Originally Posted by
Aqualung
Despite suffering from Sarah Hughes blues from the day before, I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed meeting up with the gang in NUL which I was told in no uncertain terms is not part of Stoke!
I had to leave the Lymestone Vaults as I was finding it impossible to keep a straight face with people looking but not approaching me in case I turned out to be Big Effing Dave from Viz. In the end it was BF's interrogation that elicited the confession in the next pub Wellers.
I wished I had achieved more than just a cursory conversation with just about everyone apart from Soup Dragon, Real Ale Ray and Mrs Ale. I was astonished how young Soup Dragon is and how tall BF is. Real Ale Ray was no surprise at all, a real scouser (Liverpool is my favourite English city). I never got the chance to tell the story of how I used to get called a Scouse Git by an old Irish Arsenal supporter back in the 1980s.
Mrs Ale epitomised everything good about Ireland.
Despite Soup Dragon repeatedly saying "I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own", it turned out that it was a backlog of reviews plus the Holyhead dross that made him give up. Holyhead could have broken me only I knew there were pints of Moonraker to be had after the ordeal was over.
When the WCML Virgin advance tickets sort themselves out I will defo have a weekday visit to try the Holy Inadequate and I'd also like to go there again on a Saturday to give Freebird a try plus revisits.