The Tivoli, Cambridge (via Pints and Pubs)
I’m popping in to Cambridge on Saturday night for a stag do … perhaps I’ll include this pub in our crawl?
via Pints and Pubs
Flipping Beer Mats!
When it comes to scintillating excitement, beer mats don’t necessarily pop in to your head first. And the idea of flipping them doesn’t really occur to many of us unless we’re sat in a pub, slightly bored and waiting for our mates to arrive.
But there are some people in the world who are actually quite good at it and, therefore, like setting records in it.
On Monday evening, I was kindly invited to visit the launch of Proud of Pubs week, an initiative held by The Publican magazine to promote all that is great and good about pubs, at The Wiremill near East Grinstead, a fantastic and beautiful pub that I recommend you visit if you’re ever in the area. It was also voted Pub of the Year at this year’s Publican Awards.
As well as being there to celebrate pubs, we were also treated to a demonstration by world champion beer mat flipper Dean Gould in how to, well, flip beer mats. Here, for your heart-thumping excitement then, are a few videos of Dean’s world record breaking evening:
Record Number One:
Flipping Beer Mats blindfolded, with just two fingers.
The previous record was sixteen; in this video it becomes twenty:
Record Number One A:
Flipping Beer Mats blindfolded, with just two fingers.
Not content with twenty, Dean Gould goes on to make it thirty five:
Record Number Two:
Speed flipping 1’000 beer mats.
Dean Gould breaks the world record for speed flipping 1’000 beer mats. Previously 45 seconds, in this video it becomes 41.06 seconds, speed flipping twenty stacks of fifty mats.
(How exciting, I was the official time keeper for this event!)
How does he do it?
Dean Gould is blessed, some say, with the slightly odd ability to bend the fingers on his hands back an incredibly long way. The video below demonstrates, and apparently he can hold 14 hen’s eggs on the back of one hand.
(Great quote in the background from Hamish Champ: “that’s disgusting…”)
So there you have it, folks. Two world records in beer mat flipping. Dean did apparently break one further record, catching 108 mats from his elbow and beating the previous record of 107, but my wife failed to catch that one on video…
Five years. And counting…
July 21st, 1969 – most people will remember that as the day that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon.*
Exactly one year before that, Arnold Palmer became the first golfer to earn a million dollars.*
On the same date but in 1873, Jesse James and his men commit their first train robbery.*
This, and so much more, happened on this date in history, but none stand in my memory as much as this date five years ago today.
Standing outside The Tharp Arms in blazing sun at 9:00am on Thursday 21st July 2005 I looked at Ali and asked: “are we doing the right thing?”
She simply looked back at me and said: “since when have you seen a publican driving around in a rubbish car?”
Well, we’ve learned a bit since then, obviously. Not to mention having written off two cars in that time, spent nearly £2’000 repairing the cylinder head on another, and purchased a Renault Vel Satis that spent each day of its life trying to kill me.
Her rhetoric was probably poorly chosen, but it’s been an interesting five years. There have been more laughs than I can remember, a few tears, and more than once I’ve managed to flood the cellar. Oh, and I drilled a hole in the water pipes once when trying to mount a speaker on the wall. Six hours that leaked before I realised there was a puddle in the middle of the bar.
Rarely a day goes by when something interesting or amusing doesn’t happen, and so we find ourselves sitting here on our fifth anniversary a bit agog. We haven’t made any arrangements for the day, because we forgot it was arriving!
So, instead, why not join us for a drink this evening to celebrate? We might even get flamboyant and put some peanuts on the bar…
Mark J Daniels
Licensee / Partner – The Tharp Arms
*my history really isn’t that good; this data was taken from on-this-day.com
Please remember to sponsor me for my bike ride this Sunday.
Sky High Pricing Continues…
Sky have had the opportunity to be pioneers, to show others that there is another way and that change is good. Instead, they’ve got greedy and failed.
Last year, Sky announced that they would be launching their 3D service and that pubs would get the chance to try it out before the domestic market got their hands on it.
Cue me getting all arsey and writing a blog to the effect that thousands of football hooligans, should their team not win, would be able to throw the very expensive 3D glasses needed to view such broadcasts at the very expensive televisions needed to show three dimensional games
At that time I didn’t have Sky in my pub, despite deliberating over it many times. But that blog prompted a meeting with my Business Development Manager who, unlike most other publicans it seems, I get on quite well with. He felt that Sky would be beneficial to my pub and so an agreement was made whereby my pub company would support the installation of Sky for a defined period of time.
The maths of my share of the deal meant putting Sky in to my pub became viable. Just.
It also meant that I would have time to try and build up some extra custom to cover the full cost of a Sky contract and, if it didn’t work, I could cancel Sky at the end of the fixed term and wouldn’t be too much out of pocket. I rang Sky and arranged the installation forthwith.
Since then, it hasn’t worked. Despite buying – no, Sky don’t give any promotional point of sale away – a big banner to advertise games, blogging, twittering and using Facebook to promote matches, and making sure any appropriate A-boards or internal boards are marked up with relevant sporting details, nine months down the line Sky has barely covered my financial part of the agreement with my brewery.
Earlier this year, rateable values in pubs increased dramatically, causing many publicans to worry that their Sky bill, which is based on the rateable value of their business, would also rocket. This prompted Sky to announce that they were going to review their pricing structure, recognising that many pubs are facing financial hardship at the moment. The promise was that they would be fair and helpful to this side of the industry.
Indeed, just this week, the ‘new’ pricing structure was announced, promising to take in to account the different natures of pub businesses and to include 3D and HD free in every commercial contract.
And then the new prices arrived and, what appears to have happened, is that everybody at Sky sat around a table and said: “bugger it, we’ll just charge the same way we always have.”
Like so many who commented on the original story on this website, the details of my new contract arrived this morning and, guess what, my bill is based up on my rateable value and has actually increased by a staggering thirty percent. I had been hoping that Sky, who are on the thick end of negative press when it comes to pubs more regularly than the beer tie is, were going to come up with something new and exciting that would have helped the industry, but they haven’t.
Because my pub is predominately wet lead and doesn’t have letting accommodation, I’m entitled to no discounts, and the offer of free HD is merely a sop to try and detract from the fact that the bill has gone up by so much. I’d rather pay my current bill and the £10 HD add-on than the extra £100 a month it’s actually going to cost.
If I contact Sky to discuss reducing or cancelling my domestic package, I get offered movies free for three months, or discounted rates for the sports package. Anything to keep me heading off to one of the myriad competition that are rapidly becoming available.
But because Sky have the questionably-legal monopoly on the commercial market, if you call them to discuss cancellation you are merely met with a disinterested verbal shrug.
The television broadcasting giant have had the opportunity to be pioneers, to lead the way, to do something exciting and energetic to revive this sector and drive the industry. They’ve had the opportunity to show others that change is good, that change can help, but they have failed.
Instead, like so many, they’ve simply been greedy.
Phone Your Blog (via WordPress.com News)
I guess there have been worse ideas, but there’s a reason that Google game up with the idea of “Beer Goggles” on its e-mail service. Predominately, it was designed to stop – or, at least try to stop – you from sending out e-mails to your friends, boss or that girl you like in the office, in the middle of the night after you’ve had a beer or six.
Google’s service uses five random mathematical puzzles that you must solve before it will let you send an e-mail. The equations get tougher as you move through them but, it has to be said, as long as you’re not too drunk to reach for the calculator then even the most determined beerhead can make sure his mail gets send.
Still, kudos to Google for at least trying to put a service in place. Facebook could do with a “have you had a beer?” button, too. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve woken up at six in the morning in a sweaty panic and with a thundering headache, realising that I went to all my friends accounts and left slightly dodgy messages on their walls. Thank God for the Delete button, but it’s not guaranteed to stop them having seen what you’ve said…
But now WordPress, my blogging platform of choice, have come up with the idea of phoning in your blog. (To read more, simply click the post below…) The idea is simple: you’re at the top of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, dodging bits of spewed lava, and you want to let the readers of your blog know what it’s like. Typing up a message is a touch tricky, so instead you pick up the phone and leave a voicemail for your bloggers to listen to.
It’s a neat idea that has some advantages, but just imagine if you’ve had a beer or two and decide to call up your blog and leave a message for all your readers… the idea is enough to make me shudder.
Still, I can see it’s going to happen one day. I just hope I don’t offend too many of my readers when I leave my first audio post…
New Big D Babe Crowned
If you’re nuts about, well, nuts you’ll probably be quite familiar with the saucy peanut brand, Big D. Not necessarily because they taste great, but more likely because – as a bloke in the pub – you’ve been attracted by the rather pretty lady on the packaging.
There’s always been something about the Big D brand. Maybe it’s because I’m shallow, and therefore easily swayed by the lure of a pretty face, but while Walker’s went all naughty by trying to get you to eat Nobby’s Nuts, Big D have simply stuck by a tried and tested method of sticking semi-naked woman on their packaging and waiting for you to fall for it.
And you do. You know you do. Mainly because you want to see if, as packets are pulled off the cardboard strip, anything really naughty is revealed behind it. Sort of like a nuts version of BreakOut.
Recently, though, Big D have been running a competition to find a new babe, and she’s just been revealed. Rosie Jones, the brunette from Middlesex, won the coveted prize of being the next Big D Babe. So, don’t expect to see a blonde revealing herself on your nuts packaging any time soon: Rosie’s a brunette.
You can see a video of the night here:
Sky-High Pricing Continues
My latest blog on The Publican‘s website is now available:
Sky have had the opportunity to be pioneers, to lead the way, to do something exciting and energetic to revive this sector and drive the industry. They’ve had the opportunity to show others that change is good, that change can help, but they have failed.
To read the full blog simply click here: http://ow.ly/2bCEj
Rich text signatures in GMail
It seems a truly geeky thing to get all excited about, but browsing through the Official GMail Blog this morning it was quite nice to read that Google have finally got round to upgrading their signature system in their brilliant e-mail service.
Instead of having a simple, plain and boring text-style signature to your e-mails, if you’re a GMail user (and one that, like me, refuses to use an e-mail client such as Outlook) you can now make your signature much more fancy, as witnessed in this image on the GMail blog website:
Fancy looking signatures for your e-mail
If you want to find out more about setting up HTML in your GMail signature, simply visit the link below. Meanwhile, I’ve got to start thinking about just what colour I want my name to appear in…
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/rich-text-signatures.html
Google will stalk my Charity Ride
“Dad, why on Earth would you want to ride your bike sixty miles when you can just get in your car and drive it?”
Such is the wisdom of a ten year old used to simply being chucked in the back of the car with his Nintendo and told to be quiet, even if it’s just for a quick trip to the shops for milk.
The answer, however, is simple: I’ve reached that stage in my life. I can’t afford a Ferrari, and an affair would probably would get me in to a spot of hot bother, so I’ve got to do something physically challenging instead.
Hence, this Sunday, I’ll be taking part in the London to Cambridge charity cycle ride. For the past few months my cycling buddy and I have been trudging around the roads of East Anglia in an effort to get fit but, while I’m now used to sitting in the saddle for hours on end, the one thing that this part of the country doesn’t offer me is a hill.
And, I’m told, the first obstacle we have to face when leaving Pickett’s Lock on Sunday morning is a hill. The whole challenge could be over within minutes of it starting, but I’m hoping not.
Instead, I’m planning on doing the route within six hours. But, to be fair, I just want to finish it under my own steam, so if it takes me until Wednesday I’ll be happy. At least that way I won’t have to endure Legoland on Monday!
Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, not to mention Google’s stalking service otherwise known as Latitude, you can keep up with how we’re getting on by visiting the pub’s dedicated web page – click here for access.
And, if you’re feeling generous, why not pop along to my donations page too? We’re really grateful for the donations received so far and we’ve exceeded our target of £1500, but every little helps! Click here for the donations page.
Meanwhile, I’m off to the pharmacists to stock up on Sudacrem. I suspect I might need buckets of it rubbed in to certain parts of my anatomy come Sunday night…