logo
See the 2 superb pubs named the best in Scotland at awards

See the 2 superb pubs named the best in Scotland at awards

The National25-06-2025
The Barrelman in Dundee was awarded the title of North Scotland Pub & Bar of the Year, while The Kenmuir Arms in Dumfries and Galloway was named South Scotland Pub & Bar of the Year.
A number of locations across the UK were recognised in their respective regions, with The Bull in Charlbury being named the country's best.
'Delightful' and ' superb' pubs and bars named the best in Scotland
The Barrelman in Dundee has received a lot of praise from patrons on Tripadvisor, with users giving the bar a 4.5/5 out of 397 reviews.
One happy visitor said of the National Pub & Bar Awards winner: "Dined here with my partner on Monday evening for a casual birthday dinner and we were not disappointed in the slightest.
"All of the staff were exceptionally welcoming and friendly. The drinks came quickly, and the cocktails were spot on."
Another added: "Really decent place with an indie feel to it. The staff were top-notch, and they helped create this atmosphere. Dog friendly also, which helped too. Food is decent with plenty of options."
The Kenmuir Arms was also commended by customers and dubbed a "superb" pub to visit.
One person said of the Dumfries and Galloway bar and hotel: "What a truly wonderful place with everything you need for an incredible stay.
"Excellent surroundings literally only 15 minutes from Glen Luce. The beautiful restaurant overlooks the stunning gardens and river."
Recommended Reading:
Another added: "Wholeheartedly agree with previous reviewers: Superb stay in this delightful small hotel with excellent food.
"Beth and Christopher were fantastic hosts. The whole premises are fresh and of a high standard.
"Both the Snug bar and the restaurants are welcoming, and the room facilities are comprehensive."
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

The most painful reality TV injuries ever, from torn vulva to 'accidental C-sec
The most painful reality TV injuries ever, from torn vulva to 'accidental C-sec

Metro

time2 days ago

  • Metro

The most painful reality TV injuries ever, from torn vulva to 'accidental C-sec

Celebrity SAS contestant Lucy Spraggan has recently made headlines after suffering one of the most painful injuries in TV history. Sharing details of the grisly injury, she described how she 'tore' her vulva while filming the reality TV competition. 'I ripped my labia – it was bad,' she told The Sun. 'That's not a common injury. Actually, genuinely, that's never been the same, so much so I'm having some surgery soon to correct it.' She went on to say how she didn't really know what had happened to cause the tear, guessing only that the harness she had been wearing 'was tight'. Lucy's injury may have been one of the worst suffered by a reality TV contestant, but she's far from the only one to have been gravely injured in the name of entertainment. Wake up to find news on your TV shows in your inbox every morning with Metro's TV Newsletter. Sign up to our newsletter and then select your show in the link we'll send you so we can get TV news tailored to you. Here's our run-down of the most painful injuries in all of reality television. As you might expect from a show which has celebrities speeding around an ice rink with sharp blades attached to their feet, Dancing on Ice has had no shortage of casualties over the years. The most serious of these was perhaps Olympian Greg Rutherford, who suffered a grisly injury when he fell and landed on his own ice skate. During the long and painful recovery period, Greg likened the injury to 'having a C-section.' In 2021, Denise van Outen was forced to pull out after an accident left her with three bone fractures and a partial dislocation. Talking about the incident on Instagram afterwards, Denise described the pain as 'unbearable.' Greg and Denise join the likes of Jennifer Ellison (who kicked herself in the head with her own skate), Josh Jones (injured during rehearsals) and Keith Chegwin, who suffered cracked ribs on the first day of the competition. In 2018, Love Island star Dani Dyer was forced to drop out of the South Africa-set ITV2 series after only one day. The injury occurred as Dani went headfirst down a waterslide, dislocating her shoulder on the way down. A source said: 'Dani knew straight away she had done serious damage but tried to continue as she didn't want to seem like a wuss. It was too much, though, and she was taken to the hospital.' Olympic gymnast Beth Tweddle's injuries sustained while filming ski competition The Jump are considered by many to be the worstto ever happen on a reality TV show. Beth was airlifted to hospital during rehearsals for the Channel 4 show, which took place at the show's ski jump set in Austria in 2016. According to Beth's lawyer, she sustained serious injuries, which included two fractured vertebrae, and required surgery on her spinal cord. In 2019, it was reported that Beth was suing the show's makers for £200,000 in damages. She claimed that she has never fully recovered from the incident, saying at the time: 'It's been a long journey and my recovery is still ongoing. I'm not sure I'll ever be 100% again.' A statement by production company TwoFour said: 'This matter is being dealt with by our insurers and we are unable to comment as the claim is ongoing.' Beth was one of many celebrities who sustained serious injuries on the show, including Tina Hobley (broken arm), Mark-Francis Vandelli (fractured his ankle), Rebecca Adlington (dislocated shoulder) and Sarah Harding (injured knee). Following these high-profile celebrity injuries, The Jump was put on indefinite hiatus in 2018. After injuring his leg during training for the ITV diving competition Splash! Crimewatch presenter Rav Wilding was rushed to hospital with a blood clot on a lung on New Year's Eve. Not only did Rav's injury spoil his Christmas, but he also struggled to find work afterwards, and was forced to cancel his wedding to fiancée Jill Morgan. 'It breaks my heart that Jill and I had to cancel our wedding,' he told The Guardian at the time. When former MP Louise Mensch took part in the Channel 4 series in 2019, she was forced to drop out after ripping a muscle. 'After I quit, which I had to, I was completely injured, I wasn't going to let the team take punishment for me,' she told 'Every step was painful and they had me checked out at hospital and I had a three and a half centimetre rip in the back of my muscle, so literally every step was painful.' Not quite as grisly as a torn vulva, but still pretty painful. Former EastEnders star Nigel Harman had been one of the favourites to win Strictly in 2023. While his fortunes ultimately varied on the show, his journey came to an end when he broke a rib while training for the quarter-finals. He explained: 'I was leaping off a rostrum, and was about to be caught by some very handsome men, and as I flew, I was Peter Pan, and as I landed, I was in A&E. 'It's quite painful. This hasn't really sunk in. I've been avoiding Katya all day because that makes it really real as well.' It's not just the contestants who need to watch out; sometimes, the hosts find themselves in harm's way. More Trending While rehearsing for I'm A Celebrity spin-off Extra Camp in 2018, host Joel Dommett suffered a gnarly injury when he was struck on the head with a sign. He was subsequently rushed to hospital, where he was given seven stitches and the day off to recover. Before that, in 2005, former Neighbours star Kimberley Davies fractured a rib after jumping 15ft from a helicopter in a Bushucker trial. View More » Kimberley returned to camp but quit mere hours later, after being unable to cope with the immense pain. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Who is on Strictly Come Dancing 2025? Full line-up of contestants revealed MORE: Strictly's Nadiya Bychkova spotted for first time after 'scary' fall left her hospitalised MORE: Who is Thomas Skinner? Strictly backlash and controversies explained

The 6ft 10in Nigerian giant who played Ridley Scott's first Alien
The 6ft 10in Nigerian giant who played Ridley Scott's first Alien

Telegraph

time2 days ago

  • Telegraph

The 6ft 10in Nigerian giant who played Ridley Scott's first Alien

The original Alien Xenomorph was discovered not in a glowing egg on a faraway planet or scuttling around a gloopy nest, but down the pub. That's where Peter Archer, one of the film's casting directors, first clapped eyes on Bolaji Badejo, a 6ft 10in Nigerian graphic design student. The film's director, Ridley Scott, needed an extremely tall, slender, long-limbed person to fit inside the alien suit, as designed by Swiss artist HR Giger. Badejo was perfect for the gig. 'How would you like to be in movies?' Archer asked him. Badejo was later described as reserved, mild-mannered and polite. One special effects crew member dubbed him as, quite simply, 'the quiet man'. But he brought the terrifying Xenomorph to life – a primal, skin-crawling, strangely elegant monster that spawned a franchise, which now continues with the TV series Alien: Earth. The Sigourney Weaver -starring original put Badejo through the space wringer. Barely able to see and sweating buckets in that Alien head, he was forced to squeeze into a spaceship crevice for hours and hours, almost passed out as he was hung upside down, and started to suffocate as he dangled in the air and unfurled from a cocoon-like state. Elsewhere, he battled a stressed, stingy producer who fired obscenities at him. But Badejo, who was not an actor, took it all on the alien chin and only complained out loud when he was back in the pub with Giger. It would be his only film role; Badejo tragically died at just 39 years old from sickle cell anaemia, which he'd been diagnosed with as a child. Born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1953, Bolaji Badejo grew up as one of six children in an affluent, influential family. His father, Victor, was director general of the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. Living through a three-year civil war in Nigeria, the family moved to Ethiopia in 1972, where Badejo studied fine art, and later to San Francisco. The family then relocated to England, where Victor became a vicar. Badejo decided to study graphic design in London, which is when Archer first saw him – propping up the bar of a Soho student pub. Finding an actor, performer, or, indeed, anyone of the right proportions had proved, well, a tall order. Scott's team had looked at basketball players, models and even a trio of circus contortionists (who the director had considered packing into the suit like Muppets disguised in a trenchcoat). They also considered the 7ft 3in actor Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca in Star Wars. But none had been the right fit for their Xenomorph. 'We started with a stunt man who was quite thin, but in the rubber suit he looked like the Michelin Man,' recalled Scott in 2008. 'So, my casting director said, 'I've seen a guy in a pub in Soho who is about 7ft tall, has a tiny head and a tiny skinny body.' So, he brought Bolaji Badejo to the office.' 'As soon as I walked in, Ridley Scott knew he'd found the right person,' Badejo said in a 1979 interview. Special effects supervisor Nick Allder later told CNN about the first time he saw Badejo, who was just 24 when production began at Shepperton and Pinewood studios. 'Ridley walked in with this guy. I thought I was looking at a giraffe,' Allder said. 'Stood in the doorway, you could see his body, but his head was above the frame.' Allder added: 'He did keep inside himself, quite a bit. Being on a film set must have been quite strange for him. To have been the centre of attraction… it was a bit of a shock to him.' They created a body cast of Badejo, for which he had to pose naked and totally still. The finished Alien costume, made by Giger, was constructed from latex, consisting of various sections that fit together over a black onesie. The suits – worn by Bolaji and a stuntman (who took over for more dangerous action scenes) – cost more than $250,000 (£184,000). Scott had quite specific ideas about what he wanted from Bolaji in alien mode. 'I don't want to see him running around,' he told his crew during production. 'Every time we see him, I want him in a new pose. I want him basically balancing on one finger on occasion, you know? Every movement is going to be very slow, very graceful, and the alien will alter shape so you never really know exactly what he looks like.' To prepare for the physicality of the role, Badejo studied tai chi and mime and practised stalking the corridors of the Nostromo spaceship wearing a mock-up alien head. 'I had to keep my head up straight. That was the secret of wearing the suit,' Badejo explained about his performance. 'It was terribly hot, especially the head. I could only have it on for about 15 or 20 minutes at a time. When I took it off, my head would be soaked.' The alien is sparsely seen in the finished film – that's part of its brilliance – and relatively few of Bolaji's scenes made the final cut. One scene, however, sees the Xenomorph stalk and kill crew members Parker and Lambert, played by Yaphet Kotto and Veronica Cartwright respectively. 'The idea was that the creature was supposed to be graceful as well as vicious, requiring slow, deliberate movements,' Bolaji told the sci-fi magazine Cinefantastique. 'But there was some action I had to do pretty quick. I remember having to kick Yaphet Kotto, throw him against the wall and rush up to him. Veronica Cartwright was really terrified. After I fling Kotto back with my tail, I turn to go after her, there's blood in my mouth, and she was incredible. It wasn't acting; she was scared.' Weaver recalled that Ridley Scott kept Badejo away from the Nostromo crew to create a sense of separation and man vs monster. 'Bolaji was about 7ft tall and looked like he came from a different universe anyway, and they made up this alien suit for him,' Weaver said in 2010. 'Ridley was very careful not to have him standing around, drinking tea with us during breaks, and because he was kept apart from us and we never chatted, when it came to seeing him as this creature during a scene, it was electrifying. It didn't feel that we were acting scared at all.' Elsewhere, though, Kotto stood up for Badejo, who kept missing his marks because of the conditions in the suit and his restricted eyesight. A producer, stressed by the cost of wasted time, furiously swore at Bolaji. According to a story told by Dan O'Bannon, the Alien screenwriter, Kotto 'physically intervened' and warned the producer, 'Leave the brother alone!' Badejo worked on the film for around four months, and was repeatedly called back in for reshoots as they figured out problems around shooting the monster. It proved tricky to get the cumbersome beast to do exactly what Scott envisioned, and they were long, tough, sweaty, sometimes painful days for Badejo, who suffered for his art inside the alien. 'That poor thing was in that suit all day long,' said Cartwright. For starters, no one had thought about the fact he couldn't sit down with all his biomechanical extremities and huge, lashing tail. It took actor Tom Skerritt (playing Nostromo captain Dallas) to point out their monster's obvious discomfort. The crew built a swing seat so Bolaji could take off an alien load. Talking in a retrospective documentary, Skerritt also remembered Badejo walking around the set, talking politics with the wardrobe lady and wearing bright blue Adidas trainers with his Xenomorph costume. One of Badejo's most uncomfortable moments came as he was suspended in the air. 'Ridley had a lot more ideas than what you see on the screen, but some things were impossible,' Badejo explained. 'There was one part where I was hanging from a wire about 10ft or 15ft above the ground, and I curled up. I was like a cocoon of my own, and I come out very slowly and stretch all out. But I couldn't do it. I was held up by a harness around my stomach, and I was suffocating trying to make those movements.' For another scene that didn't make the cut, the crew strapped him to a big arm contraption that raised upwards, sending him 20ft in the air. But when it came back down, he was flipped upside down and got dizzy as the blood rushed to his head. He refused to do it again. When the stuntman performed the exact same manoeuvre, the stuntman fainted. It wasn't the only time Badejo said no. He also declined to share the alien head with handfuls of maggots, which were supposed to squirm in the translucent part of the head to give the impression of a squelching brain. The head was, however, smeared with lubricant jelly, which was used for the alien's slobber. 'They must have had about 2,000 tubes of KY Jelly, just to get the effect of that slime coming out of his mouth,' Badejo said. For the final scenes, in which the alien follows Weaver's Ripley on to an escape shuttle and emerges from a narrow crevice in the wall, he had to clamber in and out of the cramped space and squeeze himself in there for a day and a half. As Badejo put it: 'There was a lot of smoke, it was hard to breathe, and it was terribly hot.' Badejo did express interest in playing the alien again in a potential sequel, but continued training in graphic design and commercial art. He returned to Nigeria in 1980 and ran an art gallery. Dancer Carl Toop took over the main Xenomorph duties for James Cameron 's 1986 sequel, Aliens. In 1983, Badejo lost a brother to sickle cell anaemia and struggled with the disease himself in the following years. His wife, Yinka, would say that Badejo 'never let having sickle cell anaemia affect his life. He coped with it as best he could'. He died in Lagos on December 22 1992, leaving behind Yinka and their two children. Though he went unrecognised for his only film role, Badejo helped create one of cinema's most enduring monsters. As Badejo said at the time, 'The fact that I played the part of the Alien, for me, that's good enough.'

MAFS star Cam Woods doesn't look like this anymore! Hard partying long-haired lothario unrecognisable as he undergoes dramatic transformation after giving up one BIG vice
MAFS star Cam Woods doesn't look like this anymore! Hard partying long-haired lothario unrecognisable as he undergoes dramatic transformation after giving up one BIG vice

Daily Mail​

time2 days ago

  • Daily Mail​

MAFS star Cam Woods doesn't look like this anymore! Hard partying long-haired lothario unrecognisable as he undergoes dramatic transformation after giving up one BIG vice

For years, Cam Woods' favourite thing to do was to enjoy a beer at the pub after knocking off from a long FIFO shift. But his love for a cold one was taking a toll on the 30-year-old tradie, and earlier this year he decided to give up the grog and trade in his bad habits for a new healthy lifestyle. This week Cam, who appeared on the Channel Nine dating show in 2023, unveiled his remarkable transformation and it's all thanks to transformative mental toughness program, 75 Hard. Cam told Daily Mail he decided to overhaul his life after realising he was stuck in a rut. 'I think the reason why I did 75 Hard is because I was just stuck in a pattern back at home where I was unfit, unhealthy and making bad choices,' he admits. 'Not bad like breaking the law – just unhealthy. I'd eat s*** food, drink a f*** tonne of beer, and really let loose. I obviously know how to party, but I needed to give myself a target.' The 75 Hard program - made famous by US entrepreneur Andy Frisella - requires participants to follow a strict daily routine for 75 consecutive days. It includes two workouts a day, a clean eating plan, reading 10 pages of a non-fiction book, drinking four litres of water, and zero alcohol or cheat meals. For Cam, it's been a game-changer. 'I'm stubborn. So if people say I can't do something, I want to prove them wrong,' he says. 'It's been really good. I've been reading books, which, if you'd asked me a year ago, I would have told you to stick the book up your a***. But it's opened my mind. I'm seeing things differently now and not jumping to conclusions. You can't change people, and that's okay.' The program has kept him off the booze and in the best shape of his life. 'I don't think I'll be drinking as much as I used to. Right now, I'm the fittest, healthiest and strongest I've ever been. I'm putting on a bit of size, eating heaps of food, and it's all down to consistency,' he says. Cam's routine is relentless - a morning gym session followed by an afternoon CrossFit workout, with occasional long walks thrown in. 'It's not always full-on intense training, but I move every day. That's the point, just showing up for yourself,' he explains. With just under a month to go before he completes the challenge, Cam says the experience has not only reshaped his body but also his mindset. 'This has been massive for me. I feel f***ing great,' he says. 'It's not about looking like a Greek god – it's about being the best version of yourself.' Cam was brutally dumped by his bride Lyndall Grace during the final vows of his season on MAFS. The Perth-based accountant told the carpenter she wanted to build a life she could be proud of - which 'does not include' him. After listening to her vows through gritted teeth, Cam moved to take his notes out of his jacket pocket - but Lyndall stopped him and said: 'I just feel like no matter what you say today, it's going to disappoint me.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store