I can get my Rainhill tick and still make the 7pm train from Newton-le-Willows. C'mon!

Skew Bridge Alehouse, Rainhill (2604 / 4765)

"Hullo, hullo, hullo, what ho, hi, hullo!" I say, crashing into Merseyside's latest precinct micro like a modern day Bertie Wooster, having been buoyed by my Bard. Sadly, the patrons haven't read the Shakespearean / Wodehousian script and I'm greeted with an all round sigh of begrudging acceptance. "Oooh, Victoria Pale, we are not amused eh? Fabulous ho ho, only 3.5%, I'll have a pint of that please ho ho, what what!" I chirrup, just thankful I'm a one off visitor. This joint has a bit more depth and central heating than Bard but it chillier in other ways! Most of the customers are a mass of Irishmen, whose favourite subject is how everything in Ireland is better than England, but Liverpool gets a free pass. One tries to start a hearty pub singalong. "McAlpine's Fusiliers". Never been a favourite of mine, so I decline. Colin is spied by a couple across the room who look like BBC daytime quiz show regulars, so we say hi. A trip to the loo is enlightening because my phone tells me the next Merseyrail services are cancelled in both directions. Shite! As I return to the bar, the last of the Irish are leaving so I stop at daytime TV quiz table to tell them my transport woes. Mrs Quiz recommends me a pre-emptive called the Commercial which is doing great beer things and is up for 2025 selection, in case I'm bored of this place. I couldn't possibly comment.

I reach the imposing handsome Commercial Hotel by the station but stop dead in my tracks when my phone pings again to say even more Merseyrail services are cancelled. Damn! Will I ever get home?

I summons up an Uber to take my back to Newton-le-Willows as I need to be on the main line for York. Because he's only 4 minutes away, it is pointless even setting foot inside the Commercial. Watch it make the 2025 GBG, would be classic dumb BRAPA luck.

I don't like Uberman cos I thought we had an understanding he was to drop at my pub rather than the station cos I have 40 minutes to spare. But he pulls into the station and makes me change my journey on the App, jobsworth! I'd already tipped him too like a dope. Take note kids, never tip before your journey has finished.

Then he drops me on the wrong side of road doing a needless turning circle and I'm convinced he's the agent of a rival ticker. I dash across, just avoiding an oncoming Deliveroo bike. Firkin blurry 'ell!

Firkin, Newton-le-Willows (2605 / 4766)

'Every public transport cloud must have a pubby silver lining' to coin that well known BRAPA phrase. I'd had no intention of doing this meanie limited hours micro (Closed Mon-Wed, 5:30 Thu, 2pm Fri-Sun), but due to circs beyond my control, here I was! A bonus tick and a stunning pint of North Riding Bourbon & Vanilla Porter to boot. It is a vibrant leafy colourful local. Never any chance of me making the personal impact I had in the previous two, in fact I doubt I was noticed at all. Not that I felt shunned or unloved, it was a happy experience to stick your face in a plant around the corner, listen to local jibber jabber, charge up the phone, and be grateful there was a direct evening service to York. I also admired one of exposed tubular ceiling air ducts like what they used to escape through in Prisoner Cell Block H and get burned to death. Lovely.

So all seemed rosy in the garden BRAP as I gallop up the steps at NLW, six minutes til the train, only to hear an announcement "THIS SERVICE HAS BEEN CANCELLED!" I break the bad news to two lads who run up a couple of minutes later.

"They'll have to put us in a taxi to Manchester!" chirps the non Sri Lankan ex-student. I go for a wee in the corner (think it was the stress) and return to find them chatting to a station dude, who confirms a taxi has been sent for. Good job there's only three of us.

20 mins or so later, taxi arrives. A girl appears out of nowhere, jumps in the front, us three in the back. The ex-student was on the same course the current student is, so they chat lecturers, modules & stuff and I ramble half-coherently about BRAPA.

Seems a long ride but we make it, and me and our lass are dropped off first at Victoria. I buy a Greggs and a coffee, and 30 mins later, the train arrives for York. Back home 23:35, 2.5 hrs later than planned, big glass of water, brush teeth and straight to bed cos I have to be up for work at 7:15. Ugh!

But Merseyside is goin' well, only NINE pubs left. and I'll try to do most of them in Feb.

Si

The way the train guy announces it, just shy of Newton-le-Willows, we are in dire straits. Totally Knopfler'd. So Far Away.

I'd been hoping to jump off at Lea Green and take a bus up to St Helens, but as we crawl into NLW with a stark warning to expect to be stuck here for quite some time due to 'track issues', I decide to take matters into my own hands and jump aboard a delayed 13:08 bus to St H. from here. Why worry?

Needless to say, when I check live train times five minutes later, everything is moving freely again, hunky-dory, trains swinging like sultans. I guess that's the public transport gamble.

A further bus takes me to the leafy outskirts of Rainford for pub. Shall we go in? Yes let's.

Star Inn, Rainford (2600 / 4761)

Maximum respect must be given. This could've been a dining disaster. It is actually a pubby pub which is in no way drabby drab. Half close your eyes with the sun streaming in through the back window and you could be in a smoky fug of a 1975 Blackpool estate boozer. Almost. In fact, not really at all, but the shape, benches and carpet all did a fine job. The barmaid loves my pink Virgin Money credit card, so of course it fails when I swipe it. My 'forgotten PIN banter' doesn't go down quite as well as it did in the Tamworth Tap, but I guess that's why it won pub of the year. Again. She later unpacks a box of Guinness t-shirts with an excited chuckle, St Paddy's day isn't far away. Remind me to stay home.

The bus turns up prompt so it is back into St Helens for my second pub.

George, St Helens (2601 / 4762)

This is what I'm loving about the Good Beer Guide 2024, putting in no nonsense pubs that scream 'BOOZER' and then boink you on the head with a dirty glass. 1977 was the only other time this pub appeared in a GBG. The same year Derby won city status. Yes, Derby is classed as a city. Let that sink in. Must've been something to do with punk and society being in turmoil. Talking of a punk, an obscure bonus track by the 4Skins is playing, how fabulously random. However, it is the sound of Bill Withers crooning 'Ain't No Sunshine' which gets the toothless beer bellies putting their pool cues down and singing along. Everyone says hi. Barmaid KNOWS I'm a CAMRA member before I do. The beer, a plum porter called Old Boston by Wigan Brewhouse, is absolutely marvellous! Some pub.

Next up, a train to Prescot (pronounced Pressed Gut) and flip me, is it actually getting colder? I didn't think this was possible!

When I arrive in the town, it is like Narnia comparatively. Much more snow, sheets of ice underfoot, and minimal gritting. We'd only travelled a couple of miles from St H. so this was quite a surprise as I skid to the first of two pubs. Whooooosh, it was 'Spoooooooons time.

Watch Maker, Prescot (2602 / 4763)

A tiled clock-face floor mural greets me, making up for the drab carpet. Watch making was a big deal in Prescot back in the day, they made the best in Europe in 1785, but it died out around 1920. Amazing what you learn off a 'Spoons menu. The 4pm school/work chucking out crowd are boisterous, and people are struggling to find a free table. Twild life, hi-vizzers and tanned Mummies with buggies are the main clientele, but there's a few wheezing oldies dotted about looking shambolic. But all in all, pretty life affirming and East Midlands favourite Brewster's is drinking well at £1.84.

And there we have it, part one complete.

Join me tomorrow for part two as it all becomes very micro, and ends with a train shambles.

Take care, Si

Awkward Heswall had been negotiated, the two greasy Greasby ticks complete and it is not even 2:30pm yet. I was making great progress towards Wirral GBG completion.

Three pubs remained and the good thing about Greasby, it is stuck in the middle. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right (no offence Daddy BRAPA and Colin the Cauliflower), we take a short bus ride east for pub four.

Bow-Legged Beagle, Bromborough (2597 / 4758)

An automatic door which didn't even need passers-by to make it slide open regularly, hitting us with a chill breeze each time, was just one of the things I didn't like about this chain micropub. I hadn't enjoyed their Bromborough vehicle back in the summer, there is a New Brighton BLB which was dropped from this year's GBG, and I also spied a Heswall one earlier. Any more? Please no. To my eyes, they lack the care, attention and individuality of a Heswall Beer Lab or a Lazy Landlord Alehouse, curated by an individual. The bar blockers had no intention of shifting, and whilst bar dude is pleasant and the off season Big Bog Jack O'Lantern is a decent bitter, it was an experience which left us cold in every regard. Oh, and X/Twitter failed to embrace my Bow-legged Beagrie joke, the utter ingrates. Rank 6/6.

Then it is a bus back through Greasby for pub five, out to the Wild Wild West where West Kirby was situated. The hard part of the day now well and truly done, we had train links back to Liverpool from here.

I did a decent micro back here in the day, but it now had something new in the book just to annoy me.

White Lion, West Kirby (2598 / 4759)

I'm not sure why I didn't rate this 200 year old chunky sandstone piece of Wensleydale higher, but I didn't. It was atmospheric dimly lit exposed brickworky, but perhaps a touch insipid? The punters were airbrushed AI generated nobodies in the main, though a young simpleton barfly had three blokes march up to him and tell him the chemicals in Birra Moretti made it a poor choice. Credit though must go to a bloke who adjusts a wonky mirror which was setting off some latent OCD in me, pint still in his hand. Our beer, Luna by Neptune was impossible to get along with. Way too flowery with more than a hint of Christmas starter melon. Well kept, but like the baby Jesus himself, poorly conceived. Rank 4.

One short stop on the train took us to the North West tip of posh golf resort, Hoylake, for our final tick of the day, and my Wirral clincher!

Black Toad, Hoylake (2599 / 4760)

Those of you familiar with micropubs, especially those of you with Kentish tendencies, will understand that the recognised etiquette in such places is that with space so limited at busy times, you may have no alternative but to ask strangers if you can perch at the edge of their table as long as you promise to behave and not disturb them. Sometimes, you get chatting BRAPA, sometimes you don't, but it is cool either way. What isn't cool is when there's one remaining seat and you get grunted at by a lady with a face like a sulky botoxed Wizardora, although she is perfectly happy to chat dogs with locals wearing jumpers made from skinned polar bears. Her husband throws us reassuring smiles throughout, he is a nice man and must know what she's like. For any 'Not Going Out' fans, I was getting Toby/Anna vibes. A real shame because at the bar, the barmaid is lovely as I jiggle her wooden frogs and pray for snow. But the long thin layout was crazy limiting, and you'd like to think people could 'read the script' better than BW. If there's one thing I cannot stand in BRAPA, even more than poorly kept real ale, it is rudeness. Rank #5

Despite that slightly sour note on which to end, I was buzzing at Wirral completion and we were back at Lime St so early, we ended up having not one but TWO coffees. Bloik! The way I felt on Sunday, I think a 7th pint in a pre-emptive may've done my guts more good. Daddy B doesn't get affected by coffee and has a total lack of empathy to those who do.

Join me next time, hopefully Sunday, when I'll tell you what's cooking in St Helens.

Si

When this little fella appeared on my balcony and stared in at me a few weeks back, he seemed to be trying to tell me something ......

"BRAPA, now is the time to get the Wirral ticked, because I rhyme with it".

A strange request, but I've heard worse in this game.

(Splitting this blog into two bite-sized chunks, make it a bit more appealing to read).

Heswall was the day's logical starting pint. Yes, pint. Armed with Colin and a returning Daddy BRAPA after minor ear surgery, we landed in Lime Street at 10am but it wasn't until 11:40am until we reached the Hes.

Tucked deep on the Wirral, it has a train but that is half an hour from the town. It has a bus station, but none of the buses are particularly frequent or go anywhere worthwhile. I'd go so far as to say it pairs better with Wrexham than Liverpool.

Amazing that the likes of Jim Bowen, Beefy Botham and John Peel ever escaped to brighter showbizzy lights.

By 11:55am, it was time to apply some pressure to the hopefully soon-to-open micro with a selfie of intent .....

Daddy B. has more secret squirrel alertness than me, and at approx 11:57am, spies the owner popping into the bakery next door.

Dad uses all his experience to position himself between bakery and micropub, and when bloke returns with sausage roll, 12:01pm, makes sure he is in a position to tailgate his way in. It is top work from BRAPA Person of the Year 2023 and the amiable owner puts up no fight. After all, we MUST get the 12:28pm bus or it could be curtains for my Wirral completion plans.

Beer Lab, Heswall (2594 / 4755)

Didn't look much, especially in its converted shop unit location, but this was a perfect example of a micropub. I don't find Merseyside the best at them, surprisingly perhaps as the inhabitants are supposed to be warm and funny as a rule. Starting with the excellent owner, this was a shining blueprint of everything they should be. Great selection of historic GBGs for the bonus point. Bit of Purple Moose chat, how to pronounce Madog, and a perfect pint of bitter is ours. Purple M. sure know how to brew good stuff. Time after time. Tasty bakery smells permeate the walls, much nicer than Melksham's nail bar problem! 12:24 and I say to Dad 'look, let's get gone now, on the off chance the bus is early'. Rank 2/6 SILVER MEDAL!

And I'm so glad we did, bus is shooting past at that very moment! I leg it to the stop, Dad in hot pursuit.

Thankfully, a young lad is waiting to flag it down. And also thankfully, his transaction with the driver isn't a swift contactless manoeuvre, allowing us chance to make it. "You early?" I ask driver. "Oooh maybe a minute?" he replies. Errrm, try three!

"Well, I think that is what you call a highly successful tick!" says Dad joining me on the wheel arch. I puff out my cheeks and roll my eyes.

Dad presses the bell just before the Irby roundabout, but the driver, who had changed at Heswall bus station into a different man, is as equally incompetent as his former self and doesn't stop until AFTER the stop we've requested, giving us a longer walk. Cheers mate.

Irby Mill, Greasby (2595 / 4756)

The ghosts of BRAPA past always tell me to approach anything with 'Mill' in the name with the expectation that it will be lame dining hell. So I'm delighted to report just how much of a pub this was. From the second we step inside, the bubbly barmaid with the big lips welcomes us into the bosom of her abode. The Mobberley toffee stout is the nicest thing I drink all day, and she directs us to the fireplace for a warm through, the low ceiling and worried beams being the final pieces in a pleasant jigsaw. We end up moving to cooler climes, having man-spread ourselves over an entire room, and when we leave, three lively liver birds are quick to jump into our grave. Rank 3/6 Bronzey Brilliance

The walk into Greasby proper isn't as onerous as I'd been expecting. EVERY other building is a pub up here, how marvellous. No wonder former Greasby favourite and 'Spoons pint completist Leon Foster is one of the finest #pubmen of the modern era with this kind of teenage grounding.

Coach & Horses, Greasby (2596 / 4757)

This was the only place all day where I removed the famous former Blackpool_Jane hat, that is how much I loved our third tick of the day. Homely. I shouldn't have been surprised, I'd recently been chatting to a Wirraly couple in York's House of the Trembling Madness (the Medieval one, not the 'Craft Beer Mansion') and they'd recommended this pub through drunken sips of 20% Cloudwater. A dopey elderly dog called Molly takes a shine to me, but the owner reveals he gets confused and thought I was Daddy (not D.BRAPA). Great traditional layout, still a sense of the entirely separate rooms it once had, the two wooden settles are particularly handsome but my 'wooden settle for anything less' joke on X deserves greater plaudits. Black Sheep Respire a good drop, not quite South Cave quality, but a winner overall. Rank 1/6 GOLD STAR

And that's part one done. The three best pubs of the day coming early on.

Watch it all unravel in part two which I'll bang out half time on Friday night whilst Hull City are losing to Sunderland.

Keep it pub, Si

Thursday 11th January 2024

BANG BANG BANG!

Don't worry, it ain't the sound of gunshots raining out over an estate pub car park (when will these atrocities end? At what civilian cost? You may well ask).

No it is BRAPA firing out pub after pub in quick succession, all in the same county. Pure focus.

This is EXACTLY how I want BRAPA to be. 'Saturday Thursday Saturday Thursday' to paraphrase Nigel Adkins. Sadly, I don't always have the freedom to do this.

Hull City, I'm looking at you, with your overhyped 68 new attacking midfielders. Hey kids look, no left back. Nahhhhh. we'll be reet, we aren't planning on defending in 2024 anyways, because tactics. FFP? Wot's that? Don't sweat it negative uptight 44 yr old dude!

Unwise pre-booked trips to counties I didn't want, I'm looking at you too. Couldn't give less of a shit about Kent/London in 2024. But I'll enjoy it when I get there. Kent is qual. And a tick is a tick, right?

Lookie here .....

Shame it isn't raining. Raindrops would be fallin' on my head. Did you know that Burt Bacharach was one of the top 10 celeb names to say in a Scouse accent? Fun fact.

Augustus John, Liverpool (2588 / 4749)

11:30am opener at this University pub to end all University pubs. And I've BEEN to Reading. Not got the t-shirt though. I crash into the locked door at 11:31am, bloke unlocks it, and if he's mildly pissed off by my perceived impatience, he soon recovers to loveliness. As does an even mainer man. £3.60 for a glorious 5% stout. Hey York, you'll never sing that! Colin is fresh and sparkling and smelling like a woodland glade after his bi-annual wash and he's spied by the two blokes in his radiance. That gets us talking. Well done Colin. And I leave with THREE pre-emptives and a poster of Liverpool pubs which doesn't fit in my bag but never mind. Great people, superb refurb, only downside being in so early means lack of hot students (I mean temperature, obviously #WokeSi2024). Pub Rank #1/6

Yes, surprisingly mild weather. A 37 minute walk to pub two has me sweating like a chimp. Biggest coat, thermal top, long johns and an American sweater was simply too much - I'd underestimated the warmth out west. Good for the cotton industry I believe.

I mean, buses DO exist around here, but they all go north to south or east to west, and I need to tak the low road from a high road starting point.

I wipe the sweat off my brow as pub comes into view.

Willow Bank, Wavertree, Liverpool (2589 / 4750)

Can't lie, thought it looks a bit shit from the outside. And 90% is identikit Sky Sportsy over loud music olive green cheap wooden decked out for dining dreariness. The saving grace is the front bar. Bar back with a clock. Winner! Stained glass serving hatch, perhaps a former off sales? Beautiful. Not sure Jaden Sancho transfer news adds a je ne sais quoi or not? I suspect not. Ear flap hat bloke doesn't respond to my smile so I HATE him. Only other customer. I later hear him moaning about £3.80 a pint, but he doesn't realise it is a pint and thought he was getting a half. Dope! Get back to Hackkey Wick you prick! Other dude is young, drinks a super quick Guinness, and is super cheerful, chuckling and phoning the girlfriend who send him a Whatsapp and says "I was waiting for that, and I love it!" Either her boobs or a funny cat GIF. Who knows in 2024? The beer from Ossett is the tops and barmaids are both proper Scouse friendly. Rank #4/6

45 mins on foot to next pub, fck me, I need to tak the high road this time but I'm on low road. There was a bus but I've timed it all wrong and it proper goes round the 'ouses.

When I reach tha high road, I'm sweating some more but a direct bus is imminent. Yes! I tell the old lady I can see it approaching on the horizon, but she tells me she's only stopped here to find a flat surface to write a birthday card. Absolute scenes from the old lass!

Only five stops or so, we cross a roundabout and I hop off. Wetherspoons number one of two. Two hardy souls are eating fish and chips in the garden. Madness at this juncture.

Childwall Fiveways, Childwall, Liverpool (2590 / 4751)

Handsomest 'Spoons since that Chapel ze Gwiltwanfannyumbum place in Bodmin that they tried to sell off. The barman is an unnecessarily punchy bitch, the Titanic Black Ice slips down at neckbreaking speed, but perhaps the overall highlight is my accidental flirtation with three randy wobbly old ladies on zimmers and sticks. "I'd move every table for you to help you get through if I had the power" I proclaim. "Oooh young man, young maaaayn" they wobble, before exiting stage door behind. Higson's deserve credit for this place looking like it does. And I think there's a Paul Whitehouse link here if you think about it with your 90's comedy brain. Rank 3/6.

Time for the weekly inexpensive Uber taxi cheat. The low road, tha high road, the bus routes, nearest train station. ALL OUT OF KILTER. Huyton seemed a world away.

Michael finds me in the carpark. Or did I find him? 'On a Wetherspoons crawl are we?' he sneers. I tell him it's just the way today is going. He doesn't like this next pub "Two murders here when it was the Rose & Crown, but don't let that put you off!" he chirps chirpily.

Barker's Brewery, Huyton (2591 / 4752)

Power of suggestion planting sinister seeds in my mind, or genuine undercurrent of scary gloom? That's what I couldn't work out. 49p a pint with a Mudgie voucher! I was so close, I actually wheel away in celebration, bump into an old bloke, spin back round, to find my inexperienced barmaid, having referred to her Elder (we'll call her Callum, cos Hull City) is now upping my price to £1.49. My voucher plus the pub's happy hour are not compatible, or some shimozzle. 'Happy Hour, here?' try tell that to the faces of this motley crew. FOUR blokes line up opposite me, no table, no TV screen, just staring and drinking. I try to photograph them but my phone refuses. Vampires. Too old to do a murder, or start a fight, but they look like they've 'seen things'. Bad things. Carpet ace, beer average, place weird. Rank #6/6

Huyton, unlike its predecessors is close to a train station. It does feel like a place you'd want to make a swift getaway from. "You not planning on coming back?" asks the ticket office dude when I ask for a single. I don't entertain him with a response.

I want to get to the Wirral next. I have a trip planned here two days from now. But with seven Wirral pubs remaining, I want to take the heat off that trip by getting the outlier (in coincidentally the easiest place to get to from Liverpool) done today instead. BRAPA strategy working well.

James Atherton, New Brighton (2592 / 4753)

It isn't shit. Not even remotely crap. I wouldn't call it rubbish. Or bad. Just boring. A steady Eddie of an after-work town centre boozer. Unremarkable. Yawn and you'll miss it. You'd hardly swerve the Magazine in favour of it. Circumstances didn't help me. Had I beaten the hi vizzers to the raised cosy plush area facing the bar, I may've been happier. As it was, I was forced to relegate myself to 'around the corner'. Away from all people. Grotty ceiling like a dusty coffin. Tumbleweed breeze drifts across as Smoove Radio plays and I force down a perfectly drinkable well kept, you might say very nice pint of Hawkshead ITI. No ITI banter with staff like I had up in Ravenglass, it just didn't have that level of charisma. Rank 5/6.

Anyway, I'm delighted with myself for getting it done as my Wirral trip less than 48 hours from now looks a helluva lot easier.

Back in the 'Pool, I decide to cheer up Covid-stricken Sister BRAPA with a trip to Bold Street and send her some photos. Home of the time-slip. Worth a read if you don't know what I'm on about.

People have reported going back in time here, Goodnight Sweetheart style. My aim was to go back to 1974, buy the first GBG, and make a head start on the kids Martin 'not retired yet' Taylor and Duncan 'the moth catching teen' Mackay, avoiding Watney's LIKE THE PLAGUE of course.

Never happened, in fact it looked more futuristic than anything with purple men on hoverboards, though I did have one incident of smelling 1940's tobacco smoke and feeling a bit dizzy. But I had been drinking.

My final tick of the day, and final tick in Liverpool proper was just around the corner on Regan Slater Street.

Red Lion, Liverpool (25933 / 4754)

Drinking in the dark. I love it. Springsteen was right on that one. This multi-faceted partitioned artsy vibrant youthole of immense class was a revelation, and the low lit twinkling dimness in which I was enjoying my delicious Ossett White Rat (it had finally worn me down, having seen it in nearly every pub!) was woozy sixth pint brilliance, when a knob was flicked, and we're plunged into even darker conditions, whilst a student with a Hull accent says stuff like 'err nerr, and next week there'll be sner on the rerd'. The people behind the Red Lion are opening two more pubs in Liverpool shortly, and are the brains behind an improved other, which is opposite pretty toilet dumpster, The Philharmonic. So watch this space for a bit of BRAPA pre-empting in the coming weeks.

Coffee at Lime Street to keep my discipline, power nap til Manchester Victoria, punk rock til Huddersfield, PG Wodehouse til York, and feeling totally fresh n sober once home.

In some respects, this had been the perfect #ThirstyThursday.

Si

A chilly bus stop in Southport was the unlikely launch pad for 2024 BRAPA pub ticking.

Merseyside is the county I want to crack by spring, and although alphabetically speaking, Formby & Freshfield were my main objectives today, it made sense to mop up my two newbies in Sandgrounder land.

The bus is delayed, and I'm so busy breathing on the bus shelter and drawing smiley faces in the condensation, I miss a different bus going in the same direction. Tsk.

But the 44 service FINALLY appears and soon I'm in the suburb of Marshside where a GBG debutant awaits.

Fleetwood Hesketh Sports & Social Club, Southport (2582 / 4743)

"Do to others as you would they should do to you" is the Latin translation. 'You would, they should' huh? The Bible eh? A tough read. I sneak in through the back door, an old pisser looks at me suspiciously as I struggle to find the bar, but the fresh faced lad pulling pints smiles warmly. I order a Bank Top Flat Cap ahead of Ossett White Rat, it is just everywhere at the moment! Farty beginnings but it settles down into warm malty goodness. The carpet is easily a 9 as the sun streams in through the back window. Views onto the bowling green, full of hardy elderly chaps. One comes in carrying two paper coffees and a hot pie on a tray, and eats it noisily, centimetres from my face. I think it was the equivalent of a cat marking its territory. Being new here, perhaps I wasn't supposed to look this relaxed, but I felt at home. Rank #2

The bus back into Southport centre finds my second pub in a much more sensible location.

Masons Arms, Southport (2583 / 4744)

Southport's only Robbo's pub on this, my third visit to a decent pub town, so I can only assume it hasn't always been this good. Glorious interior, wood panelling, distinct drinking areas - a boozers gaff. Old Tom is tempting, but even I have a modicum of sense (at times), so swerve it in favour of a delicious 4T's stout. I secrete myself in a snug with a roaring fire. The two ladies occupying it don't seem particularly pleased with my presence, possibly because I'm a rare non-fawner over the dog Tilly. Why do some dog owners think that non-dog lovers must be subhuman scum who require their hard-drive checking? Baffles me! This couple from L**ds arrive, clock my GBG, and tell me they are tickers. Wow! I give them a good quizzing, and although a lot of what they say chimes in with BRAPA, they drink halves and have NO IDEA how many pubs they've ticked and don't even have a spreadsheet. AND they use the App to get about rather than the physical book which is just asking for trouble. Nice couple though, although their mascot PG Tips Monkey is a bit of an attention whore compared with Nicolette and Russell (filling in for Col who is still in the wash) and returns to the bar for a photo! We say farewell, they've got other Southport ticks, but I must head south to continue my day, cos, I'm hardcore. Rank #1

I decide to 'alight' at Ainsdale, because it looks closer to my third pub on foot than Freshfield or Formby, despite the pub being listed under Formby.

Yes X/Twitter know-it-alls, I DO realise there are buses to somewhere near the pub, but they are hourly and I didn't mind the walk, the weather being sunny and amazingly dry for a change.

It is quite a rural spot, down a muddy puddly lane, and I'm not the only one making a bee-line for it on foot .....

Sparrowhawk, Formby (2584 / 4745)

.... turns out they know each other. Of course they do.

Seconds after this photo, they hear my footsteps and kindly part to let me nip in between them, where I then ignore the serving meet n greeter, launching myself at the bar. Bingo! A pint of Fab Four is mine (well kept but slightly unpalatable like the 60's boring boy band on whom it is based) but the place is a flippin' restaurant and an armchair in the bar area is the best I can do. Other drinkers arrive but are forced to sit at the bar. The place is a sea of twild-heavy families. The staff are lovely, that is the one takeaway positive. Brunning & Price. I should've known. Place reeked of it, and their boring Scooby Doo haunted mansion ways. Serves me right for having a dig at them in my Masham blog. I sometimes don't mind them, but this was horrible. So many staff whizzing past me with plates of food, I couldn't relax and stretch my legs for fear of tripping them up. And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I realised the hourly bus was terribly timed. No way I'm staying for a second pint, so time to trudge towards Freshfield on foot. Rank #6

I make haste, whilst there is still enough daylight remaining, as it a puddly pavementless lane for the first half, before I hit a solid concrete main drag.

I still had another Formby tick to do, but the Freshfield one was marginally closer , and Formby is south of Freshfield on the train line, so I was utterly confused in a geographical sense!

Oh, and I had the added worry of whether these next two pubs (both micros) would actually be open at this awkward early January period where so many pub owners go on holiday and decline to mention it on social media like my Kimberley Roots farce last year.

And whilst we are on the subject, credit must go to Aigburth's Little Tap Room, Whiston's Beer EnGin and Waterloo's Four Ashes for saying when they'll be back from their winter breaks. Cheers!

And I'm in luck here, phew, it had been a long 45 minute trek .....

Beer Station, Freshfield (2585 / 4746)

It speaks volumes for the overall quality of this cheerful micro bustler that I'm rating it so highly when you consider the sheer volume of stinkin' wet dogs attached to bald owners. Look, I'm not anti pub dog even though it might sound like it today, but there is a time and a place, and this wasn't it. One bloke even clocks me scowling at his mangy mutt, and after what had happened in the Masons earlier, I felt like the biggest dog hater in Merseyside. FAKE NEWS. I love all animals. But I just happen to think cats are much more compatible with pubs because they are content to just 'be'. Beer of the day, this Winter Ale from Southport. Smoooth. And how I don't get invaded in my prominent spacious corner bench is a little miracle. When I finally do, I'm on my dregs anyway. A lovely Thai bride and her railway enthusiast hubbie, nice little York chat, and it is always good to end a pub experience on a positive sociable note. Rank #3

Turns out I'm right outside Freshfield Station (ohhh, Beer STATION, I've just got it!) so I take the train one stop to Formby which is inexplicably south of here, to save my legs further pain.

Mr Thai Bride had just come from this next micro. He rates it less highly than the Beer Station. But would I agree?

Tin Shed, Formby (2586 / 4747)

Eyeballed by a pump clip with an eyeball on it, I ask for the beer by its full name "That's a Good Name for a Beer" and receive praise from the barmaid for doing so. "Most people just grunt 'that Beartown one!'" she laments. Empowered, I commandeer the impressive nicotine settee (bad for the posture, good for the soul) and enjoy my fruity pint. But I'm with Mr Thai Bride on this one. The ocean floor deep blue walls, the lack of a 'joined up' atmosphere and a sort of Desperate Scousewives meets Fatal Attraction vibe stop me from feelin' the love here, despite a more roomy, less doggy space. Rank #4

Back on the train for my final tick, and I hop off at Moorfields which seemed sensible at the time, and find this giant office block of a Wetherspoons somewhere near the docks .....

Captain Alexander, Liverpool : City Centre (2587 / 4748)

At the bar, a Scouser who is both mad and wise in equal measures tries to talk me into this guest Hawkshead, but too late, I've Cairngormed too early, and as he continues to babble on, I'm amazed I manage to produce a Mudgie Voucher from my bag just in the nick of time, because this is one of the more expensive northern 'Spoons I've been in. I spin round and despite the vastness of the place, no seats so I follow signs for 'Roof Terrace'. Up and up, and up a bit more. A few hardy smokers are sheltering in the far corner like a pack o' Alpacas. I pull my 100% Icelandic Woollen hat on tight, and figure that the fresh air is 'just what I need at this stage'. I'm needing motivation to get this pint down though, lovely as it is, and I get it when Blackpool Jane messages to she's in Liverpool and sees I am too so I say Crown Hotel cos (a) 'tis majestic and (b) next to Lime St, neck my pint quicksticks (might've left a qtr but don't tell the BRAPA rule makers) and dash off. Rank #5

Yes, it wouldn't feel like a proper Merseyside pub day without a trip to my OG pub, first visited circa 2008 and I've been here plenty times since. After a bracing power walk, I'm soon there ....

Jane is already in the corner and shouts me, so I order a pint of Titanic Plum Porter (the only sensible option at this stage) and join her, where she tells me about her football farce and subsequent retreat to the good pubs of Liverpool. She'd just been in Dispensary which might be my overall favourite, or at least top five. But her train is due before mine so scoots off quite quick, leaving me to admire that gorgeous ceiling and my PP in the delightful semi-darkness.

And with that, I've caught up on my blogs for the first time since early April!

I've written about 65 pubs in December, 52 in November and 71 in October, plus 15 so far in Jan to make it possible.

So I'm going on a #ThirstyThursday this week, sooner than planned, to celebrate.

Have a good one, and keep supporting the pubs 'at this difficult time'.

Si