28. Cup Final day stroll in Walton Manor and Jericho - the Urinelard crawl, Saturday 17th May 2003

Another weekend visit from Graham Buckley allowed us to have a look at some fine Jericho based pubs. Briefly though, it is worth mentioning the couple of superb establishments that we went to on the preceding Friday night. Shithole though the Lamb and Flag is, it scores highly because it has no less than 8 proper beers on. When we went in, it was London Pride, Lamb and Flag Ale, Skinners' Betty Stoggs, Theakston’s Old Peculier, two lots of Palmers, Spitfire and 6X. There were also some good bar snacks and fine barmaids that day. Toilets minged though. Then we went to the White Horse, a cosy, smoky pub which also did good beer (Pride, Fullers Honeydew, Bateman's Godiva, Burton and Wadworths JCB).

Anyway, on with the Saturday crawl. We got prime seats in front of the big screen in the Anchor, Walton Manor and washed down our fine pub grub with pints which were on special offer at 50p off till the first goal (Theirry Henry nearly put paid to this one early on). Beer was OK, JCB, Henry's IPA, 6X and Pedigree, and the barmaid was rather chatty and pleasant. The architecture in the toilets is classic, and a nice touch is the sideways mounted lightswitch in the poo chamber. We stayed until full time and then made our way to the next pub, the Gardeners' Arms on Plantation Road.

Now I've not been in here for a long time, and it used to be a fantastic winter pub selling Morrells College ale and having huge sofas to flop into. This has changed a bit now, but the pub is still reasonable, selling OK pints of Morland Bitter and Old Speckled Hen.

Becoming jaded of that place, we pushed on to the Victoria, a great Banks pub with an upstairs that afford views of the lower floor. Banks bitter was the only beer on but was reasonable, and the bar snacks were fair. The TV was on and added to the atmosphere because it was showing Magic and VH1 classic. But not enough to keep us there that long.

A traditional thing to do is to visit the Harcourt Arms. Sadly we were just too late for food, but we still managed to get a good game of Rude Scrabble played, such gems including POOMATE, URINELARD and C*NT. Once again, the Chiswick, ESB and London Pride were in very good condition. This has to be one of Oxford's finest pubs; if only there were some women behind the bar!

Final stop (via an exceptionally good Ali kebab) was Worcester College bar where we went for a bit of a table football session. The bar was populated by some VIP tarts, and there was quite a nice one behind the bar too. Customarily uninspired beer. Cheap though. We managed to fritter most of the rest of the evening away here, then got the bus home to the flat to watch TV and play Bamboozle, Channel 4 teletext page 452.


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Dan Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com

Last updated 4th June 2003.