February 2026. Pavia. A day trip from Genoa to Pavia, an unsung but beautiful University town of 70,000, nearly 40% of them students. Not that you’d know it’s student-dominated; a bit like Cambridge they must all stay within the ancient cloisters, and all drink at the distinctly untrendy student bar. Mrs RM and I...

February 2026. Pavia. For those bored of foreign muck, here’s a Bass mirror from Turin last night. Quite a bit of travel to go before we get there, though. A week in Italy was enough to confirm the greatness of Genoa, tick a new country, finally see what Turin is all about (food) and revisit a small city that...

February 2026. Genoa. Well, this is the post you were waiting for, I guess. Hand pumps in Genoa, according to Untappd. You just need to find the Public House*, tucked behind Piazza Banchi, only 5 minutes, but hard to follow the map in the drizzle. If you see this you’ve gone too far. Ah, here it is; Europeans don’t...

February 2026. Genoa. It was actually that first morning in Genoa, leaving the grandeur of Via Balbi and those World Heritage palaces and descending to the noise and colour of Via di Prè, a half mile of mult-ethnic shops and barbers and even tinier lanes down to the sea, that I suddenly realised why Genoa was such a...

February 2026. Camogli. Italy. 25 years ago we flew to Genoa, hired a car, and set off around the Ligurian coast towards the Cinque Terre looking for signs saying “Zimmer Frei” “Camera” to stay for the night. In a world before websites and Booking.com, turning up at 4pm with two toddlers without accommodation seems...

February 2025. Genoa. You’ll have to excuse this post, a little worse for wear after a night on the beer in Turin and now watching Mariah Carey introduce the Winter Olympics. Don’t the Italians have any singers ? It’s a dozen years since I was last in Genoa, marvelling at the 17th century palaces along Via Balbi,...

January 2026. Genoa. Mrs RM could stand the constraints of the weekly Sheffield-Waterbeach-Tunbridge Wells shuffle no longer and booked a cheap flights (cheap to us, the cost to the planet is a different issue) to Italy and hoped there wasn’t a call from the in-laws for a few days. And you know what that means; load...

January 2026. Waterbeach. One more night in Waterbeach before exciting forrin’ travel, and as always it’s Mrs RM who insists we nip in the Sun while waiting for the Chung Hwa to work its magic on squid. I wish Mrs RM would work her magic on my phone camera, but for now I’m claiming this is an art shot; Oooh ! That’s...

January 2026. Radcliffe on Trent. I’ve just realised when I visited the old Radcliffe GBG entries (one now a Tesco Metro). In 2002, during the South Korean World Cup, I dragged Mrs RM and two toddlers to a camp site in Stragglethorpe, a mile south of those Chestnut and Manvers. Mrs RM put the tent up. I think we...

January 2026. Radcliffe on Trent. Pub 3 of 4 on our expertly curated survey of public houses in the ancient Notts village of Radcliffe, whose most attractive feature was some doggy knitwear on the way to the Chestnut. I’d struggle to find a lot to write about the village in 2019, but at least then I could take in...

January 2026. Radcliffe on Trent. When I came to Radcliffe to tick the micropub (temporarily closed so no return) in 2019 I’d asked a local; “What about the other pubs in Radcliffe ?” I asked. “Any good ?” “Nah. Too cliquey”. Well, perhaps too cliquey when this photo was taken, but I didn’t notice it last week. The...

January 2026. Radcliffe on Trent. It was Will’s idea, the daft best ones generally are. Someone on CAMRA Discourse admitted the much maligned Craft Union chain had a decent outlet near them, and Will forced the honourable member to name that pub as the Royal Oak in unsung Radcliffe on Trent. But what else could a...