BRAPA is ..... DOIN' THE ANFIELD BRAP : THIRSTY MERSEY

End of day state of play

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

Ear flaps, Col and my new poster

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