The great Soho bar crawl

It's not often I manage to prise Steve away from the delights of Birmingham (!), nor indeed the delights of his fiance, Laura. Last weekend, however, was an exception. He loves Brum (especially spaghetti junction, his favourite landmark), and he loves Laura (in a lifelong, devoted, all-encompassing way) but needed some lad time, a chance for a chat with his adviser and mentor, best man at his wedding no less (shall I mention that again?!)... that is, erm, me.

So I thought the best idea would be for us to go into town for a few drinks. Nay, a bar crawl. He'd get to choose one bar, then me the next. We had visions of an all-night session, but as you'll gather, things didn't quite work out that way. We're getting old now, you see.

Still, as ever, I had the camera phone poised and ready to shoot and decided I'd record the evening's events for the delights of this vast, culturally diverse electronic audience.

5 licenced premises... one night. Here we go...














1) The Red Lion - just off Old Compton Street. As you can see from Steve's delighted expression (and the solitary finger he is raising to the sky) this was the 1st pub we went into. Bit of a traditional interior. Lots of guys... We saw a great volleyed goal by Spain's Fernando Torres, and the pub went mental...














2) Garlic and Shots - can't argue with Steve's comedy genius photo here, the confused look on my face was probably down to me wondering why the camera had been tilted up so much. I like to project myself as a pretty cool guy and this photo doesn't help, in the slightest. Strong message though, for all drivers out there. I do like the blog to carry a strong message...

We started a great big long conversation about our favourite music and albums, particularly the Beatles, and even more specifically, the work of Paul McCartney. We agreed that despite his uncool reputation, even within his solo career there are at least 12 classic songs. They are: Maybe I'm Amazed, Live and Let Die, My Love, Uncle Albert/Admiral Walsey, With a Little Luck, Jet (!), Waterfall, Let me Roll it, Mull of Kintyre (even though we know it's rubbish), Let 'em In, Heart of the Country, and by an absolute country mile, the best song is Junk. In fact, forget all the rest, just listen to Junk on repeat for a couple of days - or so we decided, before moving on...














3) Dog and Duck - what I remember mainly about this place is a guy who stood at the bar not speaking to anyone, listening to his personal CD player with huge headphones on. When I went to the toilet later, he was coming up the stairs when I opened the door and nearly sent him tumbling to an early grave. He was one of those people who you see and think "something's not quite right there..." Needless to say he survived, and presumably got onto the 2nd CD of Queen's Greatest Hits before the night was out.














4) The Carlisle Arms - a tribute to Laura this one, since she comes from Carlisle(!). A rowdy group were singing Happy Birthday and Steve was agreeing by this stage that I could say whatever I liked about him in my best man's speech (just to remind you again, I'm going to be best man!), even if what I say isn't true. Wicked! Any good fictional stories you can think of, send them my way, and I'll make Steve personally responsible.














5) Detroit Bar, Covent Garden - amazing place this one, first went there for Lucy Clark's birthday party back in January (or was it Feb?) and then conicidently recognised it in the film Following a few weeks later. Bizarre.

Here, a girl smiled and waved at me before leaving with her boyfriend. I was slightly gutted that she had a boyfriend, but then gave the matter some thought. I have since developed a theory that women have suddenly started finding me devestatingly attractive after 4 months of gym work. In 4 further months, no woman on earth will be able to resist. After another double vodka, Steve concurred with my view.















On the way home, not only did Steve buy a dodgy CD from a street guitarist who was actually very talented (thankfully it worked when we got home and played it) he also helped the flowers in the garden of Fitzrovia Square grow somewhat faster this week than they otherwise would have done. It's a man thing.





























All that was left was to partake of a beer and a roast dinner at the Queen Mary pub in Primrose Hill before acting even more like adolescents by watching the new Wallace and Gromit film in the afternoon. "Cracking cheese, Gromit!" Loved it, recommend it.

And that was that.