At the risk of employing a rather flimsy excuse as an introduction to this post, the game of has been on my mind a little more than usual of late. My friend and fellow pub games enthusiast started it all off with a feature he wrote on the game earlier this year for . A much more in-depth and informative piece than I'll attempt here, and I urge you to follow the link and read it from page 20 for a better understanding of the game. John is of course a Dorset man, as evidenced by his sometimes impenetrable Dorsetshire accent and a deep love of Dorset's national sport, . John plies his skittling t ..read more

For many thousands of enthusiastic pub games players, and this blog of course, the last year or so of lockdown and restrictions have all-but pulled the rug from under their particular pub pleasure. I think initially some casual play of Darts and Pool was allowed, but when pubs and clubs closed completely, and more recently when trade was forced outdoors and into ever smaller socially distanced groups, even these limited contact games were effectively banned. It's doubtful whether any pub games leagues have managed to function since close of play at the end of the 2019/20 Winter season, and for ..read more

Pubgoers with a keen interest in our dwindling pub heritage could do much worse than spend a day exploring the cathedral city of . Worcester has a remarkable number of pubs on CAMRA’s list of unspoilt heritage interiors, most of which seem to have weathered the COVID storm and are now open for trade (the notable exception being the superb  which had already closed, future uncertain, prior to the recent lockdowns). Of course it’s the interior of pubs that count here, the business end of the pub in almost every regard. Because whilst most pubs retain something of their heritage and historic ..read more

One of the few positives to emerge from this past year of chronic disruption and uncertainty in the pub trade, has been the truly remarkable show of resilience and creativity that licensees and staff have shown, when any number of the them would have been forgiven for throwing in the towel. I doubt whether I'm the only one who thought the twin ills of an out of control pandemic and an economy on the slide would be the final nail in the coffin for literally thousands of pub businesses, and of course a boom time for property companies looking to cash in on our precious pub heritage. That so many ..read more

It's been a long time since I spent quality time in a part of the country where I could almost guarantee finding some serious pub games interest. My own neck of the woods was a banker for Table Skittles not so long ago, but whilst the game is far from being dead, certainly most of the tables seem to be gone from those pubs and clubs that survive, and the leagues practically invisible to those of us not actively involved in it. Whilst skittles as it's played in the West Country is one of the few that remains well supported, pockets of maintain their own tradition of skittles play with a measure ..read more

Whilst this blog remains mothballed for the foreseeable future, I felt it was important to acknowledge the recent passing of writer, historian, musician, and pub games enthusiast pictured right 'Spinning' with Mary Ashby, licensee of the Rose & Crown, Bradford Abbas, Dorset Arthur was both the inspiration and primary knowledge source for this blog, particularly in the early days when my own enthusiasm for was in no way matched by my knowledge or experience of the subject, one which Arthur had researched, written, and enthused about for decades. ' meeting with Arthur was back in 2010 as a h ..read more