Pub Quizzes, Unicorns, Flat Beer and the South

This week is a very welcomed week off for me, and at this point in time that only means one thing; going down south to spend some much appreciated time with Ghost Girlfriend!

Now G.G. lives in the tiny village of Wingrave, a few miles out from Aylesbury (firmly down south for you of poor geographical knowledge like me!) No word of a lie that this is a 1 pub village, you know the kind, like the villages you see in films like Hot Fuzz where everyone knows everyone, it's a bit surreal really. 

This one pub, however quiet, would not be the place to take the G.G. for a romantic 4 year anniversary meal! Instead we ended up eating Swedish meatballs in Ikea, but that's another story entirely! (don't worry, she'll be getting treated later in the week.)  

The area that G.G. resides in has many good inns though, I call them inns because they remind me of the inns my dad used to take us as a boys when we went camping, and because they are places to go to eat (and drink) rather than places to drink (and eat), you know the ones where you burn your face on an open fire as you talk politely.

It really confuses me how most of the pubs down south boast about how southern beers are so full of flavour they don't need sparklers, and will keep a decent head all the way down. It's confusing because while this may be the case, 95% of the pubs I've seen here insist on serving 75% of there beers (in a 4 pump tavern) from Yorkshire breweries, which are better with a sparkler! The thing that really gets to me though is the fact that if you ask to have a beer with the sparkler off up north, bar staff wouldn't bat an eyelid, but if you ask what a sparkler IS in a pub down south most people won't have a bloody clue! I asked this once a couple of years ago and I was looked at like an idiot, I said " you know that bit at the end of the pump? where the thread is? there's a little plastic bit missing from there - other wise every pump I've ever seen, EVER, wouldn't have that little thread! I'd love to take a sparkler round with me but that would be a bit twattish.

One of the decent haunts me and G.G. do visit though is the Unicorn in Cublington (another small village a couple of miles away from Wingrave.)

If your still not sure of the size of the villages that I now dwell in, see the image below;

Now our reasons for visiting this pub last night were 2 fold; one, to meet up with old friends and 2, to take part in the pub quiz. Now the quiz had 3 parts to it, each of which had no similarities to anything to do with drinking, 1st - Disney films, 2nd - Relationships, 3rd - Cross-dressing! In the section where you could actually win some cash though there was one alcoholic related question though: "What is Manzanilla?" Now (sorry Zak (he knew it)) but I'm not very old or into my fortified wines, however the answer was sherry. It's very safe to say that we came dead last in this quiz (it was firmly pointed out to us) even after we were second after the first 'Disney" round :(

The pub itself is a very decent one. This time we were greeted by 4/5 pumps being off unfortunately, so I decied to take a picture of what the pub looked like in the 50's (it's safe to say not that much has changed, thankfully);

Thanks for listening, tune in in the next couple of days for more 'Tales Down South!'