And the lesson for today is…

Only one thing prevents me from setting up a Best Worcester Pubs competition – as you’ll see!

Breaking news…  I see the Regional champions in the Great British Pub Awards 2014 have just been revealed and Worcester comes…  bloody nowhere!  This despite categories for Best Cask Beer Pub, Best Cider Pub/Bar, Best Wine Pub, Best Spirits Pub/Bar, Best Bar Team, Best Cellar, Best Partnership Pub (formerly Best Tenanted/Leased pub), Best Managed Pub, Best Freehouse, Best Community Pub, Best Turnaround Pub, Best Newcomer, Best Food Pub, Best Sports Pub, Best Entertainment Pub, Best Cider Pub and Best Family Pub.  In fact, the entire county is represented among the winners only once – and that for the consolation – some might even call it booby – prize of Best Loos (and goes to the Plough Inn, Far Forest, Kidderminster).  Now, the fact that the West Midlands is lumped in with Wales – never exactly a front-runner for overall quality that inevitably has to include what I used to call ‘The Friendly Factor’ in my earlier pub guides – makes it an even more disappointing showing and makes me wonder just how much first-hand research has gone into the subject by the likes of judges David Hancock, editor of the Alastair Sawday’s Pubs & Inns Guide; Alastair Gilmour, editor of pub magazine Cheers North East, pub guide inspector and Yorkshire Post columnist Amanda Wragg, industry journalist Phil Mellows and Rob Willock, editor of the Publican’s Morning Advertiser that also organised the awards. I tell you, I’m that choked we came nowhere when we can all name several pubs that could – hellfire, should – have made a reckoning here, I’m of a mind to set up a similar event of my own and that’d get ‘em talking alright!  It might even get some of Worcester’s own landlords off their arses and get their act together… but then again, it probably won’t. I make the comment as just two months ago I again (ie the third time) circulated all the City’s publicans with a request for information about their pubs for entry in the free Worcester Pubs website with the added offer of a free monthly newspaper centred specifically on the City and its rich heritage of pubs and an awards scheme – also free – just like the one announced this very day. Result? Three responses. There’s a lesson to be learned here, I’m thinking…