Cyclists prepare for hospice's Tour de Jersey race
He added: "As well as the Mini Tour for those just starting out, the new 11km Bay Tour is designed for confident young riders or families wanting a scenic spin. "There is then the Railway Tour for those ready to go a bit further, and more experienced riders can opt for the 50km Half Tour or the 100km Full Tour."
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Telegraph
14 hours ago
- Telegraph
The joys of an English beer garden – and my pick of the very best
On a recent Friday afternoon, the garden at Tuckers Grave, a legendary cider-focused pub in Somerset, was abuzz with human activity – and canine activity, too. A spaniel was loudly insistent that he should meet a nearby Alsatian; happily, his human companions quickly acquiesced. Before long they were chatting to the Alsatian's owners, too. When the sun shines, the action at England's best pubs moves outdoors. Not all of them have a garden, but those that do have made very good use of them recently. I spent the period from March to June touring the country, conducting last-minute research for my guide to England's 500 best pubs. The weather was superb, more often than not. Pub gardens from Newcastle to Zennor in Cornwall resounded to the hubbub of happy drinkers. There was the Bridge Inn in Topsham, where cyclists queued at a hatch for beer and sandwiches before taking a seat with a view of the delightful Clyst river; more cyclists at the Plasterers Arms in Hoylake, first to the bar when it opened at 12pm before claiming a spot in the sun outside; exuberant Geordie youth at the Free Trade Inn in Newcastle, enjoying the last rays of a glorious April weekend overlooking the Tyne; and dozens of drinkers in the garden at the Fleece, Bretforton, where the grassy outdoor space stretches endlessly away into the distance. Some outdoor spaces reflect their locality in an uncanny fashion. I'm thinking of the large yard at The Barrels in Hereford, packed with young and old on an overcast Saturday evening, more like a town square than a pub garden; or the hillside garden at The Fox and Goose in charming, quirky Hebden Bridge, accessed via a staircase inside the pub. This languid space, pockmarked with flora and patios, stretches far up the adjoining hill. When I visited recently I watched a man climb up and up, until finally he found a spot in the sunshine. A modern phenomenon – with German roots These gardens seem quintessentially English, but they haven't always played such a key role in our pub culture. They enjoyed a boost between the wars, when middle-class disapproval led to the phenomenon of the 'Improved Pub', which aimed to do away with the gin-drenched excesses of Victorian England (there was a renewed campaign in the Sixties and Seventies, too, driven in part by brewery-run competitions to find the prettiest gardens). At pubs like the now demolished Downham Tavern in South London, opened in 1930, family-friendly gardens formed a key part of the battle against overindulgence. This Presbyterian instinct has nothing to do with Bavaria, where beer comes second only to God, but the term 'beer garden' surely does. It is a direct steal from the German biergarten, and the tradition of drinking outside has deeper roots there, too. There are few pleasures in life greater than settling in under a chestnut tree at a Bavarian biergarten on a warm day. Many of the best examples are in Franconia, Bavaria's northern third, although my favourite is in Austria: the Augustiner Braustübl in Salzburg. England's beer gardens are a bit different from their Germanic cousins, though. They're less well organised, for a start, a rather on-the-nose reflection of our divergent national characters. The best often have a slightly ramshackle feel, with mismatched tables here and there, both in and out of the sunshine; people stand, pints in hand or perched precariously on window sills and walls. They can be chaotic, uproarious, a vision of Hogarthian excess – although in that regard, at least, there's a definite kinship with Munich's classic biergarten. They're lovely when quiet, too. One of the great joys is arriving on a warm afternoon to discover you have a magnificent beer garden all to yourself. This happened to me at the Ypres Castle in Rye, where the garden sits beneath Rye Castle and looks out across Romney Marsh. In that respect it's like many of the best beer gardens: comfortable and bucolic, with plenty of space and a marvellous view over the English landscape. You might get a wasp in your beer, but it doesn't seem so bad if you've got something nice to look at. By and large, I think, the best beer gardens are in the countryside – but they're no more cherished than those in our cities. The tables outside the Lord Clyde in Borough, for example, are nothing to write home about, but with the pub's gorgeous tiled exterior looming over them, they fill up fast at the end of the working day. I've found myself here on more than a few occasions. Many of us, I'm sure, had our first pub experience in a garden somewhere, enjoying a glass of pop and a packet of crisps. Perhaps that's why we enjoy them so much, or perhaps it's because, as on that sunny afternoon at Tucker's Grave, they often show us at our relaxed, sociable best – dogs as well as humans.
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Telegraph
Racing's Alan Partridge bows out after 60 years
It is fair to say that in Derek Thompson, who hung up his binoculars after his final call at Wolverhampton this week bringing an end to 60 years as a commentator, racing didn't appreciate what it had until it was gone. Like a long list of people, he has wrestled for years with picking the right moment to 'retire' – although he will still commentate in Jersey, continue race-day presentations and, I dare say, open a betting shop for a fat fee if one ever opens again. 'Tommo' has also surprised himself by feeling nothing but quiet relief since calling home Space Bear in the It's A Photo – Big Fella Maiden Fillies Stakes (a race title concocted from Tommo-isms). At the end of the month, Tommo, who like his greatest friend Bob Champion survived cancer (2012) and, three years ago, had a stroke, will be 75, old enough to hang up his bins but just too young to have been a true pioneer of radio and television sports coverage, although he presided over plenty of firsts. Nevertheless, he has worked with some of the greats and there were three decades when, in racing at least, he was ubiquitous, a staple on mainstream terrestrial racing coverage. If a difficult question needed asking, perhaps of a trainer whose horse had just been pipped in the Derby, all the other presenters looked to him. If you added up all the hours he has spent on live television it would come to years, so it is no wonder there have been a few gaffes along the way. These include the one which makes every compilation of television bloopers ever made when, from the At The Races studio where he was presenting, the camera cut to Ludlow where Robert Cooper was waiting to interview someone with very blonde hair, an assistant groundsperson, about the state of the ground. 'Oh, you've been joined by a beautiful lady,' said Tommo, interrupting himself. 'It's actually a man, Derek,' replied the extremely dry Cooper. 'Oh,' whispers a defeated Tommo. #AccidentalPartridge — Accidental Partridge (@AccidentalP) December 20, 2018 If, as is probably the case, half the population remember Brian Johnston and Jonathan Agnew more for their 'leg-over' commentary on TMS during the 1993 Edgbaston Test than all the serious stuff they did together, then maybe it is no bad accolade to be best remembered for unintentionally amusing the masses. For Thompson it all began up in North Yorkshire. After the War his dad, Stanley, a flight-sergeant who flew 40 sorties in Wellington bombers, set up a steel business which evidently went well enough to pay for Tommo and his brother Howard to have riding lessons. They had a pony each, joined the Cleveland Hunt where they met a young Bob Champion, whose father hunted the hounds and, as a sideline, drove the knacker wagon at Redcar, which enabled the three boys to get into the races for free. Devoid of anyone to interview one day, John Rickman of ITV racing fame, put a microphone under their noses and asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up. 'I said I wanted to be a TV interviewer,' recalls Tommo of the prescient moment. 'Bob said he wanted to win the Grand National, and Howard said he wanted to go into the family steel business which he still does. We were probably only 11.' His father was one of the first point-to-point commentators but halfway through a race at Great Ayton he turned off his mic briefly, turned to his 15-year-old son, told him he could no longer see the runners clearly enough in the back straight and said 'you take over' before handing him the microphone. He has had one in his hand ever since. He did his first racecourse commentary at Market Rasen in 1967, covered Redcar for BBC Radio Teesside and, aged 21, a full-time job at the BBC in London came up to take over from John Motson who was going to Match of the Day. He spent the next nine years learning the art and discipline of broadcasting alongside Des Lynam, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Bryon Butler, Alan Parry, Jim Rosenthal and Peter Jones. He was on the David Hamilton show and started a daily racing slot on the Today programme. 'I remember one morning describing something as 'quite unique' on the 6.25am slot,' he recalls. 'Ten minutes later, Cliff Morgan, the late, great head of sport, rang up and said: 'Something is either unique or not unique – it can't be quite unique.' I've never forgotten that!' In 1973 he commentated on his first Grand National alongside Michael Seth-Smith, Michael O'Hehir and Peter Bromley. Stationed at Valentines, when he handed over to Bromley as they crossed the Melling Road with two to jump, Crisp was still 30 lengths clear of Red Rum. 'I think Peter's description from the last to the line was the best I ever heard,' he remembers. Ironically by 1981, when his great friend Champion won on Aldaniti, he was already at World of Sport on ITV. 'I'd been to see him during his cancer treatment. He was lying in bed, unable to get out, throwing up every 30 seconds,' he recalls. 'I came out, sat in the car and cried my eyes out. Shortly after the race he rang me from the weighing room and said 'I've been watching you on television, you need to keep improving to keep your job. Got to go now – I've got the presentation.' It was so Bob.' In 1987 Tommo joined the newly formed Channel 4 Racing as a presenter until, in 2012, he and John McCririck were both sacked. Tommo got the 40-second call telling him his contract was not being renewed while in a car in his pyjamas on his way to hospital for his cancer treatment. 'It's a cruel world sometimes,' he reflects. But if McCririck went somewhat bitterly, Tommo just got his head down and kept working. Of course there were other downs. No one's reputation came off worse in the infamous Top Cees libel case in 1998 than Tommo when trainer Lynda Ramsden and jockey Kieren Fallon sued The Sporting Life after accusations that they had 'cheated' with the horse three years earlier. Having passed on what Fallon had allegedly told him in a pub at a pre-Channel 4 production meeting the following morning, rightly assuming it was all off the record, he was shocked that it later appeared in the 'Life.' When the judge disbelieved Thompson, it nearly destroyed him and his career. 'It was not a very good moment,' he recalls. 'Horrible. I remember going home, getting in the bath and crying. A number of jockeys wouldn't talk to me but I just told the truth and, actually, though everyone presumes we hate each other, I get on well with Kieren.' He had sort of made the decision to quit commentating at the end of this year but after a cock-up at Ayr in early January, he brought that forward to July. After two general anaesthetics in December, he had refused to stay in a hotel (by his own admission he is too tight with money) so got up at stupid o'clock to drive from Yorkshire to the west-coast course where, tired, he had got his horses in a muddle in the concluding bumper two furlongs out. He had rectified it a furlong later but the damage was done. 'I couldn't believe the abuse I got on social media,' he says. 'Much of it said I should have retired ages ago and I was very down about it. I got muddled but I was getting a bit erratic. Caroline [his wife] said I should go on social media the next day and put the story from my point of view – that got nearly a million views. (Few 74-year-olds have embraced social media quite like Tommo.) 'Having a stroke three years ago has made it a bit more difficult. It hasn't been as easy as it used to be so we brought it forward six months. I like working and I like making money – my nickname at school was 'Dosh' – but I didn't want people saying I should have packed up years ago. I think I've packed up somewhere near the top, although I've only put my bins down – I've still got the microphone.' A true professional, the voice of Dubai racing from 1994 to 2000, unstintingly genial, infectiously enthusiastic, the man who famously did not get the memo and beat Prince Charles in a charity race at Plumpton in 1980; someone who outwardly appears to have the skin of a rhino but is, according to his wife, a 'big softie inside' and 'Marmite' to some. It is doubtful Tommo will ever fully retire.
Reuters
2 days ago
- Reuters
OL Justin Pugh announces retirement after 11 seasons
July 25 - Offensive lineman Justin Pugh announced his retirement from the NFL on Friday. Pugh, who turns 35 in August, made his intentions known at East Rutherford, N.J., as a member of the New York Giants. "I've played here six of my 11 years in the NFL," Pugh said. "Not many players get to go out on their terms, and after 11 years playing in the NFL, I am officially retiring from the league. I thought I was going to do another one, but just didn't have it in the tank. I started losing weight and started feeling good, and didn't want to do a 12th year. "But like every little boy, I always dreamed of playing in the NFL ... I definitely never planned on making a block so Eli (Manning) could throw the ball down the field. I never dreamed of being an offensive lineman. I don't think any little boys are out there right now being like, 'Let me pass set and block in the playoffs to make something happen.' "What I realized, offensive line was the position that was for me. I was built perfectly for it, and it's something that you don't choose. Everyone wants to be that star position, but it's something that really defined me as a man, as a father and as a teammate." Pugh overcame a significant knee injury to play for the first time in more than a year on Oct. 15, 2023. The Giants dropped a 14-9 decision at Buffalo in a game that created a viral stir for how Pugh greeted the television audience during introductions on the NBC broadcast, saying he was "straight off the couch." Pugh spent his first five seasons with New York after the Giants selected him with the 19th overall pick in the 2013 NFL Draft. He then spent the next five campaigns with the Arizona Cardinals, although his 2022 season came to an end after five games following a torn ACL. Pugh, who did not play in the 2024 season, started 131 of the 132 games in which he appeared in the NFL. --Field Level Media
