Saturday 17th January 2026 Heady times to be a Hull City fan. I've never felt more connected to the club since the 2007/08 season which culminated in us beating Bristol City at Wembley to reach the Premier League for the first time in our history. In the December of that season, we had back to back away games at Preston (midweek) and Southampton (Saturday), just like I'm about to tell you today. 3-0 and 4-0 defeats. We plummeted to 15th. Some fans shout for Phil Brown's he

Saturday 27th December 2025, 3:30pm With Brighton safely tucked under the BRAPA belt, I decide that I have time to visit two more East Sussex pub ticks before heading back to King's Cross for my regulation ESB. Newhaven isn't a town I've visited before, no need until now but I felt immediately at home due to the echoes of West Ayrshire, Bridlington and Whitley Bay in the winter. Angry skinhead seagulls, a stiff icy breeze, no one alive between the ages of 20-70, and ancient

Wednesday 10th December 2025 All I've got to show for January 2026 at the time of writing is 11 ticks in the first 16 days, though I'm hoping by the time you read this, Southampton (yesterday) has been semi-productive. Skinny ticking months cause me feelings of anxiety and guilt. Sitting at home thinking about all those times in life where I've been idle when I could've been ticking. Why didn't it occur to me to start this quest at a younger age? Just imagine, I could've c

Saturday 22nd November 2025 All aboard the Dudley bound bus, 10:15am on a grey drizzly Brum day. A return home for my eponymous duck mascot. A slightly less talkative fellow traveller than Daddy BRAPA. No trains to London today had forced our hand, no QPR away game for us. We'd lose anyway, so it proved a lucky break. Not to mention the fact I'd be in London on Monday for the beginning of a week's ticking. Plenty of churn for me in the West Midlands in 2026, randomly dot

Thursday 6th November 2025 This is big Les Wade. He's got nothing to do with Biggleswade, but his cardigan is giving 'disappointing 'Spoons carpet' and his book could be a 1940's CAMRA Good Beer Guide. I'm sick of opening my GBG on the first pub page and seeing Biggleswade's Wetherspoons unticked. Not a difficult tick to get done by any means, but when you've got a quirky ole' dude from Hitchin called John saying "Si, make sure you don't do it without me!" it requires more

I want to start this blog with the sad news I learned yesterday evening that Peter 'Pub Curmudgeon' Edwardson has died. I'm so pleased that I met this talismanic #PubMan on three occasions. The first being on 31st March 2018 in one of those 'Sizzling' pubs at Culcheth (Cherry Tree). He'd kindly DM'd me whilst I was in Daresbury's Ring O' Bells offering to drive me to other required ticks at Golborne (Queen Anne) and Lowton (Travellers Rest). Mudgie wields the green Stabilo

Saturday 27th September 2025 A wise man called RetiredMartin agrees that there's nothing more joyous in life than an early Autumn mop-up of Central London's new Good Beer Guide entries, of which there's always thousands, even if you're an experienced completist like him. And I had the perfect excuse, Watford away with Daddy BRAPA just two days after the official GBG release date. A quick note on why I think C.London's churn is so brutal. Two reasons. Firstly, it doesn't

Sunday 31st August 2025 I didn't surface until 10am on Sunday morning, I needed the sleep having barely stopped since I arrived in...

Saturday 26th July 2025 Ivor Panda had his Mummy BRAPA homemade cherry scone and Arctic coffee (WHEN WILL THEY SPONSOR ME?) , I was down...

Saturday 12th July 2025 It was all aboard the Severn Valley Railway on another scorchio summer Saturday down south, travelling in style...

Welcome back! We're seeing an upturn in pub quality already, which I think says a lot of the general standard of Glos et al ticks this...

Saturday 17th May 2025 The annual post-season outing was upon us, exploring the GBG pubs in that Stourbridge-Wolverhampton corridor with...

Saturday 4th January 2025 Boo! The eleventh year of BRAPA begins in the Black Country, as the cold snap returned to the UK and my...

Thursday 5th December 12:30pm As the bus trundles on its interminable route from Chester to Parkgate, a prettier place than it sounds out...

Welcome back you gluttons for pub punishment - PUBISHMENT! I suspect this next batch might be hard to make interesting, colourful or...

Saturday 19th November Cheshire III was upon us, and with Audlem, Barnton and Bostock Green all safely tucked under my belt, 'Bollington'...

Here we go, my favourite 8 pubs in London out of the 33 I visited early this month. Confident you'd enjoy a trip to all of these ..........

Fully green map! A lovely sight to alleviate the pain I felt from the #CruelChurn which I don't like to talk about. But by gum,...

The oppression of the embargo period is over, and it is time to reveal the results of the Good Beer Guide cross-ticking exercise ........

September is here! The most highly anticipated month in the pub ticking calendar as it sees the arrival of the new Good Beer Guide, and...