BRAPA in .... THE SCOTTISH COUNTDOWN : PT 2/5 (Pubs 30-23) CAIRNGORMLESS

I've just looked down the list at our next eight pubs, and winced / yawned slightly and felt a sudden urge to take a long hot Radox bath. But in happier news, the beer is an improvement on part one.

Let's rip the band aid off and get right into 'em .....

30. Muckle Cross, Elgin

More like the Mucky Cross, am I right guyyyss?! I've had my 20 minute walk around the deserted Saturday morning streets of Elgin, reading about the town history and recce'ing the 'bus station' , so it is a shock to find all Elgin life here under one roof in this Wetherspoons. I'm not sure if there's a Music / Pride / Furry festival on , or whether Elgin folk always dress and smell like this. Arses hang out of short skirts, gold hotpants Kylie 'Spinning Around' era, rainbow patterns, fabulous boys, sparkly facepaint, Dungeons & Dragons. A smattering of visiting Stranraer fans blend in disturbingly, getting bright blue 'Buzzballs' to match their shirts, which they sup with pained expressions before moving onto the Big Red T. 'Tis little after 10am. Hope they remembered their 1-0 win! My 50p voucher is declined. "£2.20 is cheap enough" she boldly reckons. Personally, I think £1.70 is a nicer price. The Cairngorm ain't gormless, but it ain't a patch on same pint of it I'd had the previous day. The carpet is a 7.5 at absolute best but without me asking, my phone tarts it up and realigns it to make it look 9.5. 76% of the GBG was completed here, so that was cause for a fleeting smile.

29. Cross Keys, Peterhead

Whilst we're in a 'Spoons state of mind, I must tell you about Peterhead because crikey me I have new contender for most morose moribund town in BRAPA history. A sunny Bank Holiday Monday, you'd never have known. A playful cyclone of litter swirls ahead of me. Baskingstoke and Wrexham look like sexy party towns by comparison. The pasty grim faces on the streets can be found behind the bar as well. Twentysomethings look sixty. "Straight glass or handled?" was a pleasant and unexpected question. I could've sworn she was going to ask if I had a razorblade and ability to run her a hot bath. The beer is decent, a bit chewy, but it is from Hampshire. #LocAle I wouldn't have ordered it but 'Comfortably Numb' seemed so apt here. Craft cans are strapped to the bar like condemned men in gibbets. Not an unpleasant 'Spoons. Long, slim, a decent building, good depth, and the personal space I never had in Elgin. But it is the stony sad faces that I'll remember most. The bus never shows, but a £50 taxi is a small price to pay to escape this 'toon is one piece.

28. Mash Tun, Charlestown of Aberlour

'Coo, tis' like a Micro-castle, how gawjus!' I think, stepping up to this elaborately smart 'Whisky Bar' cum restaurant. I'm immediately stopped dead in my tracks by a reception plinth. 'Och, please wait here to be seated ya wee beasties' it sneers. 'Eff that for a game of soldiers, I'm only after a pint' I think, and stride purposefully forwards past the couple who've arrived just before me. If I'm given my marching orders, Scottish David Elleray style, so be it. But the staff are younger, hirsute and angelic smilers. The handpump is hiding around a corner behind a coffee machine and some leaflets. Doesn't bode well. The barmaid makes a mess of the pour, and asks a colleague to help her get a head on it. Then the card machine fails twice due to lack of signal. Painful. And I need a piss. Glancing around, there is nowhere for the drinker to sit. Even the bar area is too cluttered to rest your pint on. Outside it is. 'Bloody cold but workable' I reason. After all, the location alongside the River Spey nestled into the trees is quite heavenly. And this 5.2% Wee Jock is beer-jacket inducing, and surprisingly well kept. But before long, the heaven's open. I'm forced into the area 'twixt bogs and bar like another outdoor couple. We bond over the rain, awkwardness and Yorkshire accents. He's L**ds, she's Bratfut, but now Drumnadroichit. Two dogs, one is called Ferne Cotton. Same eyes. They say they'll walk with me towards Craigellachie, but their dogs are fussy and sniffy, so I quickly say farewell and stride ahead.

Shortly before the rains came. Mrs Bratfut can be seen in the background with Ferne

27. Tower, Crieff

The theme of 'angelic barstaff but bloody freezing conditions' continues in Crieff. Note to future self, North Scotland in early May is no cause to pack a wardrobe of shorts, tee-shirts and one thin jacket. I'd totally underestimated the distance from Perth to Crieff and the next bus outta here isn't for 2.5 hours, Bugger! The front door is wide open, a chill-wind blows through. Comfort is at a premium with wooden tables and clompy floor. The Loch Leven Shining Knight thankfully is a shining knight in an area of unreliable cask quality. Our angel behind the bar breaks off her role of being perved at by two dirty ole' men eating surf 'n turf lunches to give me a local taxi number (no Uber around here). I stand on the metal staircase outside like Brapunzel, and this proper sound bloke (one of the nicest people I met all week) says he'll pick me up in five mins .... so I neck my pint quicker than any other this week. I apologise to Angelcake for my whistle stop visit, but the brutal truth is that I'm thanking my fucky stars I don't have to sit here for a further two hours!

26. No. 10 Bar & Restaurant, Aberdeen

The 'deen loves a good undergrounder, I noticed the same on my 2015 trip up here. I'd like to think it was a conscious decision with cask beer in mind, to increase their chances of keeping it cool, but that's rather fanciful on my part innit? More likely they are all vampires. This was easily the least convincing pub on a strong first day's BRAP, my biggest pain point being a semi circular group of 9 (NINE) men managing to simultaneously bar block, and block a route through the pub. Despite tonnes of seats on offer. They weren't even watching Forest v Villa in Europe because the standard of football was too high for a Scottish audience to comprehend. I see the staff are unnerved by their presence but are proper milquetoast and don't have the minerals to shift them. Not since six-fingered Belmesthorpe in Rutland 2017 have I witnessed blocking on this scale. But at least that had Bass. The Gold Fish ale from Peterhead leaves a bit to be desired here to top off my worst Aberdeen experience so far. At least the pub was warm and had soft furnishings.

When Ivor head 'Forest', he thought it was gonna be a documentary on bamboo

25. Station Hotel, Carnoustie

'11am Tuesday morning, it was always gonna be too good to be true wasn't it?' I'm saying to myself. I've been stood in this dark empty bar for nearing ten minutes now. The only soul I've seen was a cleaner who quickly scurried off into the shadows. Finally a dour Scot appears. Explains the bar isn't open until 12, but then from the corner of his mouth in something of an afterthought '....but I can serve you in the lounge'. Ummm, yes please! So I follow him to this cute tartan bar, inhabited by elderly women drinking coffee. The beer I want, Thrappledouser, isn't available in here. 'I'll have to fetch it from the other bar' he sighs. Well yes, please do that! It is good. I sit at the bar hunched over my pint trying to be invisible for the next 25 mins exchanging awkward smiles with two barmaids who've appeared on the scene to clean up, as the coffee ladies disperse. Awkward verging on cringe, I'd had the exact same experience with worse beer in Kirkcudbright a couple of years back, so it could've been worse.

24. Loch Leven Brewery Taproom, Kinross

Being told by a well-meaning follower (I'd say disciple but I'm not Pub Jesus, unless you insist) that this gaff is a converted toilet block was information I wish I'd not acquired. Because I couldn't unsee it. And worse, I couldn't unsmell it. Just like in West Sussex a year ago, the final day of my holiday fell on my birthday, and produced the greyest skies, dodgiest beers and unfriendliest people. Is this fate telling me next year to spend it at home eating cake with friends and family?? To be fair, I got a super cheerful 'Hiiii!' from barmaid and Scottish Amy Winehouse sitting at the bar. But when I reply with 'Hiii, how are ya both?' well I may as well have lobbed my cock out. Horrified expressions, total silence, AW actually shields herself from me with her hand! Their conversation about her two-bit music career only continues when I go to sit in the daniel far-corner. Soulless place to drink. Following on from the disgusting Muirs Inn down the road, Kinross is my new most hated Scottish town. Beer is pretty good, as you'd expect from a brewery tap, but it chugs along with an irrelevance that's hard to quantify. All my attentions are on my bus back to Perth anyway. 40 mins delayed earlier, it has been steadily making the time up since. When to stand at the stop? Well, partly because a blind man and his guide dog block my way to the loo, but mainly cos of my own complacency, it races past me before I can quite reach the stop despite holding out a long arm! Bugger. With AW and blindman departed thank Christ, I return for a half and update the barmaid. Even now, the chat is awkward, she's no help re taxi numbers, but I manage to sort something out without too much trouble.

23. Crown & Anchor, Findhorn

A bi-polar pub if ever we witnessed one this holiday. On the one hand, it is stuffy, twoggy, twildy, touristy. Dining-centric, staff rather disorganised and bickering, random piles of logs doing nothing. My beer expectations were at their lowest in Findhorn, probably because neither pub are GBG regulars, so I'm pleased to find the beer so excellent, the best we've seen in this countdown so far. Although 'Tin Opener' is a silly name for an IPA, or any beer really. Everyone is five foot tall, just as well due to the low beams but it also marks the moment in history when I was the tallest person in a BRAPA pub for the first time since records began. Cut through all the bollocks on offer here and this harbourside inn has gravitas. Oilskin ghosts of our past. Imagine this place on a stormy Tuesday night, mostly empty, no food on, you'd enjoy it as much as a Blue Peter Polperro. Maybe.