On Diamond Jubilee weekend, Avril, Richard Bradshaw and I decided to visit some pubs that we had identified as being rather good from watching episodes of Made in Chelsea. Starting off at West Sutton station, which has a connection with Chelsea only by the number of white van men supporting the football team who live nearby, we caught a train on the celebrated 'Wall of Death' line making sure to get on the last carriage where we would rendezvous with Richard. Lo and behold he was there and we enjoyed the sights as we eased around the curves of Sutton and Merton. At Wimbledon we alighted and decided to break the journey with a swift pint in the rather nice rooftop garden of the Alexandra. I know that they have proper beer on in that pub, but it does not flow to the roof and you can only get pissflow at that elevation. They also reserve their more stupid/obnoxious staff for the roof garden. Despite these hindrances, it was not bad at all and we enjoyed our pints in the sun.

A little bit of a walk followed to the Southern Cross which seemed to be some high ceilinged vaguely Antipodean themed pub which was fortunately fairly quiet although it did seem to be gearing up for some sort of evening birthday bash. We could tell that it was likely to fill up later on with brash uncultured lager drinking fools as befits its name, but they did have some reasonably well kept Abbot on tap, so it could have been a whole lot worse. Not one to dwell in though during a mid-afternoon so we drank up and moved on. Next up was the Hand and Flowers, a rather upmarket but nonetheless welcoming pub on the King's Road. They pleasingly had Hogsback TEA and Hand and Flowers Bitter - I obviously opted for the former as own beers in pubs tend to be shite. The pub itself is a traditional Victorian Boozer and despite the gentrification it retains its character. There are high stools at the bar which were ideal for our purposes as it was so quiet, and made for an enjoyable conversation. We could have worked our way through to the back but decided not to.

An almost carbon copy pub is the Imperial Arms just a very short walk away and although it does seem to set itself up for a slightly younger crowd the layout is pretty much identical. We sat at in the same seats at the same bar but had different beer, Deuchar's IPA and Flying Scotsman this time, and it was very nice too. For some reason though I don't remember this one as well, probably because it represented little departure from the previous one. The idiots from Made in Chelsea have been filmed enjoying a few drinks at the Jam Tree, so we decided to follow in their footsteps. Despite misgivings about the price that one might have, given who has been seen to drink there, it's actually not that bad. They even do some rather good Timothy Taylor landlord although their speciality is Bloody Mary. We perched at the bar again, and decided to start a discussion about how dicks are drawn, with Richard recounting a story about drawing someone directions and ending up with a well formed knob. Not so sure whether the Made in Chelsea got up to that sort of behaviour in there. Another noteworthy thing is that the wall on the way to the toilets is made up completely of audio cassettes. The toilets themselves are rather small.

Somewhere that the Made in Chelsea people don't frequent is Riley's, which is where we had to make a toilet stop after discovering that the World's End was closed. This is a stereotypically old soak pub with a definite Irish influence with no proper beer but if you keep your head down it's not that bad. The disabled toilets were very well worth visiting too. On my visit to the gents', I espied that the groutwork behind the raised pipeworks was deteriorating at a faster rate than the rest of the grouting owing to condensation causing moisture accumulation. That could not retain my interest for long enough though and it was time to get back to normal again with another Made in Chelsea, the Cadogan Arms, where Spencer Matthews has been noted playing pool. We followed in his footsteps and went upstairs to use their fine tables. The pub is rather grand and has the air of a Scottish hunting lodge, and has three beers on including London Pride and Flying Scotsman. We actually stayed for another as it was rather enjoyable playing pool.

The Pig's Ear down a nearby side street may well have been the best pub of the day. It had a most definite gastro air to it and it has a separate area for those sort of people set aside, but knows where its roots are and continues to stock some excellent ales which can be drunk in a very pleasing and more conventional, almost rustic, pub surroundings. The building itself is quite small and unremarkable, being on a street corner, but is very cosy inside. Beers available included Courage Best, Sambrook's Junction and Old Mill Mild. They also had some free books of matches, so we helped ourselves to some of those too.

Richard had lambasted us earlier in the day in the sunshine in the Alexandra roof garden for bringing along an umbrella, however our precaution was rewarded when the heavens began to open as we made our way to the final Chelsea pub of the day, Cooper's Arms. Admittedly we had tried to call in at another pub which had closed up some while ago, thus extending our time getting wet although we still seemed to take unnecessarily long to get there. The Cooper's Arms is a very cookie cutter style Young's pub, brown wood, brown walls, brown everywhere, situated on a corner and rather spacious with a good array of beer, Doom Bar, Sambrook's Wandle, Young's Jubilee, Best, Special and Bombardier. Not bad though and perfectly pleasant for a few pints had we been in the mood. With time getting on though, a decision was taken to get on a bus in the pouring rain, which continued through the rest of Jubilee weekend, back to Victoria for a couple of snacks and trains back to Sutton and Cheam. Richard alighted at the former whilst Avril and I continued back to the latter where we enjoyed one more at the Railway in Cheam before getting a taxi home.