World Cup Road Trip
Three men in a motor
It was one of those ideas cooked up late one night, simmered in ale: buy the Fixer a chauffeur hat and have him drive us around Wessex in his fancy car, while we sit in the back with a bag of cans, stopping for fish and chips and picking pubs in which to watch the World Cup. It really couldn’t be described as a plan, but as I reminded the boys, if you don’t have a plan nothing can go wrong.
“Where is Wessex?”
“No one really knows.”
“Perfect.”
This World Cup is of course beset by controversy – corporate greed, travel bans, state harassment, cheez whizz – but if it can bring a group of simple fools together for a mess-about on the other side of the world then it’s still doing something right. There is plenty to moan about in this world, but we would do well to remember that we do not exist solely to moan.
“What about the fucking snoring?” moaned Moose when we told him the sleeping arrangements for the first couple of nights, at the Ship Inn, Porlock, Somerset: all bunked up together in a family room.
“We’re just as God made us,” I said.
“Yes, noisy bastards.”
Moose was to meet us in Porlock after an afternoon’s work assignment, a late train and cab dash from Taunton in order to hit last orders. Meanwhile the Fixer had picked me up in Bath in the Range Rover and we headed west. Or south. Or possibly both. I left it to him, to be honest. That’s what chauffeurs are for. After an hour we saw a sign for Cheddar and agreed to make a detour to see the famed gorge.
“I thought that was in Yorkshire,” said the Fixer.
“That would have been some wrong turn,” I said, as I consulted my phone. “Cheddar Gorge is an exhumed ravine,” I read aloud, as we wove through the dramatic limestone cliffs, “originally filled with Triassic rocks that were eroded out by glacial meltwaters some twelve thousand years ago.”
“I doubt it,” said the Fixer.
Cheddar is not only home to its remarkable gorge but also, of course, to the famous cheese, matured in the local caves which acted as a natural refrigerator.
“Should we stop and learn more about the cheddaring process?” I said.
“The game starts in ten minutes.”
“Philistine.”
“No, Cape Verde.”
Cheddar, I learned, is also where the world’s oldest complete skeleton was found, in 1903.
“Did he die from tucking into all the cheese?”
“Yes, that’s why they call it Cheddar Gorge.”
Pleased with ourselves we set about seeking a pub for Spain vs Cape Verde. We had a bet on that it would be a goal fest and were keen to watch our winnings roll in. At length, we pulled into the Windmill Inn, perched on the edge of the Quantocks, with sweeping views out to a distant sea. All it needed was some cask beer and the football but somehow it contrived to have neither. We were directed instead to the Williton Sports & Social Club.
“Do you know the area?”
“No.”
“Well it’s along Long Street.”
“A long, long street?”
“Yes, afore Fore Street.”
“A long, long street afore Fore Street?”
“Yes, past Fast Eddie’s and if you get to Gertie’s, you’ve gone too far.”
Pretty sure we were the victims of an elaborate joke, we set off and were astonished first to find ourselves on Long Street and then, just before Fore Street, to spot a sign for the Social Club.
“Are we OK to come in for a pint and the second half?” I enquired of the woman behind the bar.
“Only if you’re no trouble,” she said, eyeing the Fixer, his chauffeur’s hat pulled low on his brow, his eyes shaded. “Is he your bodyguard or something?”
“Something like that.”
We resisted the temptation to sign the Visitor’s book “Cheech and Chong”, bought a couple of Guinnesses and proceeded to lose a stack of money on the game. Well played Cape Verde and everything, but 0-0? Honestly.
Chastened, we sped to Porlock. We had a table booked for 7.30pm and we arrived at the Ship Inn in time to be shown to our quarters by the landlord before dinner. It’s one of those pub B&Bs that you give thanks still exists. Long corridors, low ceilings, creaky floorboards, zany exhibits, the lingering aromas of beer and fried food. It also turned out to be Somerset CAMRA Pub of the Year 2025, which was nice. Maybe our luck was turning.
We ordered two delicious pints of On The Level’s Somerset Pale to take through to dinner, quickly followed by another two, our charming waitress happy to run to the bar to oblige. Then it was a sunset stroll through the village to the Royal Oak to see if they had Egypt v Belgium on the box.
At the Oak a reveller at the bar greeted us and hopped behind the bar to serve us.
“Sorry for making you get up,” I said.
“Well, it is sort of my job,” he grinned and we thought, this place is alright.
The barman, for it was he, stuck on the telly for us in the pool bar, brought us a table, two pints of Somerset Dark with two bags of salted peanuts (for pudding), and introduced us to Cooper, his dog, who was a lot more fun than the game. But Lukaku helped to bundle in an equaliser and we were able to make our peace with the betting gods.
“I make that even. Call it one-one.”
“Or nil-nil.”
“Please don’t mention nil-nil.”
Back at the Ship, the Fixer floated the idea of an early night but the snug bar drew us in for a night cap. Four glasses of merlot later, we were still there, happily part of the local scene. Our waitress was in, with a couple of friends. I think it’s a good sign if staff like to have a tipple in the premises after they’ve knocked off. Mind you, in the sticks, you might not have much choice. Which is why I don’t live in the sticks.
The landlord told us of a walk to the coast at Porlock Weir, which also boasts a Ship Inn. The one we were in is known as the Top Ship, the one at Porlock Weir, Bottom Ship. We knew instinctively that this was what we were going to do tomorrow. Our ships had come in.
At 11.30pm, just as we were getting ready to turn in, Moose burst through the door.
“Let’s get right on it!” he cried.
We were allowed to take pints up to our room for the late game and all climbed into the Fixer’s kingsize bed to watch it, like we were Eric and Ern and Ern. At full time Moose and I returned to the twin bed section of the accommodation, where I was subjected to an endless soundscape of rustling, huffing, puffing, swearing, scrubbing, snorting and dry heaving as Moose first took out his contact lenses, then tried to put them back in again to go to the lavs as he’d lost his glasses, failed, had to clean up his piss from the bathroom floor after missing the toilet, dropped his toothbrush in the toilet brush holder, filled up a pint glass with water and then knocked it off the bedside table and into his suitcase. And he complains about a bit of snoring.
After a late breakfast we set off on the walk to Porlock Weir. The route the landlord had suggested took us through dank, ancient woodland, the leafy canopy of which threatened to shut out the sky completely and offered just glimpses of the salt marshes and the sea beyond.
“It’s like a rainforest,” said Moose, which, it turns out, it is – a rare remaining pocket of Atlantic rainforest, once prevalent across the land but now accounting for less than 1% of Great Britain. I found a rough, natural walking stick, thoughtfully left by someone for the next walker, its handle smoothed by human hand. I felt a connection with the world.
“I feel like this walk is topping up my soul,” said Moose. “And don’t say ‘Ah, soul’.”
I waited as long as I could.
“Ah, soul,” I said.
Three things I like doing are discovering pubs, sitting in pubs and sitting outside pubs. They’re not necessarily my three favourite things in the world, but they’re in my top four. So when we arrived, athirst, at the Bottom Ship, I was overjoyed to find we were allowed to take our pints out to the bench tables at the shore line, which sat on a grass hillock overlooking the Bristol Channel and out to Wales.
The Otter Amber ale was fabulous and served, most excellently given the warmth of the day, at the lower end of the accepted cask beer serving temperature spectrum. They had a new chiller at the pub and were showing it off.
“Cask ale is usually around 12 degrees.” I said excitedly to the boys, “This must be nearer eight or nine!” They nodded politely and talked about something else.
An afternoon session at a pub with chums, with no agenda and nothing in particular to do, is not just one of life’s finer pleasures, it can be productive, too. During the second pint, Moose, recently retired, told us of his plans to set up a sound relaxation business, in which paying customers experience gongs, bowls and cymbals being struck, in order to jostle the molecules, reset chakras and provide restorative meditative calm.
“It’s got to be better than the sounds I was getting last night, mate. What are you going to call it?”
“The working name is ‘Sounds Good’.”
“That’s too weedy,” said the Fixer.
“We want to steer clear of claiming specific health benefits and instead just focus on the fact that it makes you feel good…”
“How about Gongbang?”
“Gongbang?”
“As in, ‘We’re having a Gongbang, we’re having a ball’.”
Moose resolved to test it on the target market – his partner.
I was overcome with a sudden appreciation of our situation. Oh, these are the days, my friend. The hours, the minutes, the moments. Sitting, tipsy, shooting the fat and chewing the breeze; carefree, beneath the sky, beside the ocean, a plate of pasties on the way. Making each other laugh, yes, but also, unusually for men, opening up about past secrets, never before told to a soul.
“Do you know, I was in my 30s before I realised ‘pasty’, the snack, wasn’t pronounced the same as ‘pay-stee’, when you’re looking pale.”
“Gives new meaning to a pasty complexion.”
“Fanny Price was a wan, sombre child, with a face like a chicken, ham and leek pasty.”
In turbulent times, languor is resistance.
I left my walking stick at the table, a gift for the next person along. As St. Francis of Assisi said, “It is in giving that we receive”. Also, it was hurting my hand.
Back in Porlock the Fixer announced he was going for a lie down. Moose and I headed off to visit the little local museum which promised an exhibition about the formation of the marshes after the big storm of 1996, which seemed ridiculously recent in geomorphological terms, like Everest being thrown up last week. But we were disappointed to discover the museum had closed at four.
The world, we decided, was telling us to instead visit the Castle, the third of Porlock’s three pubs. There we were surprised to find the Fixer, sitting outside at a roadside table, three foaming pints in front of him.
“The fire alarm went off. Couldn’t sleep after that,” he said.
“And you got us a pint in!”
“No?” he said, confused.
That night, back in the snug bar at the Ship, we thanked the landlord for his tip about the walk to Porlock Weir and the Bottom Ship. Thinking ahead to tomorrow, I asked him where the maddest pub in the area was, a line of questioning that has paid dividends in the past (perhaps most memorably with the Red Lion at Snargate).
“That’ll be the Poltimore Arms, up on the moor,” he said, darkly. “Good luck with finding it, though. A lot of people never do.”
“How come?”
He leaned forward a little and lowered his voice.
“It’s very hard to find,” he said.
“Even with Google Maps?” said the Fixer.
“Google Maps?”
“Yeah, you know, on the phone?”
“Oh. You should be fine, then.”
The next morning, as we left the village to motor up onto the moors, I bade farewell to Porlock with a poem by Robert Southey, reputedly written while actually drinking in the Top Ship:
“Porlock, thy verdant vale so fair to sight, Thy lofty hills, which furze and fern embrown, The waters that roll musically down…”
Up on Exmoor, suddenly 500 feet above sea level, we had our own waters to contend with as we were enveloped in a cloud that swept over the tree-less heather moor. Some cows in the distance were sitting down, a sure sign of rains to come.
“Are they… normal cows?” said the Fixer as we got closer.
“Jesus. What the fuck are they? Buffalo?”
“I’m scared.”
It turns out the National Trust has indeed introduced a herd of water buffalo to Exmoor to help restore agricultural land back into wild wetlands. Their hooves churn the soil and their wallowing behaviour creates ponds, helping the moorlands manage water flow and resist floods and droughts. But looking again at the beasts before us we concluded these might be some other form of mad cow. Nevertheless, we stopped to tell them our buffalo joke, which they seemed to enjoy.
“What’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison?” bellowed the Fixer through the driver side window.
Eventually, thanks to the modern magic of Google Maps, a sign for the Poltimore Arms loomed out of the mists and we parked up to enjoy some of own wallowing behaviour. A plaque at the pub entrance read “Frederick Albert Hitler and partner Stephen Cotten. Licensed to sell intoxicating liquor for consumption on or off the premises and insult customers”.
For lovers of eccentric boozers, this was most encouraging, the more so when we discovered that Fred Hitler was the pub cat (now sadly deceased). The Poltimore Arms has no mains electricity, water or gas. Lighting is by candles and beer is gravity dispensed.
“It’s like the pub in Withnail,” said Moose, appreciatively.
“Let’s have a few ales,” I said
“Two large gins, two pints of cider, ice in the cider.”
We took a seat by the log burner and Moose got a message on his phone.
“‘Gongbang’ has been tested on the target market,” he announced.
“And?”
“The target market says ‘Grow up’.”
“Harsh, if fair.”
“We may need a further session on it.”
“Fuck, yeah.”
Heading back to Bath we stopped at Wells for a culture break – a flying visit to the famous cathedral. We spotted it immediately and were surprised to be able to park right next to it.
“It’s not up to much, is it?” said Moose, as we approached the entrance.
“It’s certainly not an Ely or a Lincoln.”
“Maybe because it’s not the cathedral.”
“Eh?”
“It says St. Cuthbert’s Church.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“Cuthbert, you terrible cunt.”
“Cuntbert.”
Timing issues forced us to push on to Bath. We figured Wells Cathedral would still be there next time we were passing. For now, we had to find that night’s accommodation and pick a place for dinner – and then there was the small matter of England’s first World Cup game.
“It’s work, work, work,” said Moose, before taking a snooze in the back seat.
Turned out we needn’t have worried. We discovered our digs were in Trim Street, round the corner from The Raven of Bath, “famed for its ever-changing selection of real ales and pie and mash”. More Otter Amber and three pies were routinely dispatched and we still had a couple of hours before the game.
On a post prandial stroll by the river we came across The Snug which offered a large outside courtyard and a giant screen set up for the game. It must surely be all reserved, we thought, but we enquired anyway, of a young woman in an England T-shirt.
“Lots of spaces at the moment but it is £8.50 to come in,” she said, a little sheepishly, adding, “That does come with a free drink, though.”
“£8.50?” I said. “That’ll do us.” Little did she know that I paid that for a pint alone in Herne Hill last week.
“There’s still a couple of hours to kick off but you’d be best bagging a table now,” she advised.
“Not a problem.”
If there’s one thing I’d learned about these boys during our trip it was that we were good for sitting at a pub table for a few hours. And anyway, I had some magic mushroom juice to keep me going.
An elderly American couple joined our table while the fellers were at the bar. They were from Iowa, they said, and were excited about watching England play in the World Cup, in England.
“Whose flag is that?” asked the man, pointing at the huge St George’s Cross draped beneath the screen.
“Well, that’s England,” I said.
“You don’t say,” he said, and we had a little chuckle. When the boys came back with the drinks I introduced our new friends.
“They’re from Ohio.” I said.
“No, no,” the Americans chorused, “Iowa!”
“That’s what I said, Ohiowa.” And we had another chuckle. Really we’re all as confused as each other, especially when the mushrooms kick in.
In Bath, people actually sing the national anthem before an England game, which is an odd experience for a Londoner, where tolerance and multiculturalism trump monarchy and nationalism. But the Ohiowans seemed to enjoy it.
They got lucky, the Americans. England v Croatia was an outrageously entertaining game for one involving England and after a long evening of pints, pizza and psilocybin it was all I could do to drag myself to the little rum bar near our accommodation for a night cap to celebrate. I poured myself into bed around midnight and slept like a drugged up baby until the Fixer knocked on my door at 10 for breakfast.
Continuing the American theme we took an outside table at the Boston Tea Party cafe on Kingsmead Square where we were warned to watch out for hungry seagulls. Sure enough, the moment my smoked salmon was set on the table a raptor the size of a fucking spaniel swooped from behind, over my right shoulder, its beady eye on the pink folds of smoky fish. I just had enough wit about me to give it a sharp left hook and it returned to the skies, empty-beaked.
“When will this end, Sally?” I cried after it.
The Fixer complained of a feather in his cappuccino.
“And I think one of its teeth went in my shakshuka.”
“Teeth?”
“Don’t they have teeth? Like, you know, little tiny ones.”
Replete, and with our ornithological discussion at an end, we said cheerio to Moose who was heading north from Bath Station. I climbed into the Range Rover one last time for a lift to Chippenham to meet the iron horse to London. Though at the station I had trouble getting through the barrier.
“You’re twirly,” said the station master, checking my ticket.
“Am I? It must be the mushrooms.”
“No, twirly.”
“Haha. Yes. Can I get through?”
“But you’re twirly, twirly! Too. Early.”
Turned out I’d booked a later train than I thought and now had an hour and a half wait. I wasn’t entirely surprised. I couldn’t recall booking a train at all. Gotta love mushrooms.
But it mattered not. I was kindly allowed through the gate and for 90 idyllic minutes I sat, I strolled, I took a dump. I assisted an elderly couple who had left a bag on the Bath train. I watched the clouds. I picked a wife. I determined to write about my trip, for the benefit of future generations, yes, but mainly so I’d remember what a fine time we’d had. I would start immediately, I thought. But on the train, I accepted a cold tinnie from the trolley, leaned back and dreamed of Porlocks and pasties and gongbangs.
Image credit: Cheddar Gorge by Andrew Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0
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