My friend got punched.

Mate. Remember I was doing all those reviews of London's shittest pubs? Well, that came to what was in hindsight a foreseeable conclusion a couple of weeks ago when my friend got punched in the mouth. There are a number of ways in which one can introduce their own face to someone else's fist... having a saucy affair, wearing the wrong football shirt, standing up for civil rights in 1960's Mississippi. My friend chose none of those. I don't think either of us foresaw what would bring about his downfall. What my friend did was make the mistake of calling someone Suggs.

We'd been to a non league football match earlier in the day. One of my gripes with modern football is that you are not allowed to drink alcohol in view of the pitch. You have to wait till half time for a pint, just like children. When will the nanny state learn that we can damn well look after ourselves? At non league football it's different. You can stand and watch the game, pint in hand, like some kind of German. What I hadn't accounted for was that that means by the time the match is over, you will be approaching your government advised weekly unit intake.

Then the pair of us went to a pub to carry on our drinking like we were on an underpopulated stag do. After a few games of pool I think I was under the misapprehension that I was 'drinking myself sober'. When we lost possession of the pool table it occurred to me that I knew another pub nearby with pool facilities. I'd only been there once before, on a Tuesday afternoon, but I saw no reason why it couldn't serve our purposes - drinking, cue sports and a rapidly deteriorating standard of conversation.

The pub in question was The Nag's Head on Camberwell Road. Regular readers may remember my first trip there which is documented here. On that occasion I was a sober man with my wits about me popping in for a quick drink on a Tuesday afternoon with the sole purpose of writing about the place. Now it was a boozy Saturday night and both I and the pub were entirely different beasts.

At first we seemed to assimilate pretty well. Our cue skills were still operational and we quickly got possession of the pool table. A succession of minor characters from The Bill stuck a pound on the table, challenged one of us to a game and came undone. These are nice people, we thought. They may not dress, talk or read Owen Jones like us but when you play them and beat them at their own game then they respect you. I felt like the Raj. But what I hadn't spotted was that at least one of them was planning a rebellion.

On the lead up to the moment that defined the evening I'm unsurprisingly a little hazy. I was sat down while my mate played pool with two girls who looked like they'd been in a scrap or two and a guy who looked like he's been in a scrap or two that very day. I wasn't concerned though, we'd shared in some bantz, we'd earned their respect. Then my senses, however numbed, picked up on a change in atmosphere. I don't think we'd done anything specifically wrong. There was just something about our demeanour which suggested we felt like we belonged and the guy in the group wanted to correct us.

I could see my friend bantering away and although I was sure he was being entirely harmless I felt it was time for us to leave. I hadn't anticipated what the trigger would be for what I feared might happen - in reply to something the guy said, my friend came out without an innocuous ''alright Suggs'.

The red mist hit and bop went his fist onto my friend's mouth. I quickly noticed a couple of things. Firstly, my immediate instinct was to do everything I could to avoid getting hit myself. I didn't do what many men would do, possibly the majority, and pile in in anger at what had befallen my friend. No, my survival instincts told me to stand up and DEESCALATE. The other thing I noticed was that the villain did indeed look like a 25 year old Suggs.

As it happened, by the time I got to my friend who was just a few steps away, the situation was completely under control. Suggs had already been escorted from the building. This was a pub which had seen some fights in it's time and knew exactly how to handle it. We were held in the pub for 15 minutes to avoid any kind of clash with Suggs out on the streets - undoubtedly his domain. My friend was understandably shaken and rather galled. The landlady got him a glass of water and said a sorrowful "well, you won't two won't come back now". "No, of course we will!" we lied.

Positive thinking.

Christ, my farts stink today. Which is a good thing. Each sniff reminds me that I am a living organism who eats, digests and excretes food - it makes me feel alive! That's me trying out positive thinking, one of my New Year's resolutions, and this is me trying out another - writing more.

But when you're trying to think positively what do you write about? How many novels go 'there was a man with a great life who met a woman with a great life and thanks to a lack of obstacles, together, they went on to have exponentially better lives'? My creativity engine has for much of my working life been powered by hatred and misery. Soz.

When I was seventeen I went through the entirely unique experience of suffering teenage heartache. I've always thought it was that heartache that gave me the drive and 'I'll show you' mentality to get myself into a half decent drama school. Then in my early twenties I found myself in a God awful call centre job and living above a kebab shop which made me a) miserable and b) fat. It was a desire to get out of that situation that led me to pour a great deal of effort into a comedy double act and ultimately made me the mid ranking performer I am today. When that double act came to a depressing end the creativity train trundled out of my station again and I achieved some success as a stand up until I ultimately came undone when faced with the 'white middle class guy in comedy glass ceiling' and an inability to write new material. Trapped in my own negative thinking about stand up and my acting career I found the new creative energy to write a book that has an affectionate pop at the acting business. You'll notice that it has stormed its way into the top 500,000 in the Amazon sales ranks.

In each instance it was a sort of anger that drove me. But now, as you can see, that has all gone. Now I'm the sort of man who sees joy in every moment and smells roses in every fart. What will become of this new positive prick? Will I turn into a gormless ball of happiness with nothing to write about? Will I no longer need to define myself by my career, move to Costa Rica and become a contented surfing instructor? Or will this new positive outlook and smiling face open up all the doors that until now have been closed to me, doors which haven't responded to my cynical demeanour and arid sense of humour? Are you in fact reading the words of the next Phillip Schofield? Possibly.

I don't think there's anything wrong with, where possible, trying to see the positive side. It's something as I've got older I've found more and more difficult though. In relative terms I'm someone for whom life has been one long blowjob. That has never stopped me from indulging in a good shoe gazing session. Now my challenge is to continue to write but to do it with a little more joie de fuckin' vivre. Wish me luck.

An afterthought - I've now realised that this puts a lot of pressure on my next post being an account of a my favourite ever trip to a craft fare or day at the seaside.

There's a London pub actually called London Pub.

It's near Russell Square in a small area which seems to have been left as a historical relic of grey 1960's architecture. There's plenty of hotels here which must specialise in disappointed tourists with poor research skills, easily swayed by the phrase 'central London'.  And what's one of the things everyone tells you to do when visiting London? Go to a 'London pub' of course.

Well here it is. London Pub. Having received a tip off about this place, my assumption was that it's clientele must be foreigners who've misunderstood that piece of advice and thought that it referred to a specific place. The sign above the door encouraged that line of thinking. There's a badly drawn picture featuring Big Ben, a beefeater, a London bus and somewhat unimaginatively the word 'Waterloo'. Walking in, I was surprised to find actual real life Londoners. There they were dropping h's, wearing council work clothes, drinking at 3pm... the real deal!

Here's my overall impression of this pub - it looks as if it is ran by the state. Everything about it creates the impression that it is a functional drinking house funded by a Communist regime's 'Ministry of Pubs'. I felt as if I had walked into HMRC or Birmingham Central Library. Here, for example is the wifi password...

That is the sort of bureaucratic kerfuffle you'd usual only expect to come across when trying to pay a council tax bill.

The beer selection wasn't bad but I suppose, when you've got an entire government department of civil servants working on it that's to be expected. The layout of the place was in keeping with the 1960s buildings in the area. Green banquets, cheap wood paneling, a red carpet of the kind Jennifer Lawrence is never likely to set foot on. 

On the TVs was darts and below one of those was what I decided was a Dutch couple. Going to a 'London pub' had clearly been on their itinerary and this was it. They shared a plate of fish and chips and didn't say a word to each other in the entire half an hour I was there. I assumed they were contemplating their bad choices in where to have their pub trip, where to eat Britain's most famous delicacy and, judging by the silence, who to go on holiday with.

You'll notice from the wifi picture that 'London Pub' is connected to the Royal National Hotel - another suspiciously functional looking name. I wonder how long this place will last. I'm sure the hotel provides a fair amount of ill informed custom but it's a pretty big building in an expensively central location. Surely the fact it hasn't yet been turned into a Wetherspoons is an oversight soon to be corrected.

Would I prefer that? No. Wetherspoons are everywhere. This is something so odd, so unique, that it deserves to stay as an example of what a pub ran by Ken Livingstone would look like.

The two best pubs so far.

Last night my shit pub odyssey continued. As you know, I love shit pubs. Good shit pubs that is and last night I found two of them. The first was thanks to a tip off and boy oh boy did it deliver. It's hard to fault the Hollydale Tavern in Peckham. It's what all good shit pubs should be - a youth club for divorced men. It has everything - pool table, dart board, sport on TV, an Irish landlord who manages to be both friendly and threatening.

One thing it did lack was women. Not one of them. I felt like I was in a gay club or the boardroom of a FTSE 100 company. Take that satire patriarchy! I would like to make it clear to the patriarchy that that was just a good natured dig and as a white man I'd like it noted that I am currently available for employment.

But who would want to employed at a time like this? At a time when there are non Weatherspoons affiliated pubs like the Hollydale Tavern serving beer for less than £3 a pint! I have half a mind to call my fictional secretary, tell her to cancel all my appointments and officially hibernate there for the winter. The landlord seemed to know everyone by name. With what looked like only a few regulars I'm sure it wouldn't take me long to become one of the gang. Sure, I didn't have the paint splattered work clothes that most of them seemed to have on but I'll bet I could arrange some. Perhaps, being an actor, I could go for a fitting at Angels Costumiers for my outfit and that could form the basis of the first anecdote I tell the lads. Maybe not.

The Hollydale is a real beaut though. There's a board instructing anyone thinking of watching a football game for free that they must buy at least one drink per half. There's another board advertising a Beatles and Elvis night (as if one wasn't enough) and a final board announcing filled rolls for sale. No empty bread rolls here. No, at the Hollydale they'll actually fill them with food creating what one can only assume is something resembling a sandwich.

I love this place so much that I almost feel like finishing my quest before it's really got going. But, no. As long as London has new sticky floors to walk on and new doors to open onto unwelcoming rooms then it is my duty to carry on. And so I did. Up the road to Nunhead and the Man of Kent.

I wrote a derogatory post about Nunhead a couple of years ago. My one previous trip there didn't go particularly well as I only saw five people and every single one of them appeared to be on crack cocaine. This one was a lot better. Perhaps they're warding off full gentrification by sending out the junkies on Saturday mornings when middle class couples are shopping for their first flat. Nunhead seems to be one of those places in London which absolutely no one has heard of. If that means it can hold on to boozers like the Man of Kent then long may it continue.

The Man of Kent is a little more cosy than the Hollydale, which had a large enough area in the middle for a badminton court whilst not having the sort of clientele who'd want to play badminton. I have never, in London, been to a pub quite like the Man of Kent. It seemed to me more like it belonged in Huddersfield or the early scenes of In The Name of the Father. The first thing you notice when you walk through the door is the strong stench of farts. This is a place for men with a Gregg's based diet. Pubs like this should be exempt from the smoking ban. Cigarette smoke serves a purpose. Not only does it mask the smell of poor digestion but it adds a sort of grim glamour. Whilst in there it occurred to me that it may well be the smoking ban which was the death knell for so many of these old boozers. If you're sat in one of these joints, drinking your eighth Carling and filling out a betting slip to gamble your daughter's school trip money on an American horse race then what's the point of forcing you to make one good life choice? You might as well go the whole hog and puff on a Mayfair.

I like the Man of Kent. Irish and very much focussed around three of my favourite things - drinking, gambling (there is racing on the tv and Ladbroke slips by the bar) and reading. Yes, it has a couple of well stocked book shelves and as long as they're not accompanied by board games then I don't have a problem with that.

I think I may have caught this pub on it's death bed though. There were very worrying signs of a forthcoming refurb. In fact, so fitting of my brief were both these pubs that I'd be very surprised if they lasted the weekend. Get there while you can!

The worst pub in Britain.

Yesterday I discovered a strong candidate for Britain's worst pub. My friend suggested that we went on an afternoon walk from High Barnet to Cockfosters. The mention of a pub at the end, and a quick look at my diary telling me that I have nothing booked in between now and roughly the end of time, were enough for me to leap at the chance.

High Barnet and Cockfosters - those mythical places at the end of tube lines. In the history of the tube no one and I mean no one has ever been to Mill Hill East. Don't tell me you have because you're a fucking liar. Cockfosters, particularly, sticks in the mind because the first time anyone ever comes to London they think they're the only person to have noticed the funny name. In every single carriage, of every single piccadilly line train leaving Heathrow is an American visiter saying 'Cock-fosters?!'

Near Cockfosters station is the appropriately named pub The Cock Inn. As you know, I've been on the hunt for shit, characterful boozers. This place is the opposite of that. If a team on the Apprentice was tasked with making a pub - this is what they'd come up with. If ever a pub was waiting to be moved to Runcorn services and attached to a Travelodge then it's The Cock Inn.

From the outside it doesn't look too appalling. With a big traditional pub facade I was just expecting some of the usual gastrofied bullshit - you know - candles in wine bottles, high chairs, Jenga. What I got was far far worse. Despite it being 3.30pm (like I said, nothing in the diary) every table was set for dinner. The stone floors give you the impression that you're in an upmarket bathroom showroom. Something about the armchairs make you feel like you're waiting for your girlfriend to finish shopping. On the stereo were acoustic covers of Craig David songs. I like my pubs to have an air of menace. On a table nearby were the only other customers, a family - mum, dad, two schoolboys in uniform and four orange juices.

Beside the gents was a glass trophy cabinet containing only, and this along with everything else I'm reporting is true, champagne bottles. What kind of cunt do you have to be to put champagne bottles in a trophy cabinet? A little later two guys came in. Everything about them suggested that they had just clocked off early from Bairstow Eves to celebrate selling a glorified filing cabinet for £600,000. In fact, I predict that this place is fully booked in December for estate agencies Christmas meals. It was time to leave.

The next pub, the Jolly Anglers in Wood Green, was far far closer to what I was looking for. For an angler to be jolly in Wood Green, they'd need a decent pub and this, ostensibly, is one. For a start it looks like the sort of place in which no one has ever used the word ostensibly. It has all of my requirements - pool table (two in fact), dart board, juke box, quiz machine, Sky Sports on the TV.

We played pool. Beside us, on the other table, were three men of about thirty in work clothes. And when I say work clothes I don't mean suits. I mean dusty, paint splattered work clothes. We're talking about working class, salt of the earth, almost definitely would have bullied me at school - blokes. When discussing whether 'two shots carry' or not one of them used the phrase 'prison rules'.

At one stage a woman came over and tried to sell them boxes of stolen Next underwear. Why didn't she ask me and my mate? Is it that we looked like we were respectable members of society who would never touch stolen goods or was it that we looked like our dicks were just far too big for what she had?

All in all - a pretty good pub I think. There was something not quite right but it was certainly the best of the four I've been to since I started my quest. I wasn't too keen on the generic chalk boards which had obviously not been hand written on, but produced in a factory somewhere. Also, too much soft leather to make it the spit and sawdust place I'm after. If I had my way the only leather in pubs would be on the jackets of the regulars. The hunt goes on!

Two of London's shittest pubs.

Long time readers of this blog will know that I have a fondness for shit boozers. How shit? Really shit. As I've remarked before, I fear for the future of the shit British pub. They are dying out at an astonishingly rapid rate. One by one they're all either being turned into restaurants/creches disguised as pubs or (un)'affordable' homes with only an old pub sign to mark what came before.

Yesterday, I resolved to do my bit to save them by going to two of the shittest looking pubs in my neighbourhood. I've lived in Camberwell for three years now and, so shit do these two gaffs look, that I've never quite had the courage to enter. Dismayed that a former favourite of mine, The Prince Albert on Bellenden Road, has lost it's pool table and been poncified, it's clear the time is now to go to every shit boozer in London before they all inevitably go the way of white dog poo.

First up - The Nag's Head on Camberwell Road. Now here is a pub I've passed over 500 times and have never seen a single person enter or leave. Going in, I realised the reason - it looks as if the same eight people have been in The Nag's Head since 1982. The whole place does very much have an air of The Falklands War still being on. There is a large poppy display on the window and a huge St George's flag littered with what looks suspiciously like sectarian insignia, hanging from the ceiling. It is only the sight of a black man that reassures me this isn't an official BNP headquarters. When passing it, the most notable thing about this pub was always that it seemed to be advertising a St George's Day celebration - all year round.

The pub does immediately have one thing going for it - a pool table. I get myself an Amstel (no real ale here, real ale is for queers), sit down and plot assimilating by sticking a pound on the table and showing off my not inconsiderable cue skills. Just then any thoughts of blending in are scuppered by my friend walking in. Top tip! If you're looking to not stand out at such a place don't invite your 65 year old, cravat and shorts wearing, gay actor mate, Steven.

Sitting on one of four black pleather sofas we take in our surroundings. The floors are wooden - excellent for any plans on vomiting. The bar looks as if it may have been made in plywood and coloured in with black felt tip for someone's GCSE Craft, Design and Technology course work. On the television is an ITV gameshow with the sound off. On the jukebox (tick!) is the kind of imitation Doris Day 1950s warbling I thought had died out completely. There's a couple of fruit machines and a couple of those roulette machines you get in these kind of pubs which have a slot for money going in, but worryingly, don't appear to have one for money coming out. Next to the pool table is a large framed picture of a darts team. Confusingly, there is no darts board.

There's a slight menace in the air but the overwhelming tone is one of depression. The fact that it's only 5 o'clock, but dark outside, may have something to do with that. Alternatively, it could just be that everyone in there has just been turned down for a new liver.

Although I'm happy with my Amstel, my friend's Guinness looks a little sad and foamy - giving the impression no one's ordered one here since the mid nineties. We get up to leave and thank the bar maid. Another lady, who's been sat drinking Pernod on a bar stool the whole time, thanks us for our custom. That's what I like to see - the landlady getting pissed on a Tuesday afternoon. It's enough to make me think of making a return sometime soon.

Our next stop is The Red Lion on Walworth Road. This place has always been more noticable thanks to it's larger size and the permanent presence of smokers outside. One of my requirements for a good pub is for it to have at least a couple of old alcoholic men sat at the bar. This place was exclusively populated by them. As soon as we approach the bar, one of them calls the landlady, 'Mary', over. Community spirit - all very encouraging. The first negative comes when I realise my pint of Kronenberg fucking reeks. Seriously, it smells worse than what I imagine I'd discover the green carpet smells like if I was to stay for a few more and face plant myself into the ground.

Credit where credit is due though, Steven's Guinness is in much better shape than what the Nag's Head gave him. Resigned to drinking a pint of sweat, I again take in our surroundings. On the bar, and actually facing the bar staff is a bust of a red lion - as if to remind them where they work. On the television is Sky Sports - At The Races (good sign). With a Ladbrokes and an Iceland opposite you can see that this place forms part of a holy triangle, providing the regulars with everything they need. A chalk board advertises this Saturday's live music - 'Finbarr and Bernie'. With the alphabet against him, how Finbarr managed to wangle top billing, I'm not sure.

Of the two pubs, on first impressions, this place comes in second. It is an Irish pub, which is always a positive, but it's a bit too roomy for my liking. I feel like I'm in the lobby of a hotel in the train station of a minor Northern town. Actually, that sounds quite good. Perhaps it's the lighting that's the problem - it's too bright. Rather than just getting a general, comforting air of shared depression I can see right into the faces of the miserable clientele. Looking at them, I can tell exactly what it was that made Sandra leave them.

And that, I'm afraid is the problem with both these joints - they're too depressing. I still love shit pubs but these two fell below a line I wasn't sure I had. This was meant to be a helpful celebration of dirty boozers but, if anything, you could say I've been unhelpful to their cause. I have not lost hope though - the search continues! Any recommendations of decent London locals I can assess in the future are very welcome.

My chicken balti nightmare.

One night, when I was doing regular stand up, I found myself in Bradford for the evening. One of my main problems as a stand up, other than a fundamental lack of talent or a work ethic, was that I couldn't drive. This meant that, when the last train wasn't late enough, I'd find myself staying in the town where the gig was held.

This particular gig paid £150. Once my agent had their cut I think that came to about £127. Then after a high train fare (thanks Obama) and a hotel room, I was left with about £20. Pointless. I told myself I was doing these gigs for the experience, and not just the experience of doing stand up - I wanted to get something out of every place I visited.

Trundling back to the hotel at about 10pm I decided that, being in Bradford, tonight's experience had to be curry. I got a take away menu from the front desk and ordered a chicken balti. Twenty minutes later, I was at a Holiday Inn hotel room desk eating curry and watching Newsnight. The dream.

Quick side note - Bradford has a Holiday Inn. That would imply that people holiday in Bradford. Now, Bradford has much to offer - curry, the National Media Museum... curry, but I'm not sure there's too many families agonising over whether to go back to Tenerife next summer or to splash out on a fortnight at Holiday Inn Express Bradford City Centre. They didn't even have a Kids Club!

So there I was munching on my balti and it was delicious. I mean, it really was. This was worth the trip alone, I thought to myself whilst calculating that the curry now meant that a gig that was to take me 24 hours in total would earn me roughly £8. I was developing a rhythm. I was attacking that curry with far more gusto than I had my set that night. One mouthful went in and, as I chewed it, my fork immediately went down to collect the next mouthful. Up, down, up, down. I was inhaling that fucking thing and it just kept on going. The little tray container seemed to be a tardis. How had they packed quite so much curry in there? It was so goddamn compact!

I noticed that Newsnight seemed to be winding up. Hang on. Isn't Newsnight 45 minutes long? Have I been eating curry, literally non stop, for 45 minutes? I think I fucking have. I seem to be only half way through. I need to stop. It is vitally important that I stop eating curry RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

I went over to the bed to watch a DVD on my laptop and take my mind off the curry. With the sweats and accompanying self hatred rising up that wasn't easy. I got up again and put what was left of my meal outside the hotel door. Out of sight, out of mind. But of course it wasn't out of mind. Nothing could change the fact that for 45 minutes straight I'd done nothing but swallow curry and watch interviews with junior government ministers.

Right. I need to sleep. Let's have a sleep and deal with the consequences in the morning. Sleep wasn't going to be easy though. Not with 5,000 grams of sugar and oil attacking my body like an alien inside John Hurt. Nytol! Have I brought some Nytol? Yes! Yes, I have! Right. I popped one in, started watching an episode of 30 Rock, and waited for the wonder of over the counter medicine to sing me to sleep.

Some time later I woke up from the most frightening nightmare I have ever had. How much time, I don't know. It could have been 10 minutes, it may have been a couple of hours. The menu screen of the DVD was playing a short clip of the 30 Rock theme tune on a loop. My body was drenched in sweat and my mind was trying to comprehend the images it had just thrown at me. I felt like I was in a Vietnam War movie. I was severely distressed.What exactly happened in my nightmare I'm not sure. All I remember is that it ended with me shooting my brother in the face through a vinyl record.

This is what I imagine a bad trip is like. I can state with complete certainty that that chicken balti gave me a more intense experience than any drug I've ever taken. I still get chicken balti flashbacks from time to time. Just say no, kids.