rhythm and booze Passionate About Proper Pubs - Issue 19 - May/June 2013
N o T i m e To Be Hun-over
Attila the Stockbroker with Castor Ales’ Duncan Vessey during the poet’s visit to the brewery. Photograph courtesy of the Castor & Ailsworth Community Page. Performance poet Attila the Stockbroker visited Castor Ales (castorales.co.uk) during a trip to Peterborough. The poet was in the area to watch his team, Brighton & Hove Albion, play at London Road. Due to preparations for a
late booking in Durham the following day, Attila was unable to visit as many of Peterborough’s pubs as he hoped. Following the match, in which Posh drew 0-0, Attila recorded a guest spot for the Standing on the Glebe podcast
at the Swiss Cottage, before turning in for a 6am start. nAttila returns to the area on 23 August for the Blythe Power Ashes (blythpower.co.uk/ashes) music festival at The Plough, Farcet Fen.
Battle of the Sexes PMT / The Destructors Sous Les Paves La Plage
The ‘Noisy punk birds from Norwich’ join forces with The Destructors for this eight-track split EP. Alongside a reworking of PMT’s Drama Queen is The Destructor’s long-lost Penguin War Blues. Out Now
“The insanely prolific Destructors punk-as-fuck Crass meets Stiff Little Fingers meets Motorhead inspired efforts here will cause you to fling yourselves across the room! A great record!” - Big Takeover Magazine
BUY ONLINE or as a DOWNLOAD BY MAIL ORDER FROM www.destructors.co.uk
OR AS A DOWNLOAD FROM iTUNES/7DIGITAL
The Surrealist Sportsman’s Club In this issue, David ‘Dai’Roll takes the peas.
There can’t be many of us who didn’t as a child empty the barrel of a ballpoint pen and then proceed to blow some ammunition or other through it. Now’s the time to restart practicing those skills as the Pea Shooting Championship is coming up at Witcham, between Chatteris and Ely on the A142. The Championships started in 1971 and over the years have attracted international entrants (thanks to the American service personnel at nearby RAF bases). The event is held on the second Saturday in July, so this year it is on 13 July. The target (12 feet away for adults, closer in the junior categories)
consists of three rings of putty or some similar material, hitting the outer ring with your pea scores one point, the middle ring three points and the inner most circle scores five points. The top 16 scoring competitors (eight in the ladies and junior categories, top four in the team competition) then move on to the knockout rounds. You can use your own peashooter as long as it is no more than 12 inches in length (sights are allowed, but no laser pointers in the junior categories). However, you can only use the five peas supplied by the
organisers. Entry to the competition costs £2 for adults, £6 for teams of four participants. Registration starts at 12 noon on the village green and the competition starts about 1pm, so perhaps some of you might like to think about entering. Full details can be found on the village website at witcham.org.uk or by sending an email to peashoot@witcham.org.uk Last year I mentioned a Gaming Weekend (focusing on the Pathfinder RPG) at The Plough in Farcet Fen, well, it’s back again and this year to be held over the weekend of 7-9 June. For full details go to www.crispycon.co.uk Also last summer I mentioned the annual kite-flying day at Ferry Meadows organised by the Ouse Valley Kite Flyers. This year’s is also on Sunday 9 June and for details go to www.gokf.co.uk
4 Real Ales and Cider ~ Log Fire Every Evening ~ Great Music Every Day ~ Pool Table & Dart Board ~ Whisky Rack ~ Lagers - Bitters - Ciders ~ Bottled Real Ales ~ Choice of 9 Wines ~ Covered Heated Smoking Patio ~ Free Parking ~ Hot Drinks – Costa Coffee & Twinings Tea ~ Big Screens - Live Sports ~ Bar Food & Snacks ~ Free Function Room
FA CUP FINAL
Join us on 11 May for Football, Food and Fosters for £1
Weekly
Mondays – Free Po ol Tuesdays – Food N ight Thursdays – Twiste d Tunes Fridays – LIVE NIG HT Saturdays – Party N ight Sundays – Free Pu b Games 8pm Free Pub Quiz
Check page 10 for liv e music OPENING TIMES Monday - Thursday 12 - 3pm & 5 - 11pm Friday - Sunday 12 - 11pm
749 Lincoln Rd, New England PE1 3HD www.thecrownonline.co.uk Tel: 0843 523 5181
by Cardinal Cox
Pub Scrawl
Congratulations to Leanne Moden who won the post of Fenland Poet Laureate at the final held in Wisbech on 1 March. The standard of the finalists was all very high, making it the best one of these events I’ve seen in a long time. I’m glad I hadn’t been asked to be a judge. You might have seen Leanne at the Verbal Remedies gig at the We Love Words festival last September. The subject of this year’s John Clare Cottage poetry competition is ‘Landscape’. Poems can be up to 20 lines long, the deadline is Wednesday 31 July and the entry fee (for the adult competition, younger age groups are free) is £4. For full details go to www.clarecottage.org On Saturday 11 May Peterborough Central Library is hosting afternoon tea with three top authors from publisher Faber. Marcel Theroux, Susie Steiner and Nadeem Aslam will be presenting this panel event, so come along and hear a group
of writers talking about their novels, and be inspired to try something different. The talk is from 2pm in the John Clare Theatre at Peterborough Central Library and tickets are only £3 (£2 concessions) available from any Peterborough Library or Waterstones. It’s not often in this column that I get to mention a talk at the Peterborough Theological Society but on Wednesday 29 May their guest speaker will be the Rev Dr Malcolm Guite, Chaplain of Girton College in Cambridge and a darn fine poet in his own right. He will be speaking on Poetry and Incarnation at The Friends’ Meeting House, Thorpe Road (just over the Crescent Bridge) and the talk starts at 7.30pm. Admission is £3 and for further details either ring (01733) 355300 or email jonathan.baker@peterboroughcathedral.org.uk Welney Wetland Trust at Hundred Foot Bank, Welney near Wisbech PE14 9TN will be hosting a launch for a poetry collection of work
The Cardinal’s Calendar
8 May/12 June – Pint of Poetry, Dash of Drama @ Charter’s The evening now starts at 8pm, be early if you want to read. 7 May/4 June – Poets United meet at the PCVS building on Lincoln Road (roughly opposite Geneva Bar) For full details ring Viv on 01733 340560. 29 May/26 June – Stamford’s Pint of Poetry takes place from 8pm at the cellar bar at the Arts Centre on St Mary’s Street. 6-7 July – The 8th T.S. Eliot Festival at Little Gidding. For details go to eliotsociety.org.uk 12-14 July – John Clare Festival, Helpston, Peterborough. For full details go to the website of the John Clare Society at johnclaresociety.blogspot.co.uk
Leanne Moden, the new Fenland Poet Laureate.
inspired by the fens in June. For full details go to the Trust’s website at wwt.org.uk I was recently in the Palmerston Arms on Oundle Road and I saw that they had a reading group meet there. For details I advise you pop in and see what’s on the blackboard (and have a drink). If people want to let me know about other book groups that meet in pubs, I think the Coalheaver’s Arms, the Fenman and the Ostrich host such evenings, email me at cardinalcox1@yahoo.co.uk This column marks three years of writing for Rhythm and Booze and I wondered if there were anything you folks wanted me to change about it. Email your suggestions to cardinalcox1@yahoo.co.uk A track by Cardinal Cox’s band from the late-80s/ early-90s, the Sonic Energy Authority, is included on This is Peterborough Goes Forth from Rowdy Farrago records.
Rhythm, Booze
The extended weekend that accompanies the May Day bank holiday sees two small but perfectly formed beer festivals in the east of the City. ‘Fortress Fengate’, home of Peterborough RUFC (www.prufc.com), hosts its 8 th Annual Beer Festival from 3-5 May. Billed as three days of food, fun and games, there’s live music on Friday and Saturday night and a veterans’ rugby match on Saturday. Over the river in Stanground, The Woolpack enjoys its Spring Beer Festival between 3 and 6 May. Following on from
last year, when the pub celebrated beers from breweries in the south-west, this year’s event features a distinctly Yorkshire flavour. On top of the pub’s home cooked menu, there will be a barbecue with live music – provided by Ian Graham and Kat Moore at 9pm on Saturday 4 May, and Joe Solo from 4pm on Sunday 5 May. Knobworth – in aid of Prostate Cancer UK – returns to the Angel Inn (angelinnyarwell.com), Yarwell on 4 and 5 May. Located on the border between Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire, the
village even has it’s own railway station. Operated by the Nene Valley Railway (www.nvr.org.uk), it’s perfect for visitors during the daytime (the last train back is at 16.05) and will be one of the last times Thomas is in steam before his tenyear overhaul. The following Wednesday (8 May) is the 7 th Annual Castor & Ailsworth Beer Festival. Held at the Prince of Wales Feathers (princeofwalesfeathers.co.uk), it runs until 13 May and on top of the 30 Real Ales (some of which come from the village’s own brewery), ciders and perries, is a
and Barbecues
From left to right: At last year’s festival, drinkers at The Woolpack in Stanground were able to enjoy beers from the southwest. Pogues’ tribute band The Dead Rabbits are appearing at The Prince of Wales Feathers, Castor. More than £1,600 was raised at last year’s Knobworth at The Angel Inn, Yarwell.
programme of live music from New Generation Crash and Burn (9 May), the Definitely Maybes (10 May) and Dead Rabbits (11 May). The Crown, Lincoln Road (thecrownonline.co.uk) is running two events with a difference on both Bank Holiday weekends. Its Super Cider Weekend takes place between 4 and 6 May, offering at least 12 different ciders, while 25 to 27 May is the Bonkers Bottled Beer Weekend, which offers at least 40 different bottled beers. Both weekends will feature live music (check the listings page for more), food and Beat The Landlord,
your chance to win a drink. The Dragon at Werrington is holding a Charity Beer Festival – raising funds for the Respiratory Sleep Study Unit at Papworth Hospital – during the late May Bank Holiday Weekend. Running from Friday 24 until Monday 27 May, 18 real ales will be on offer, along with hot food and live music. The Welland Valley Beer Festival, which runs between 7 and 9 June, is a celebration of pubs as much as it is beer. Taking place at 10 of the region’s pubs, an estimated 250 beers will be available over the weekend,
along with food and live entertainment. On Saturday 8 June vintage buses will be operating a shuttle service between the pubs. A twoway route runs from Market Harborough to Rockingham Crossroads, while a circular route goes between Gretton Seaton and Lyddington. For further information, including bands, menus and bus timetables, visit wellandvalleybeerfestival.co.uk nIf you’ve got a beer festival at your pub in July and August, send all details by email to simonstabler@aol.com by Friday 7 June.
Hand & Heart
12 Highbury Street. Peterborough PE1 3BE 01733 564653
A traditional back-street pub with up to six real ales at any time nBeer garden and stage for live music nTraditional pub games nTraditional cider and perry available nCAMRA Cambridgeshire Pub of the Year 2010 nCAMRA Gold Award Winner 2010 nLocAle Accredited nListed in the CAMRA 2012 Good Beer Guide nCheck our Facebook page ‘Friends of the Hand & Heart’ for updates on beer festivals and live music
Prince of Wales Feathers
Peterborough Road, Castor Peterborough PE5 7AL www.princeofwalesfeathers.co.uk 01733 380222
7th ANNUAL CASTOR & AILSWORTH BEER FESTIVAL 8th-13th May The Brewery Tap for Castor Ales
30 Real Ales Ciders and Perries
'Live Music with Pogues & Oasis Tribute Bands'
REVIEWS vocals and given the variety of influences, this is one of the few times that an album can be described as ‘a mixed bag’ in a nice way. Chas & Dave @ Stamford Corn Exchange, 7 March 2013
New England By Chris Porsz * Available locally and from www.chrisporsz.com In the late-70s and early-80s, when the most ambitious plans to turn Peterborough into a new town were taking shape, amateur photographer Chris Porsz would tramp the city’s streets. Armed with – at first – a Kodak Instamatic, he used his film sparingly to capture all aspects of human life at work, rest and play. As fatherhood took hold, his hobby was sidelined until almost 30 years later when he decided to send a couple of photos to the editor of the ET. These visual time capsules gathered so much interest that he was given a weekly column – The Paramedic Paparazzo, a nod to his day job – and now the owner of a digital camera, and no longer encumbered by the expense of roll film, returned to the streets both at home and abroad. This book collects almost 150 of those early photographs capturing a city in transition, not to mention an assortment of hairstyles and fashion choices.
Pennyless Tales From the Tulgey Wood www.pennyless-music.co.uk Opening with a cover of Donovan’s Jabberwocky, the Lewis Carroll poem that gives the CD its name, this ten-track album of new material and rearrangements of traditional pieces offers a new slant on folk music. Despite the jigs and reels (Matterhornpipe), occasional tweeness (Tell It To The Bees) and a plethora of instruments such as a melodica, cajon and djembe, the Neil Young-esque Way Over Yonder and the electric guitar threaded Winter Is Gone and The Caretaker make this an album far removed from big beards and knitting your own cider as possible. Much of this is down to the varied origins of the three band members; guitarist Les Woods has form in a collection of blues bands, violinist Penny Stevens is classically trained and, despite a synthpop past, Graham Dale is responsible for many of the more unusual instruments. Wood’s world-weary voice contrasts nicely with Stevens’ ethereal
When Dave Peacock announced his retirement in 2009, many thought that it was game over for Chas & Dave. But like many retirees, Dave decided to do something to stave off the boredom. Instead of going part-time at B&Q, he reunited with Chas Hodges for some – if the gig schedule’s anything to go by – almost full-time R&B. Sadly poor-visibility on the A1 meant that I missed the first half, their old pub set which closed with 1979’s Gertcha but was in time for hour-long second half. All the favourites were there including Margate, Rabbit, The Sideboard Song and Snooker Loopy, which was followed by last year’s Got My Tickets for the Darts. Written, like Snooker Loopy, was written at the behest of sports promoter Barry Hearn, its easy to pick up chorus, this new track fitted in nicely with the rest of the set, which closed with Ain’t No Pleasing You. A reprise of The Sideboard Song for the encore persuaded much of the crowd to prise themselves from their seats and regain their circulation with a bit of a dance at the front.
LISTINGS
The Crown 749 Lincoln Road Peterborough PE1 3HD 0843 523 5181 May
03 - Psych O Bombs (9pm) 04 - Party Night (7pm) 05 - Willow Festival Acoustic Showcase (3pm) 10 - The Blues Volcano (9pm) 11 - FA Cup Final Party 17 - Zeb Rootz (9pm) 19 - Willow Festival Acoustic Showcase (3pm) 24 - Uncertain Midnight (9pm) 25 - Uncertain Midnight (9pm) 26 - Crown Comedy Club (8pm) 27 - Quick Pub Quiz (8pm) 31 - Biggsy (9pm) June 02 - Willow Festival Acoustic Showcase (3pm) 07 - Open Mic Night (3pm) 14 - Tom Wright (9pm) 16 - Willow Festival Acoustic Showcase (3pm) 21 - James Edmonds (9pm) 28 - Rockers (9pm) 30 - Willow Festival Acoustic Showcase (3pm) The Hand & Heart 12 Highbury Street Peterborough PE1 3BE 01733 564653 May 02 - Open Mic Night 16 - Captain Backwash & the Barley Boys and
Girl Rafter Raisers 30 - Cheese Club
15 – Be Bop A Lulas 20 – The Ash Mandrake Act
June
The Prince of Wales Feathers 38 Peterborough Road Castor Peterborough PE5 7AL 01733 380222
06 - Open Mic Night 20 - Captain Backwash & the Barley Boys and Girl Rafter Raisers 27 - Cheese Club
May The Ostrich Inn 17 North Street Peterborough PE1 2RA 01733 746370
04 - The Overdubs 09 - New Generation Crash and Burn 10 - Definitely Maybes 11 - The Dead Rabbits
May 03 - Little Dave 04 - The Wash 10 - Al Chapman 11 - The Limit 18 - Grumpy Old Men 24 - Faster Mutley 25 - Pennyless 26 - Charity Day (Bands TBC) June 01 - The Vintage Stuff 08 - The Influence 14 - Psych O bombs 15 - The Mistreated 22 - Frankly My Dear 28 - The Kurmújun 29 - Skulduggery The Palmerston Arms 82 Oundle Road Peterborough PE2 9PA 01733 565865 June
The Woolpack 29 North Street Stanground Peterborough PE2 8HR 01733 753544 May 04 - Ian Graham & Kat Moore 05 - Joe Solo (4pm) All listings given in good faith, Rhythm & Booze cannot be held responsible for any discrepancy. All events are listed free of charge, to ensure inclusion in the July/August issue, or have any other news included in the magazine, please email simonstabler@aol.com before 7 June 2013. Entry cannot be guaranteed for late submissions.
09 – Joe Solo (3pm)
Rhythm & Booze, Issue 19 - May/June 2013. All written material, unless otherwise stated, © Simon Stabler
The Palmerston Arms 82 Oundle Road, Peterborough PE2 9PA Tel: 01733 565865
Vinyl Night
(24th May, 21st June) Bring your favourite record along.
Philosophy Night
(Date TBC via Facebook) Share ideas about life's big questions in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere.
Lazy Sundays
Enjoy Peterborough’s finest acoustic acts, every Sunday from 3pm.
Every Sunday Quiz
Free Buffet. Cash Prizes. Win a weekend in Norfolk. Starts at 7.30pm. For more live music and events, please see our Facebook page O p e n i n g T i m e s : Monday - Thursday 15.00 - 23.00 Friday and Saturday 12.00 - 00.00 Sunday 12.00 - 23.30
The Woolpack North Street, Stanground, Peterborough PE2 8JF (01733) 753544
Stanground's Best Kept Secret - A 15 minute walk from the centre of town n Open all day, every day n Up to four real ales available n Food served Tuesday to Sunday lunchtimes and Monday to Saturday evenings n Quiz on Sunday evenings with cash prizes
Spring Beer Festival 3-6 May Real ales from Yorkshire, barbecue and live music from: Saturday 4 May - Ian Graham & Kat Moore (9pm) Sunday 5 May - Joe Solo (4pm)