Leeds Ottley run pub Crawl, Walka Stag Do Special!

A belated Happy Mayday Cheshirati,

Traditionally in Cheshire this would be a time for well dressing and the beating of the bounds – when the village elders would walk around the borders of the Parish and beat a small boy at strategic points so that through the traumatic memories of the pain inflicted upon him, he would be able to remember the village boundaries. So if on your travels you see a small boy on the border between Kelsall and Utkinton (or Tarporley and Eaton for that matter) be sure to beat him, so that this ancient and hallowed tradition may long continue. If a small boy cannot be found then any person of below four feet in height will suffice (not a mute though for then you will not hear their cries of pain).

May is also a traditional time within the Cheshire calendar for marriage and 2012’s wedding of the year is undoubtedly between senior C4Lf members Chris and Alison Lobb (I assume Chris took Alison’s name?) who should now have been married in the far away and potentially mythical kingdom of Zim (somewhere south of Shropshire or so I’m told). Because of recent financial hardships, brought about by my overestimation of the demand for Cheshire 4 Life fanzines (Issues 1, 2 &3 are still available for £2.50 each, get in touch at cheshire4life@gmail.com), I wasn’t able to make it over to Victoria Falls myself. However, I’m currently eagerly awaiting missives from C4Lf’s wedding correspondents Weaver and Smitdawg about the big day and their subsequent Conradian quest into the Heart of Darkness (that’s Weaver and Smit’s road trip, rather than an allusion to Chris and Alison’s many future years of wedded bliss), which I’ll hopefully post on this blog when the carrier pigeon arrives.

In the meantime here’s my belated wedding gift to them both: a full breakdown of the pubs we attended on the Ottley run in Leeds for Chris’ stag-do and various scores from the stag-related activities that occurred that weekend. If you’re one of those many Ukrainian visitors to the blog who are only interested in pub-rating data and nothing else, then skip to the end where you’ll find the pub rating matrix, which should satisfy your thirst for quantitative pub stats.

Day 1 Friday: The train journey up quiz

Smit and I are running on Cheshire time and are the last ones to arrive with 5 minutes to go before the train departs. I briefly join another stag party, until I realise its heading to Newcastle and the stag isn’t Chris.

On the train journey up I hear from Walka’s circle of City pals some of the horrific stories from previous stags they’ve been on. One involves a guy being tied to a ladder and placed in the luggage rack of the train and taken off at each of the stations they stop at.  Another involves someone being tied to a traffic light and having their balls shaved, until he breaks free and runs balls out (literally and metaphorically) through traffic! Is this going to happen to three pint maximum, Chester Jet golden boy Chrisy Walka – the mind boggles! Mark, the best man, has seemingly been in hospital on every stag he’s ever been on and shows off an impressive array of scars, reminiscent of the scene from Jaws when grizzled sea-dog Quinn reminisces fondly about Mako shark related accidents.  

Said professional best man Mark has created vodka jellies for the train and a Wolves vs. Rhinos themed quiz (Where were these nice touches DT and Ian when you were best men? It’s all in the detail). I’m surprisingly bad at this given my zoological background, but get applauded for my knowledge of odd toed ungulates and my inspired guess that Dwight York played for Fulham and Man United. We still lose to the Stag’s team – many punishment shots are dished out.

Winners: Chris and the rest of the Stag’s team (Si, Smit and Kris I think).

Friday night Leeds

Smit is acting as our native guide to Leeds (I keep quiet about having lived here for two years to avoid the pillorying Smit later gets for his meandering approach to navigation) and we find the hotel bar (Mean Rating: 2.5), the curry place and vodka rev (MR: 1.7) with little problem. I go a little bit Mister Lloyd (or Vodka Weave take your pick?) at this point and decide to go on an unscheduled wander over to Fab Café (MR: 4.0). Sadly, there’s no sign of any pot-noodles or Buffy Top Trumps with the legendary Weaver card. About two hours later an inebriated Weaver joins me and tries to create a moshpit in Fab, which none of skinny indy crowd want a part of, until a bouncer comes and calms him down. As I lead Weaver out of Fab at 2.00 AM and head back to the hotel, I see some of the stag guys who are wandering round the back of the Merion Centre in search of a new venue, there’s ominously no sign of Chrissy Walka, – I think they end up in the bar formerly known as Japanic.

Saturday

We head down to a Leeds café for breakfast and the gaps of last night where I was absent are filled in. Best man Mark has managed to dislocate his finger, Walka managed to remain in Vodka Rev despite adding his own contribution to the carpet colour scheme. He’s also been decorating the Leeds pavements this morning. Fair play to him he’s not backing down from the challenge, Alison you should be proud. Next stop An ‘It’s a Knock-out style’ gaming experience (et tu Stuart Hall?) somewhere outside of the Leeds City boundaries.

The teams are this time: Stag’s team vs. Best Man’s team

Games include: Collective walking on a plank race (won by best man), archery (won by best man), space hopper race (won by best man), bouncy case obstacle course (won by stag?), shooting (abandoned due to medical emergency), sack race (won by best man), tug of war (won by stag), javelin golf to decide the winner (won by best man). Despite the Best Man’s team winning all the events, bar the tug of war where Weaver as anchor came into his own, the overall winners of the It’s a Knockout style event are declared:

Winners: The Stag’s team

This isn’t even done out of misguided charity by the organisers on behalf of the Stag just gross incompetence when it comes to scoring. Medals are dished out, champagne is sprayed. However, the highlight of the event for me has to be the medical emergency that caused the shooting to be abandoned. Not of course, the actual whiteout that Robin suffered after a night on the booze and subsequent heavy exercise (I wish you only the best Robin), but the paramedics’ reaction to the situation. When they finally arrived rather than head to Robin who was being crowded around by a circle of friends, they instead hurry to a beached Weaver, lying prone on the grass after over-exerting himself on the bouncy castle. The event organisers have to usher the paramedics away from ‘the Big Fellah’, who was ‘just resting’ and instead point them in Robin’s direction. On the plus side they also bandaged up Mark’s wonky finger, injured from the night before.

The Ottley Run

After returning to the hotel and dressing Chris up in a gorilla costume (not sure of the current population of Western Lowlands in Zimbabwe, I wanted to get him a cyber suit but due to my lack of organisation this didn’t happen), it was time to head off on an Ottley run, with old Leodensian Smit directing proceedings.

To save time and transport we miss the first two pubs (thus invalidating the crawl – this is exactly what happened where Smit made us miss the first 500 metres of the Sandstone trail, thus invalidating [or ‘invalsmidtating’ {hmm doesn’t really work, still leave it in though}] the crawl).

Pub 1: The Box, Headingly (2.6)

The pub is awash with Ottley run crawlers and there’s much speculation about the identities of various costumes, turns out it was Wolverine all along. The staff are harassed and annoyed and service takes ages.

Pub 2: The Oak, Headlingly (3.1)

The bouncers won’t let Walka into the actual pub and even take his giant inflatable banana off him, regarding it as a potential offensive weapon. We go outside and everyone is amazed by the size of the beer garden. It’s the kind of reaction you might expect from 18^th century grand tourists when they first set their eyes on an Alpine waterfall. On a nearby table one bloke throws a pint glass at another and his mate tells him in his thick Yorkshire brogue “it’s time to go home Keith!” A guy in full tartan dress comes over to our table and one of our party compliments him on his “nice skirt”. He replies, “that’s not the best bit” and proceeds to lift his kilt to reveal his genitalia partially exposed in what could best be described as a Scotch snood, or perhaps Oor Wullie Warmer. I’m disappointed to report to C4Lf members North of the Border, Maz and Katy that we were unable to identify the particular clan by the tartan. It’s been a while since I’ve been back but Leeds feels like the Wild West.

Pub 3: The Skyrack, Headingly (0.9)

The only pub rated this year to have achieved a minus rating (-1.5 for courtesy of bar staff), thanks to the angry raging ratings of the stag party.  It takes ages to get served, a lot of the stag party get bottles, not me though pints all the way baby. Generally an unpleasant experience, the lowest rating of any pub in 2013 so far.

Pub 4: The Taps, Headingly (3.1)

Smit gives the Taps a damning preview beforehand but this place generally proves to be quite popular with the group. Although the fifty-somethings snogging each others’ faces off by the quiz machine divides opinions – niche. Smit overhears a girl describing me as “the hairiest guy I’ve ever seen”, well she ain’t seen Hornet.

Pub 5: Arc, Headingly (2.4)

I fondly reminisce about pizzas and Monday night football in here, while Smit recalls past cricket games out on the lawn outside. A girl in a hen party mistakes my fervent pub-rating for me rating her and her friends. She asks me what score I’d rate the bride and I explain to her that she’s only been rated collectively as part of the category Clientele. After she’s left one of the guys tells me that I should have responded ‘I’d give her one’, which would have been both a lurid sexual come-on and a scathing putdown of her physical appearance at the same time  –  the ultimate neg. Of course I wouldn’t say that because I’m a loving and stable relationship…WITH THE SHIRE! (sorry Tone, don’t hit me).

Pub 6: Hyde Park Corner, Hyde Park (2.9)

I quite like this place with its combination of cask ales and Feeder on the soundtrack, but others are less impressed. Chris and Si give it 0 and 1 for décor respectively.

Pub 7: The Library, next to the Brotherton…library (2.5)

We take a break from the pub crawl for several games of air hockey. I chivy people along to pick up the pace, pretty much everyone bar me and Weaver are on bottles at this point.

Pub 8: The Packhorse (3.2)

Ahhhh the Packhorse back on the familiar ground of my old university haunts. But what’s this? There’s talk from Mark and Smit of heading straight down to Oceania next and skipping some pubs to ensure that the 16 lads that make up the party can actually get into the club. I go a bit mental and try to convince Weaver to form a splinter cell to finish the remainder of the run with me. Walka calms me down by chatting to me about my pub rating system and I begrudgingly agree to stick with the rest of the group.

Pub 9: The Kenton (4.0)

I hurriedly walk ahead to try and get to the Kenton first to try and ensure people follow me and that we complete the crawl. I get a pint of Green King IPA, find a table, sit myself down, admire the décor and the rockers in this classic Leeds gig pub and wait…no one turns up. I’ve got a text from Smit. They’ve all gone down to the Drydock…

Pub 10: The Drydock (2.8)

On the way to the Drydock a text informs me that the group have moved onto Oceania. Still I have to go to the Drydock right? Otherwise the crawl would be invalsmidt (or more invalsmidt given that we didn’t do the first two PUBS, or go to the union bar and Strawberry fields was closed when I passed it), it’s too late for Muffin burgers but I do watch Edge vs. Undertaker from Wrestlemania 24, which is being played on skysports in the build up to Wrestlemania tomorrow.

Pub 11: Oceania (or is it? No it isn’t it’s Milo)

I arrive at Oceania and try and get in but am refused entry due to the standard of my trainers (somewhere Tone is laughing), maybe getting down to the club early wasn’t such a bad idea after all.  So I wander down town to go to the hotel, but get distracted by a gypsy polka band. I decided to pop into the nearby Wire before going back but am again refused entry because of the standard of trainers (if they’re good enough to do Tough Mudder in, they’re good enough to go in your rubbish indy club).  So instead I go next door:

Pub 11: Milo (2.8)

I can’t remember much about this place apart from it being packed, struggling to dance in my usual limb-flailing style and me constantly requesting Fleetwood Mac from the DJ, until he eventually relented and plays “Gotta Go Your Own Way – Go Your Own Way!” Eventually I leave in search of food, eventually arriving back to the hotel and give up the idea of returning fully-shod to Oceania. From reports the next day everyone had a lovely time, with a Bohemian Rhapsody, collective sing-a-long being the highlight, before Chris and the gang went off to see the late night all male Downtown Abbey-themed burlesque show: Butlers in the Buff.

Sunday

Sunday marked the end of Best Man Mark’s Rommel-esque meticulous planning of the stag and time for Weaver to take over with an afternoon of bar sports (which had beaten my alternative suggestion of a lecture delivered by me on the museums of Yorkshire and subsequent walking tour of Leeds cultural landmarks by a narrow margin of 15 votes to 1 [the 1 being my own]).  First, of all though was the first of Walka’s stag-do suggestions, ten pin bowling at the glamorous Merion centre bowling arena next to Stick or Twist Weatherspoons. Many a Monday night of our youths was wasted (in my case particularly wasted) bowling at Cheshire Oaks bowling alley, in the hope of getting a strike on one of those elusive orange pins and winning yourself a bottle of champagne (or cheap fizzy equivalent).  Walka always generally won this, so after a weekend of relentless punishment shots, here was an opportunity for him to get his own back. To add an extra frisson to the occasion we were joined by Mister Walker – the original Daddy Walka (this was Chris’ nickname on our infamous holiday trip to Portugal thanks to his organisational skills) to teach his son a lesson or two in the fine art of bowling.

The scores on the doors were as follows:

	Game 1	Game 2	Game 3	Mean
Eoin	117	129	110	119
Rob	113	134		124
Mark	110	109	152	124
Gareth	96			96
Jules	112	124		118
Pete	146	137		142
Walka	130	175	100	135
Fran	133	133	74	113
Smit	72	93	105	90
Weave	120	132	145	132
Mister Walker		130	154	142
Si			87	87
Kris			152	152

It should be noted that in the first game I actually beat Walka at bowling – something I’d never regarded as possible. Also, check out Smitdawg’s pitiful scores in games one and two, alas I reverted to type in the third game.

Winners of bowling: Kris got the highest mean score but according to my records he was only there for one game. So probably Pete and Mister Walker come joint first with a mean score of 142.

Afterwards Mark destroyed Eoin, Smit, Walka Fran and Si at Air Hockey, before losing to Weaver in the final game.

Winner of impromptu air hockey tournament: Mark

For those still following the rating, the bowling alley bar (2.1) was glacial in service and the clientele chubby, still better than the Skyrack though.

Next up was Weaver’s proposed bar sports tournament. This was largely a shambolic affair with no organisation, seedings or tournament structure whatsoever, thus making keeping the scores an impossibility. I’m sure everyone in retrospect would have preferred my idea of a Leeds cultural tour. I would have provided handouts and everything , we might even have been able to fit in some grave rubbing.

Winner: Unknown due to poor organisation.

After the bar sports petered out to nothing, we head back to Headingly to watch Warrington Wolves take on Leeds Rhinos in some kind of Rugby league cup-final type thing. I don’t understand Rugby League but the key skill seems to be deftly holding the ball on the right side of the line as you’re hammered into the corner flag by the opposing defender. Leeds comfortably crush the Wolves as we stand sipping our Tetleys on a bitterly cold exposed away terrace. It’s so cold Wolfy, the Warrington mascot, doesn’t even turn up. I try to combat the constant “Yorkshire, Yorkshire” chants by starting a chant of “Cheshire, Cheshire” but no one joins in. Indeed, the Leeds fans laugh at me. When the revolution comes rest assured Yorkshire will be first against the wall.

Winners: Leeds Rhinos

Losers: Warrington Wolves

Finally on to the event that traditionally caps off all stag-do. Watching Wrestlemania at 1.00 in the morning on a Sunday. We return back to Sports Bar (3.7) and pay five pounds to watch ‘the Grandaddy of them All’ alongside the other normal and socially-well adjusted people who have chosen to spend their Sunday evenings in this way…some of them in face paint and full Goldust regalia. While Eoin, Weaver, Walka and Si all have some knowledge of wrestling, best man Mark is a wrestling n00b and is left baffled by such storylines as Zeb Coulter’s anti-immigration gimmick, or why we would want to smell what the Rock is cooking? It doesn’t harm him in the prediction stakes though:

	Correct match predictions
Smit	6
Chris	6
Eoin	4
Mark	6
Weave	5
Fran	5

Only Eoin a diehard Triple H fan lasts with me until the end. Weaver leaves during Triple H, Brock Lesner when I start explaining the historical legacy of the Kimura lock (Weaver: “It’s too much like culture”).

I go to bed at 5.00, get up at eight and then it’s a sleepy train ride back to that London, which largely consisted of me chatting to Smit about the various domestic problem his characters are having on dragon-themed roleplay game Skyrim. As Smit tells me about his character an imperial Werewolf, member of the hated thieves guild and hedge fund manager who may or may not have accidentally killed his housemaid. I glance across at Walka who has a contented look on his face. I wonder why he’s so happy and then realise, he’s survived:

Overall winner of the Stag: Walka.

I look back at Smit faced with three weeks in the Namib desert with Weaver and wonder if he’ll be so lucky. And so to the ratings but ahhh yes before we get to the ratings I have some more exciting wedding themed announcements.

Hardman and Andrea to be married but who is the best man?

Yes indeed, it’s happened. I have had the call-up I’ve been waiting for, for many a moon, and can officially announce that I’m going to be BEST MAN for the Shire-wedding of 2014: Hardman and Andrea (unlucky Freeman, apparently you came a close second).  C4Lf comrades, who haven’t been vetoed for being an unstable element, or banned by Bridesmaid Laura Shaw (and if you were banned from the city of Leeds in 2005 your ban still stands), can expect exciting plans about Chester 22s and Hardman’s subsequent kidnapping (date still to be revealed) in the coming months. To those who have asked about my own wedding plans, I need not remind you that I am already married…TO THE SHIRE, as all good and loyal comrades should be, so sayeth El Presidente (again sorry about that Tone).

Anyway without further ado (as quite enough ado has been made already), here are those Leeds pub ratings, apologies it took so long Ukranians – I’ve been busy procrastinating doing this, so I can avoid finishing act 2 of Scott of the Antarctic the Musical. As always the ratings are done out of décor, atmosphere, booze, clientele and courtesy of bar staff. Ottley Run pubs are given their respective number.

Leeds stag do pub ratings

Pub	Description	D	A	B	C	COB	M
9. The Kenton	Classic Leeds gig bar	3.9	4.0	3.9	4.0	4.0	4.0
Fab Café, Leeds	Geek-themed, trapped in early 2000s	4.5	4.5	2.5	4.3	4.0	4.0
Sports bar, Leeds	Wrestlemania weekend party hang out	2.0	4.3	3.2	4.0	5.0	3.7
8. The Packhorse	Fran panics as crawl disintegrates	2.3	3.3	3.5	3.5	3.6	3.2
2. The Oak, Leeds	Oor Wullie Warmer in Wild West	2.7	4.0	2.6	3.3	2.8	3.1
4. The Taps	Fifty something sex show	2.8	3.5	2.8	2.2	4.0	3.1
6. Hyde Park	Feeder and real ales	2.1	3.4	3.3	2.2	3.5	2.9
10 The Drydock, Leeds	Take the boat to Wrestlemania's past	4.0	4.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.8
Milos	Gotta go your own way	3.5	4.0	2.5	2.0	2.0	2.8
1. The Box, Leeds	Start of the run, slow service	2.1	2.8	3.3	3.3	1.5	2.6
7. The Library	Air hockey tournament	2.7	2.9	1.8	2.2	2.8	2.5
Hotel bar	Adequate for our needs	1.5	1.5	2.8	2.5	4.0	2.5
5. Arc	Premiership pizza memories	2.3	2.3	2.0	3.2	2.3	2.4
Leeds bowling alley	Slow service, chubby clientele	1.2	2.5	3.5	3.5	0.0	2.1
Vodka Rev	Urrgh vodka rev	1.3	2.0	1.7	1.7	2.0	1.7
3. The Skyrack, Leeds	Despised by all	0.9	1.6	2.5	0.8	-1.5	0.9