retiredmartin
retiredmartin
Martin
Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.
Latest Posts
July 2026. Sheffield. It’s that time of year again, when local newspapers, even the subscription ones without clickbait, send reporters out to find your city’s top beer gardens, and invite comments from folk who like to reminisce about...
July 2026. Manchester. I drove into Manchester on the hottest day of the year to help him clear his Piccadilly flat (mainly a guitar and early editions of Kerrang!), a month after his move to the Promised Land of Stockport. I could have...
July 2026. Bradford. Back from the Ginger Goose, Mrs RM said she didn’t want anything to eat, which I took as instruction to head out immediately and come back with a healthy tea. I headed out into Little Germany, a part of Bradford with...
July 2026. Bradford. Back from Bingley at half-five last Monday, Bradford looked a little too quiet. The 10 minutes walk from Forster Square Station to Holiday Inn Express is a row of “value” pubs, one of them offering sandwich, crisps...
July 2026. Bingley. Day 5 of the Cask Camino, and we’d postponed Bingley’s canalside highlights in favour of a bracing walk to the Druid’s Altar, with the promise of a pint on the way back to the station. Mrs RM will be looking for some...
July 2026. Saltaire to Bingley. A late (9:30) start to Day 5 of the Cask Camino on Monday morning meant we missed the best of the Holiday Inn Express (i.e. the scrambled eggs), which came as a shock after missing breakfasts in Armenia...
July 2026. Bradford. I see Corby has been shortlisted for UK Town of Culture 2028, and rightly so. Who could deny a place with “hot piping action” ? It faces tough competition from Basildon and the lesser lights highlighted by the BBC in...
July 2026. Saltaire. Mrs RM had scoured the internet for advice on what to do in Saltaire at the end of our (very short) leg of the Cask Camino and found 1) Salt Mill and Hockney galleries, 2) Roberts Park, 3) SALT Beer Factory. Not much...
July 2026. Saltaire. Bradford. While the organist played us hymns modern and ancient in Saltaire’s United Reformed Church I devised a plot to get Mrs RM to visit a pub (she’s a reformed character this last week). “Mum loved those Fanny...
July 2026. Saltaire. Bradford. Shame on you for thinking we’d abandon the Cask Camino within a month.# No, we are true pilgrims, committed to the cause of bringing you exciting pub stops along the Leeds-Liverpool canal, which we resume...
July 2026. Sawley. Derbyshire. The pint of Abbot in Pub 5 was a mistake. I sensed a dash to the station and a return to the warm embrace of the Sang Lung was called for. But our last pub was just across from the trains, and I ought to...
July 2026. Sawley. You left me in the Steamboat (Pub 5), unaware that the queue averse crawlers had skipped Pub 4 due to a surge in demand for calamari and Madri. Back at the Trent Lock, it transpired that Bass was indeed on, but being...
July 2026, Sawley. Derbyshire. Well I clearly wasn’t taking proper notes last Friday as I can’t remember what we talked about, but since Oxford Nick was there it must have been very intellectual or c oncerned obscure pysch-pop. I’m...
July 2026. Sawley. Derbyshire. A really great day’s pubbing organised by Super Shawn of Leicester; half a dozen stops in suburban Derby close to the Trent. The only issue is the anti-social inclinations of some pub crawlers surveyors....
July 2026. Sawley. Derbyshire. A fair few pubs for the 6,629 good folk of Sawley, most of them in the Good Beer this century. I’d started at the smart allrounder and GBG perennial White Lion, by which time the breakaway group had already...