Street BBQ at Cotham Porter Stores

Readers may expect us to complain that some people on foot were taking up valuable parking spaces. by having an in-street barbecue outside a pub. Not so
 

1. Cotham Porter Stores is a well known purvey of ciders at a very low price -£2.20 a pint at the right time of day.
2. There's enough space left to pull the van up and have a couple of pints or more before carrying on with the day's deliveries.

Rather than complain, we joined in.

Fuel Costs and motorbiking

We've heard sob stories about people having to go without food to keep their cars fueled up, but nobody has looked at the impact on the tradition of motorbiking to your mates to a pub. Not only are road taxes and petrol taxes on the rise, but beer taxes have gone up too.

This is a group of pub goers have been forced to cycle to the Vittoria on Whiteladies road pub for their afternoon beers; a row of chopper style pedal cycles lined up as a forlorn statement of a lost dream. Still, it adds to the beer money.

That blocked up building, The Ranch, is not damaged by any riot. It's just shut down -people aren't going out and drinking enough, so the Vittoria must welcome all traffic, even these push-biker-gangs

Looking at the zebra crossing, we can see someone didn't quite manage to make the corner here. At least that's one good thing of the plastic keep-left signs: they bend out your way and don't damage the paintwork.

This is the zebra crossing that the WoEP wanted to move away from the road crossings as part of the showcase bus route. Whatever the claimed reason, the real reason is now becoming clear: Tesco are putting in a mini-mart where the Texaco garage used to be.

As we've seen elsewhere in the city, a zebra crossing provides excellent short-stay parking opportunities for anyone nipping in to buy one or two items. Not petrol bombs though, as that bit of the site will be going away. Anyway, who could afford them?

RAC visiting the White Bear

We like coverage of pubs, today, the White Bea, which:

1. is in the student quarter
2. has free wifi
3. has a big white bear statue in front of it and one painted further up the wall.
4. has an RAC van up on the pavement in front of it next to the "no parking" signs

What's interesting about the RAC van VN07KYA is it is parked over new double yellow lines, as this area becomes residents parking in three weeks time. This will make driving to the White Bear trickier, except that as you can park free for 15 minutes in the zone, if the bar staff are nippy you've got time to park, grab a couple of pints, then carry on.