John Kavanagh The Gravediggers

Imagine that one of your oldest and best friends runs a bunch of pubs and bars in Liverpool. And that, further to this, he is intending to go to Dublin for a couple of days in order to research the pubs there in anticipation of a new venture at home. 

And then imagine that he emails you, asking whether you'd like to go along as his wingman. 

And - in the less hypothetical version of the above scenario, as it happened to me - of course the answer was a resounding "YES!".

Kindly, the Minx made an early start with me, this morning, and dropped me at John Lennon airport at five-thirty, where I met up with Bob. The technicalities of check-in and security promptly dispensed with, we had a little breakfast, including a couple of Guinnesses to both steady the pre-flight nerves and to get us in the swing of things.

And once we were in Dublin, with our bags dropped off at the hotel, we set off on a longish morning walk, out to Glasnevin for our first pub, which goes by the slight mouthful of John Kavanagh The Gravediggers. (The site of today's Blip.)

It's a cracking pub, full of wooden booths and panelling, and we enjoyed a couple more Guinnesses as Bob cast a professional eye over the premises :-)

And that was the theme of much of the rest of our day: walking and pub-assessing, drinking and chatting. It was blissful.

PS We were also approached in one of the pubs for the obligatory "Are you Rob Gutmann?" question by a fan of The Anfield Wrap, of which Bob is one of the stars.