Richard Bradshaw and I had done four crawls of the Haydon's Road/Collier's Wood/Tooting area in the earlier part of the decade, often during the void that lies between Christmas and New Year. The pubs that we had visited on previous occasions had frequently been shitholes. At the time that this crawl was planned, we didn't realise that we'd be harking back so closely to those days! For the 2008 crawl, Rich felt it would be a good idea to meet up in the City with Messrs. Andy Pidgley and Wright and do some good pubs around there. As Andy P was wearing a suit, the venue was presumably also chosen for its proximity to his office.

I arrived typically late at the Counting House at Bank. This is a fine specimen of a pub with a gallery area that overlooks the main floor. Being a Fullers establishment, it shares some similarities with the Old Joint Stock in Birmingham, with a magnificent Victorian interior. Fullers products are in abundance, but I selected a welcome guest ale in the form of Bateman's. I did have a quick look around for the Porter but they didn't seem to have it. Anyway, I collected my beer, at the price of £3.10 and found the others upstairs. It does look like the sort of pub that can get very busy with undesirable yuppie types drinking spritzers or expensive continental lagers but we were quite lucky as it wasn't that busy, perhaps because most of these types were in Closters or somewhere similar living the high life.

Enjoyable though this place was, we decided to move on to the much more basic, but quieter and equally charming Red Lion on Lombard Gate just around the corner. This is quite a basic corner boozer, but pretty homely, and they do a good bit of beer. I had some ginger flavoured beer that I'd not seen before although there were two or three other choices. For some reason, there were very few seats and we ended up standing which may have explained the lack of customers and the facts that we ended up having to stand and that the barman was virtually locking up by the time we finished.

Also nearby, tucked down a side alleyway but visible from the main road is the Ship. This is a pub with quite a lot of frontage and some toilets accessed via a treacherous staircase. They had a couple of beers on and a couple of bar staff who weren't overly friendly. This may well have been explained because there was quite a loud group of idiots standing near to us trying to use the quiz machine, but failing. We ended u having to stand up in this pub too.

The Walrus and Carpenter is an interestingly named pub that we did manage to get a seat inside, and quite a good booth too it has to be said. I can't recall exactly what beers they had, but the selection wasn't too bad. I might have had something like Landlord. Pleasingly there just seemed to be more space in this pub which allowed us to spread out a bit and discuss matters at large. Rich, for example, commented that the Spurs fans who were in hot water over some chant directed towards Sol Campbell should simply say that the video evidence shows them lip-synching rather than singing, which is very sound advice.

The Monument next to The Monument is an odd pub, which must have been something else quite recently. It is big and open plan and no doubt fills up with bankers at certain times, but on our visit was quiet and actually not that bad. We played the quiz machines whilst consuming Greene King products. At least a place like this has the foresight to put something acceptable on rather than force you to drink keg piss.

Anyway, it was time for Andies P and W to make their way home, and Rich and I followed them onto the Circle Line. We alighted before them however as we had a bit more drinking to do. My swelling bladder forced our hand and the decision was made to alight at Balham, just up the road from some of our old haunts at Tooting and Collier's Wood etc. Strangely enough, neither of the pubs that we had chosen to visit on this occasion had been rated before. The first one was the Blithe Spirit which actually wasn't that bad in the end though you could tell that when it is full, its clientele is not that sparkling. The pub is in a shop unit and goes back from the main road a long way and has split levels. They do a bit of beer in there though which is good, though nothing out of the ordinary, at least they make the effort. Rich and I attempted the quiz machine in here too.

There was just time to get one more over the road in the Moon Under Water, perhaps the shittiest Wetherspoons that I have had the misfortune to visit. The place was threadbare and scuffed, with sticks of furniture over the place. The clientele was either sad old men getting blasted standing at the bar or slumped in corners or else sets of youths of questionable age getting themselves shitfaced on the relatively cheap alcopops that Wetherspoons tend to do. At least from our point of view people were keeping themselves to themselves, and there was cheap beer on in the taps and some choice of it too. Oh, the gents' toilet was also broken which meant that the disabled had to be used instead although this at least meant less travelling time to the bog. Overall, a pub that sorely needs one massive kick up the arse.