Beer-aeth

I was in a pub in Richmond not that long ago. It was early afternoon on a warm day in June. The pub, The Sun Inn, was highly inviting. I'd noticed it on a previous visit to the lido and it had lodged in my mind. A Fuller's house, with a pleasant shady patio out the front adorned with hanging baskets and colourful planters - I needed no further encouragement. A grey flag loomed across the threshold however. The pub was filled with televisions, all showing sport. Nothing unusual about this per se, and it was during the soccer World Cup/the latest toe-curling attempt at American sportswashing/Trumpian grifting daisy-chaining extravaganza. There were also a couple of screens showing English rugby, but here's the point - nobody was watching. The inside of the pub was deserted, all the patrons were outside on the patio or in the beer garden enjoying the balmy June weather. My conclusion is that management orders dictate that the tellies need to stay on regardless of viewership. I...

  Well there's no point in beating around the bush here - The Railway Inn is fucking shit. Utterly nondescript. It's mostly patronised by people who own caravans in the vicinity. The impression I have of these people from my visits is that they quite like having a caravan in Wales, but they would much prefer that there was a beach in Dudley. The one thing you can absolutely guarantee about these cunts is that at some point in their lives they have all been into a pub in Wales where the second they stepped in through the door, everyone started speaking Welsh.      Because the world revolves around them. There's not much more to say about The Railway except that it was forgettable, and that we were sat at a table overlooked by a photograph of one of my drinking companion’s ancestors in an Edwardian era Borth football XI. This is Wales after all. I would also like to add at this stage that had I chosen to spend all of my bank holiday weekends and subsequent retirement i...