April 2026. Stockport. Back at Stockport Travelodge (£37.99, wouldn’t buy a pie, pint and programme at the Emirates) after the game I decided I wasn’t paying a fiver for WiFi, and the only watchable thing on the telly was “The Story of the Bee Gees“. Did you know they’re named after a famous UK band from the early...

April 2026. Stockport. “City, tearing cockneys apart, again“. That’s the only post-match chant this PG version of the blog can bring you from an evening at the Etihad when I lost my voice and risked a permanent ban for my shouts of “and your beer’s not very good” at the Arsenal fans. You can’t swear at football...

April 2026. Alderley Edge. I’m not sure my heart will stand these tense City games, but after a period of letting the lads use my season ticket I thought I’d better see The Arsenal, apparently champions elect. If you don’t use your season ticket enough it gets cancelled and you have to pay £88 a game. Mrs RM came...

April 2026. Mareham-le-Fen. Lincolnshire. A productive weekend in rural Lincs leaves me with just the one tick to finish the county, but as that’s in bucolic Skegness I’m saving it for a special occasion. Mareham-le-Fen is another small (pop. 944) village on way to t’coast, but no chippy for the bikers this time....

April 2026. Wragby. Lincolnshire. Your actual new Wragby Beer Guide pub isn’t a classic, but then the Lincolnshire Wolds aren’t renowned for classics. Prove me wrong. But you do get this extraordinary piece of art in the garden of the Adam & Eve, which bears a striking resemblance to Ali & Nino in Mrs RM’s new...

April 2026. Wragby. Lincolnshire. You’ll remember my brave but doomed attempt to get to Wragby by bus last week ? Well, I tried again. A man who is tired of East Lindsey district has already been once. Actually, that’s not fair; Skegness, Louth and the Wolds, who could want more ? OK, the A158 is a bit featureless,...

April 2026. Sheffield. As I may have hinted, the last few months have been stressful, and not just due to the more limited recent availability of the £1.89 salt and pepper calamari from Home Bargains, which I used to fill out our celebratory Sang Lung takeaway last Friday night. A think I could have cooked them a...

April 2026. Eyam. Derbyshire. The landlady at the Three Stags’ Heads gently chided me for my mispronunciation of the name on the pump clip, which made me keen to visit Eyam, pronounced just as you’d expect (or not). Our last American visitors were also keen on a visit to a village I assumed only got a handful of...

April 2026. Wardlow Mires. Peak District. I’d taken Mrs RM to one of the most scenic points in the Peak District, bought her ice cream and Jaipur (NOT in the same glass, silly ! That’s a Stockton thing) and drove her home via some of the most picturesque Derbyshire Dales villages. As we turned on to the A523 towards...

April 2026. Monsal Head. The Peak District. Mrs RM had been reminding me how little of the Peak District we’d actually done since moving to Sheffield (hardly any new GBG pubs), so I gave her a mystery trip into the heart of the Peak last Thursday. 15 miles south-west of Sheffield, Monsal Dale in the White Peak...

April 2026. Tutbury & Hatton. As promised, a rare “long read” (ugh) on our pub crawl to Tutbury and Hatton this Tuesday. If you get bored after my regulation 389 words send me a note and I’ll go back to writing up every pub individually, which will take me into May. This trip to unheralded villages of about 3,000...

April 2026. Waterbeach. A week ago we were on our way down south for our last overnight stay in Mum and Dad’s Waterbeach cottage; a year’s stay without a TV and internet, a month sleeping on a mattress on the ground. A mattress covered in crispy beef and Singapore rice that last night before we took it to the tip...