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BRAPA - Thanks for the Manx (Part 2 of 6 - Tuesday Daytime Session)
Time for a bit of random acoustic guitar the locals don't appreciate? Okay then! Despite the ridiculous number of pillows and cushions these places give you, my first nights sleep at the Ellan Vannin...
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BRAPA - Thanx for the Manx (Part 3 of 6 - Tuesday Evening Session)
Pub crawling with Dave "IrishSeaDave" Halliwell, local pub expert7:15pm then, and I'd eaten and slept and caught up on 'Neighbours', slightly traumatised by a storyline involving a cat being poisoned!...
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BRAPA - Thanx for the Manx (Part 4 of 7 - Wednesday Woes)
Warning - this blog entry contains zero pubs.I was feeling on top of the world after two wonderful days of pub ticking. Isle of Man was perhaps the best place ever visited since BRAPA started in April...
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BRAPA - Thanx for the Manx (Part 5 of 7 - Wednesday Pubs)
I'd spent the first four hours of the day failing to visit ONE pub (see part 4 of this Isle of Man special). But 3pm and finally I was in a pub that had been open since 11am, I'd just been looking at...
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BRAPA - Thanx for the Manx (Part 6 of 7 - TT Thursday)
One of my 'required 9' from the bus stop in DouglasWednesday had been painful in every way, no doubt about it. But with an air of Nigel Adkins at the height of positivity, I stepped out into the fresh...
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BRAPA - Thanx for the Manx (Part 7 of 7 : Leaving to Liverpool)
My final night then in Douglas, that now familiar feeling of arriving back on the bus in need of a pee, cold aching bones, a bit tipsy but not drunk, and half wanting to just get some food and go back...
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BRAPA - Heavy Woollen Scousers : A Return to Liverpool (Part 1/2)
It was time for the bi-annual 'Heavy Woollen' BRAPA trip, where after months of planning and last minute cancellations, a small group of work friends join me for some pub-ticking.This time, we had a...
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BRAPA - Heavy Woollen Scousers : A Return to Liverpool (Part 2/2)
Why am I sat here on a Saturday afternoon in the comfort of BRAPA towers, when this is my prime pub-ticking time of the week? That is a question you may well ask.Well, like an utter buffoon, on...
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BRAPA - February Review / March Preview (2018)
A mid month non-BRAPA pint, in the Phoenix in York - a superb pub."A new GBG pub a day keeps the doctor away", so goes the well known phrase which I've probably just invented, but as February began...
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BRAPA - Si's Kitchen Nightmares Day One - Gatley
Hallway chaos!About a year ago, I had my bathroom refitted and without an actual pot to piss in, I did what any sane pub ticker would do and checked into a Warrington Travelodge and visited most of the...
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BRAPA - Si's Kitchen Nightmares Day Two - Harrogate
After the slight nightmare that was Gatley on Monday night, it was time for something a bit more sedate on Tuesday, as my kitchen started to take shape in a shabby chic London 'Spoons sort of way, not...
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BRAPA - Si's Kitchen Nightmares Day Three - Hyde
I didn't have that sinking feeling in HydeI'd never been to Hyde before, though I had driven through it shortly after the Shipman news broke all those years ago. All I remember was passing a dentist...
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BRAPA - Si's Kitchen Nightmares Day 4 - Shipton
It seemed very strange getting a bus from outside York station to a BRAPA pub, just a few miles away. This was the GBG pub closest to my house I'd still to visit, having of course done all the York...
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BRAPA - Farewell to Bucks & a West London Boost
I'd been making a bit of a meal out of getting to the end of my Buckinghamshire pub ticking challenge, but on Saturday 10th March at 12:10, it was finally over!Relief the overriding emotion, it hasn't...
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BRAPA - West London Boosters (Part 2/2)
When you're a fledgling twild, having your booster jabs is a necessary evil you just have to deal with. In adulthood, if you have grown into a Good Beer Guide ticker, the equivalent is West London.I...
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BRAPA - Piccadilly Calypso Special
When my workplace (the good old Yorkshire Bank) kindly decided they'd be sending me down to the Piccadilly Circus branch to learn a new system (which we already use) called Calypso, I made sure they...
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BRAPA - Disleyland
Welcome back to Cheshire, say the local CAMRA committeeAt work on Friday, people kept asking where I was going tonight. "Disley" I told them. Every single one of them misheard it as "Disney"."Oh...
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BRAPA - Porridge in Dorridge (and other snowy tales)
It was pub ticking in the West Midlands for the first time since 2nd Jan 2017, and I tell you now, I have missed it. I honestly don't think outside of the North of England (especially Lancs area),...
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BRAPA - Eccles! Monton! Patricroft! Hallelujah!
As the tram trundled slowly towards Eccles last Tuesday night, I tried to assess how much I knew about this place which I'd never been to before.Firstly, it is full of heritage pubs, four I think. How...
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BRAPA - No Joke-ham in Oakham (Finishing Rutland)
It is no joke. On Saturday, I went to four pubs. Two village dining pubs, a Wetherspoons and a Brewery Tap. I enjoyed the dining pubs the most. This might be the only time I'll ever say this so...
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