The relentless build up to Christmas is now in full swing, and with that in mind here are a few thoughts about the festive season and a couple of recent events with a distinctively Irish theme as a bar in Enniskillen releases a Christmas advert and an iconic musician sadly passes away.... The rows of bagged and stacked Christmas trees have been in the supermarket entrances for a good few weeks now. The big retailers' festive adverts with their oodles of false sentiment and bonhomie have been on the TV screens for a while too. This has been since the early part of November which, with the adoption of the dreadful US retail concoction of Black Friday, has seemingly and seamlessly been appropriated into the festive period. Against this background of unbridled commerciality there have been two events in the past few days which have brought the more traditional and human aspect of Christmas back into sharp focus. The first was the release of their own Christmas advert by a pub in the No
A day when my original plans initially went awry but, hey, it all worked out well in the end! An afternoon a few miles away in Shipley visiting some of the town's bars turned out to be a pretty relaxed and enjoyable experience.... It was a bright sunny morning, the first for ages, and nothing like it to get you in the mood for a day's exploring. However, unfortunately our national rail network had other ideas. My first plan was a visit to Lancashire - rail replacement bus. An alternative Lancashire trip - see above. Number 3 - a trip east - signalling problems! And so when I arrived at Halifax railway station having booked tickets for my 4th option and discovering the train was running, but delayed, it was clear the problems still weren't resolved. The display said it all.... Oh dear.... I had decided to take the relatively short journey over to Shipley, where there were two Good Beer Guide pubs I had never visited, plus another one where a revisit was way overdue. I made i