Westminster Abbey

I’ve always wanted to visit Westminster Abbey. It’s just full of history commemorating the tombs of our Kings, Queens, politicians and writers. I managed to arrive just before the daytrippers but I still had to queue for a good ten minutes. But astonishingly, the price of admission was £20! Considering that many of Britain’s cathedrals are free to visit; I felt that this was disgraceful for those of British citizenship. And what was more insulting was the fact that you weren’t allowed to take photographs of the tombs, statues and architecture. The price did include an audio guide featuring Jeremy Irons, so that’s him set for life. And because of the sheer number of visitors, there was a very set route inside and the dioceses seemed to be in all the wrong places. I was really looking forward to visiting Newton’s tomb which was out of sync with the audio guide and there was n-one there to ask. Perhaps one of the most ironic things was the hourly prayers- during my visit it was for the people of Syria but did it ever occur to anyone that the leaders of the British Government reside just across the road? I did enjoy the history but I think that they’ll have to work extremely hard to tempt me back for a second visit.

Evacuation Park

It’s been a long trip but we’ve ventured down south to Thorpe Park. In the end it was just and one other friend who was wheelchair-bound. I’d invited some other people to help share the pushing, but they all backed out. We’d journeyed down and had a super-charged breakfast and a rubbish coffee, and we only arrived thirty minutes late because of a badly marked roundabout. We knew that we wouldn't be able to get on all the rides but we were extremely disappointed with the accessibility on offer. As soon as we’d arrived we found a small roller coaster but we were told that we weren't able to ride because of evacuation procedures. The one ride that we were really looking forward to riding was actually shut. While wandering around wondering what to do, we wandered into the Angry Birds 4D cinema, which had luckily just opened and was quite miraculous since they were no showtimes displayed. After the film we headed towards the I’m a Celebrity: get out of here! maze but this had closed for the year so our next visit was to the arcade. After spending a fortune on tickets we went for another wander and did manage to convince a young couple of attendants to let us ride one of the smaller rides. But when our main attraction re-opened, we were told that we couldn't go beyond the video section in case we had to be evacuated.

A Great Summer at The Swan

Redditch and Bromsgrove CAMRA have voted the Swan in Chaddesley Corbett as their Summer Pub of the Season. Since becoming tenants of this popular Bathams pub two years ago, licensees Mark Titman and Lucy Stringer have worked hard to ensure that this village pub continues its excellent reputation of serving real ale from the Delph. Although the Swan does serve food; the majority of its business is still through wet-led sales and Mark estimates that they pull over 2,000 pints of Bathams a week! The pub is of course a great hub for the village of Chaddesley Corbett, and live entertainment happens regularly with a Jazz night every Thursday and an open mic night on the first Friday of every month. Mark also organises an annual charity bike ride as well as a classic car show; and hopes to hold a beer festival in 2017. And don’t forget Bathams XXX which goes on sale in the run up to Christmas, a 6.3% brown beer with a fruity taste. Mark hopes to order extra barrels this year to fulfil demand! Pictured receiving the award are licensees Mark Titman and Lucy Stringer (left) with Branch Chairman Gez Quinn and Branch Secretary Paul Richards (far right).    

England's Eurovision

The Eurovision song contest is such a joke nowadays. Firstly, the participants now include Russia, and even Australia so that the organisers can receive extra money for the television rights. It seems to be hosted in Eastern European countries which is very worrying considering the trouble on the borders of these countries; and where do they get the cash to host the event anyway? Apparently, the UK is the fourth biggest financial contributor to the competition, yet the other countries seldom acknowledge this when it comes to giving out points. Secondly, the artists all seem to be acts that no-one’s ever heard of. Why not ask a commercial artist who’s had a chart-topping hit to produce something for crying out loud? It’s great that we now have a national competition where the public can have a say on what our song should be; but why aren’t we relying on our award-winning talent? Our last entry was made up of people who had failed to win a TV karaoke competition. Well done to Sir Terry Wogan for highlighting the farce that it is. 

Spitting Feathers

‘It wasn’t me guv, honest.’

Clive looked into the eyes of PC Badger. He’d been caught red-handed again, and this time there was no way out. He knew that Badger didn’t trust him; not after last time. He’d have to think of a more concrete excuse.

‘Where is she then?’

‘Where’s who?’

‘Miss Featherbottom of course.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘She’s the young lady who resides at this particular address. Or used to anyway.’

‘How do I know? I was just…delivering a letter.’

‘So you must know her if you were delivering a letter.’

‘Sorry, not a letter. A leaflet. I’m doing a menu run for the new takeaway in town.’

‘And where are all your other leaflets?’

‘Well, I’ve ran out. Mr. Wu only gave me so many.’ He grinned.

‘And if I were to call on the neighbours of Miss Featherbottom I would discover that some of them would have received a menu for this new establishment?’

Clive suddenly coughed to stall for time; but found that his fake cough suddenly became a genuine one. As he exhaled, a feather splurged up his throat and out of his mouth… 

Sharp's Doom Bar at the Clairville, Liscard

This large Wetherspoons used to be a supermarket and the space that it now occupies is equally uninspiring. It was a huge open-plan pub full of diners, and the hand pumps were bare apart from a minimalistic portfolio. From the outside, it looked like the architects had an argument on how the pub should be built. It seems that they’ve opted for the cheapest possible option. A banner of colour occupies the panelling above the entrance to cover up the supermarket’s former logo. The pub’s name is actually underneath this and it would have looked a lot better if they had built over the panelling and put the wording on there. And you’d have thought that they would have painted the doors and windows to match. The result is not much of an attracting building at all; but once you got inside the interior seemed to say; ‘Relax, you’re in a Wetherspoon; there’s cheap prices here.’ 

Spitting Feathers Session Beer at the Stage Door, New Brighton

This pub was very popular for a Friday afternoon; and because it was so close to our previous stop everyone could make our own way over in our own time once everyone knew where they were going. Inside there was a great atmosphere and bar snacks were being passed around by the bar staff in an attempt to encourage us to make a long-haul purchase of a full meal. But one of the handy things of having a gang of old men in your party is that people will often give up their space to allow them to have a seat; and pretty soon we had commandeered a whole table to ourselves. Even though the beer wasn’t a strong one it was kept very well and was full of flavour; which is quite hard to pick out when you’ve had a variety of other beer throughout the day. We enjoyed the company of the locals so much here that we decided that it was easier for us to stay put and have another half; giving us plenty of time to catch the next train to pass underneath the river.