57.
A coarse day in Oxford, Saturday 24th January 2004
At work on the Friday I had told
colleagues that some carnage was on the cards on Saturday. When they enquired
the following Monday, I told them that I was not disappointed. This is the
story of what happened. I'd had a heavier than usual week and had slotted in a
couple of ales on the Friday, to get fired up for the Saturday. The plan was to
meet in the Anchor, Walton Manor, to watch Scarborough vs. Chelski on their big
screen. Graham 'G' Buckley and Elizabeth turned up shortly before half time and
we kicked off on the beer followed soon after by the arrival of Ed 'Smiley'
Lewis. The Anchor was up to its usual standards serving decent Wadworths beer,
and I used Elizabeth's portable telephone to get a picture of the
three-man-Victorian-compartmentalised trough in the gents, and the light switch
in the cubicle at the wrong angle. Elizabeth in return took a nice picture of
the ladies.
We then popped back to the flat to watch G
toiling whilst inflating his mattress with a foot pump, and then decided to
head into town catching a bus which collected some mad people on the way. The
first pub visited on alighting was the Turf which as ever had a very good
selection of beer. They were doing a line in St Peters Organic beer and I decided
to have a pint of Porter followed by the Cream Stout (6.5%) and then some more
bog standard stuff whilst the others were catching up. Quality of beer, as
ever, was very high although it remains a bit of an arse to get served in there
quickly, and I hit my head on the low beams. Some of the coarse language had
already started at this time as G was reminiscing about a trip to East Anglia
which resulted in him waking up in a ditch. Some adjoining Germans looked most
perplexed.
Anyway, I had also agreed to meet up with
Nick Gardiner, Alison Jones and Dan Garside for a couple of scoops, and this I
did in the King's Arms where the beer was rather good as per usual (well the 6X
was). Staying only for one, we proceeded to the Lamb and Flag, an old
favourite, where I had a decent pint of one of their guest ales. It was quite
crowded in there so we had to sit in that stupid little room beside the bar.
Getting bored of this shabby old shack, we decided to make a move to a place
that was a little more trendy. I had had my reservations about Raouls as I was
by far the most shitfaced of the group, having had a bit of a head start of
about 5 pints. This considered I wisely elected to have a couple of bottles of
Sapporo rather than a cocktail which would have sent me over the edge.
Fortunately we managed to get a good sofa seat in their sub-mezzanine by the
toilets. At least Raouls wasn't that busy, which was just as well as I started
taking the piss out of various members of society, the antecedent beer
conditions having taken effect ...
I decided that it was time to leave and
re-join people who were at a more advanced stage of drunkenness - then my
coarseness would not be noted. Swinging via Ali's kebab van for some solids, I
retraced the steps of Dr Wacey and the others who had gone before me. They had
dined at Ali's earlier after having paid a visit to Far From the Madding Crowd,
reporting excellent beers, and had also dabbled in some Belgian bottled fayre
in the Royal Oak. At about 9pm I found them most pissed up in the wonderful
Harcourt Arms where a game of rude Scrabble was well underway, taking great joy
to shout out the words as they were spelt out. After buying some more beer and
pistachios, most of the husks ending up on the floor we were eventually coaxed
out of the pub at 12.05am after finishing off a game of Ludo. The bus ride home
saw me discussing the African Nations Cup with a couple of African tourists,
and loudly having a pop at the Americans, Germans, etc. Which was just as well
as we all had a jolly good jingoistic laugh at the Germans episode of Fawlty
Towers when we got back.
Dan
Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com
Last updated 2nd February 2004.