It had been a long time since I'd been out drinking with Richard Bradshaw in Oxford and the opportunity to put that right came on Saturday 19th June 2010, a date in the World Cup calendar that contained only inconsequential matches. Rich had got a very cheap rail ticket, and Avril and I met him at the station in the early afternoon. We started off at the Waterman's Arms where a group of posh twats seemed to be having some sort of gathering and generally rushing the landlord off his feet. When we finally got served, we decided to drink outside in the garden. The Morland beers were quite mediocre. Although the pub is in a nice location it seemed to have no soul. All this has changed now for, at the time of writing, a new landlord is in place and on the Friday that we went it, it was very busy. The other pub on Osney Island is the Hollybush. Even though it was just as quiet, we were warmly welcomed by the barman. He was a helpful soul and suggested we try some of the bitters and we settled on some pretty interesting ones.

A pub that I used to hate was Rosie O'Grady's because the only real option was overpriced Guinness. All this has changed now as the pub has been relaunched as the Duke's Cut and is very smartly decorated, although the layout is much the same as before. It also serves a much better selection of beer too, and we had some moderately obscure products whilst sitting on some decking over the river/canal. Whether it had this before I do not know as I never ventured that far in and I think it was winter on the occasions that I went before, but nevertheless, this has become a very good place to go drinking in Oxford, hope they keep the standard up. A short walk up the hill took us towards the centre of Oxford and gave us the opportunity to sample an even better array of beer at the Royal Blenheim. They will give you a taster if you ask nicely. I like this pub as it is very welcoming. It also only shows rugby which meant it was not full of idiots watching the World Cup. The barman that day was from Nipigon, Ontario.

It is possible to obtain cheap beer at the Oxford Union Society and we decided to see just how cheaply we could do it on our visit. Lo and behold, we managed to get three pints for the absurdly low price of £4.20, and fortunately the bar was not that busy so we could make short work of them, as befits such cheap ales. They occasionally have something a little bit different in there, but today it was bog standard Tetley's - sometimes they only have lager so I suppose we were lucky. Sadly there were no budding politicians making fools of themselves in there.

No trip to Oxford is complete without a trip to the Kings Arms and Turf, very stereotypical tourist pubs, but with a very good selection of beers and reasonable prices and in interesting buildings, so we decided to go in there. Not too busy for a Saturday tea time and pleasant enough. We got a seat in the Turf and had some solids to pick us up for the evening push. Another Oxford staple is the Lamb and Flag, but this pub differs in that it is less touristy, although the range of beers is just as good and the prices if anything even cheaper. The Betty Stoggs bitter is nearly always on and was up to its usual high standards. The solids at the Turf must have had an effect as I had an attack of hiccups which resulted in my having difficulty consuming my beer in a timely manner.

Such difficulties persisted in the Gloucester Arms, the famous heavy metal pub, which we deliberately took Richard to, although by that time he also seemed to be looking a little jaded. I had Hook Norton SDM (special dark mild) which I did not fully appreciate as I was feeling a little full up, although as is customary for the 'Gloc', it was excellent and competitively priced. The pub was pretty full and some sort of metal tune was being played on the jukebox.

In readiness to strategically place ourselves at the station in time for the trains that we intended catching, we went to the Honeypot, quite a trendy, but good pub about 2 minutes' walk away. They normally have Timothy Taylor Landlord available and this occasion was no exception; despite being a little pricey, it is always well kept and we tried to enjoy it in a leisurely fashion in the garden. A little too leisurely however, as we realised that we would have to rush for the train and after pointlessly filling up on Marks and Spencer's snacks at the station, Richard just managed to get his train, but Avril and I saw ours depart so had no option but to return to the Honeypot for another 90 minutes to get the rail replacement bus instead. On this occasion we left plenty of time to make sure we got that, and didn't end up stranded...