The Monopoly Pub Crawl is now a solved problem in drinking. The solution-- ready for this?-- is to not drink so much.

On the one hand this meeting had a slight strain of "we're too old for this" running through it. Our youthful running jumping salad days of putting as much alcohol as humanly possible into ourselves and then seeing what happens have passed. We have explored those territories; they hold nothing new or exciting for us, only dehydration and regrettable mornings. On the other hand was maturity and practicality. The Monopoly Pub Crawl has become, astoundingly, a social occasion more than an alcoholic one.

The date was Saturday 28th August 2010. I live about an hour closer to London these days so I was able to get up later than I usually do, towing a big bag full of stuff to the railway station and then, after the train ride, through the Underground to the home of Dave and Alicia. This was the first really clever move in my plan. Most of the attendees live in London permanently now but I don't. Bringing even a bare minimum amount of stuff with me and carrying it around all day on my back has never worked. Any sort of bag is a tremendous hassle and adds pressure to my precious feet. So I stopped off at their house to drop off everything I could conceivably drop off - namely, everything except my phone and wallet. I took a chance and didn't even bring a jumper or a jacket or water. I know Dave through Julian, he's a very hospitable American who is invariably grinning and, like Julian, does complicated investment banking stuffs. Also present were another banking type, Cornelius, and Chris who is probably towards the end of his PhD studies at Oxford now, and Dave and Alicia's cat Sheba to whom Chris is possibly/slightly allergic so that was going to make the evening interesting. I declined breakfast not just because I'd already eaten a banana (well, I had another banana) but also because I've never actually been able to stomach much in the way of fried food early in the morning. It was quite a professional spread, there were sausages and onions and scrambled eggs, and even more surprising was the fact that almost all of it disappeared.

I was getting jittery about timekeeping because we were getting past 10:30 and the meeting at Elephant & Castle is nominally 10:30 arrival for an 11:00am departure. More importantly, I had been the one to first bring up the 2010 Monopoly Crawl topic by email, which technically made me the show-runner, meaning I had a certain obligation to be there. On the other hand, sometime during the preceding weeks of email conversation, control of the event had been usurped by the mysterious "Organisers" and whispers of novelty notions like Chance Cards had arisen, so perhaps it wasn't going to be so bad.

So we left the flat a little behind time, Dave bringing with him a china mug of hot coffee which he he finished while waiting for the bus and then threw in the bin. Apparently it wasn't a mug he had a particular attachment to. I can't remember precisely what the story behind it was but it might have come with the flat. The bus to catch was fortunately the exact same one which assembled Crawlers have to catch when leaving Bus Stop E, Elephant & Castle for the first pub, so in accordance with the plan we took a look out of the bus window when we got there with the intention of staying on the bus if it turned out there was nobody waiting. I thought I saw Mike and we all got off. Then I realised I was mistaken and we all got back on the same bus. Oh well!

In the absence of Mike (who is invariably the Route Master of the Crawl), Chris and I were relying on hazy memories to get to the first pub. We remembered something very clear about the Bricklayer's Arms, but we failed to remember that this is in fact a roundabout, not a visible public house. We got off a stop early and had to thread our way through subways to reach Tower Bridge Road and The George, where we met Mike, James B. and Julian, their initial half-pints already in progress.

The George is rammed with Crawlers at that time on a summer Saturday morning. It probably does a brisk and unique trade. It's not, however, a great public house on its own terms. It's somewhere that we get out of as quickly as possible and not just because of timekeeping. So we got served and I finished my half first - I have a strong track record of finishing the first half-pint at the first pub first. And some rules were explained.

Everybody drank at the first pub, but following that, a nominal 16-pub crawl was planned after which people would be permitted to do as they pleased. We were divided into two teams, drinking alternately. Julian intended to drink at every pub so he was formally considered to be part of both teams. He would end up buying twice as many rounds, but likewise having twice as many rounds bought for him. Intermittently, Chance cards would be distributed to the team, causing minor chaos.

So we set off and caught the bus that crosses Tower Bridge and proceeded along very familiar paths and back alleys to Fenchurch Street station. I'd elected for our team to drink only on even-numbered pubs, so that, if I logically extended my alternating pattern, I would end up drinking my final drink at the final pub. I also acted as timekeeper, holding us all to fifteen minutes of drinking time per pub. For beginners, timekeeping is critical on a Monopoly Pub Crawl although from past experience we have learned that the suggested times on the printout from the site start out very optimistic (or rather, we start out by quickly dropping an hour or so behind) before suddenly and inexplicably dropping away behind us in the last third of the Crawl. Mike still has the original printout from our first full-blown successful crawl in 2006. It's in really terrible condition now; he's considering laminating it.

The Fen is a fairly lousy little pub, although if you nab our customary seats at the back on the right you do get a nice view of the Gherkin through one of the windows. We left in pretty short order and proceeded along the relatively long walking link the Aldgate Exchange which, as mentioned previously, has had some sort of interior makeover and now looks like somebody's Ikea kitchen, all friendly and squeaky clean. At this point Cornelius and Dave (who weren't required to drink this time around) ducked outside and went to get some fried eel. I think. Something disgusting anyway. They lagged behind when we made the next, equally tedious walking link to Liverpool Street station (the Tube isn't remotely worth it if you know someone who knows the way, or has some vague sense of direction and can recognise the station when they see it).

The Hamilton Hall, while beautiful, was absolutely chocker. I really don't understand how it can have such a large number of people in it at what was basically midday, even accounting for Crawlers (including one particular group whose leader wore a Spongebob Squarepants outfit would slightly outpace us through almost the entire journey). The first set of Chance cards was drawn here, which resulted in Julian having to order a "blue drink" (he got Bombay Sapphire, which is colourless but at least comes in a blue bottle) and then inexplicably having to down it. "Down" is a strong term-- it took at least thirty seconds although the glass never left the man's lips, which is respectable.

We split up to order lunch here ("Meet at Bus Stop C!") and most of us used Mike's "Bite" card to get 20% off at Burger King. On a drinking tour like this, the word of the day is "carbs": big quantities of unhealthy burger and greasy french fry. There is a second pub inside Liverpool Street station, not far from the Burger King in question-- I can't remember its name, but I am reasonably sure that I saw beer taps, so on the inevitable 2011 Crawl we shall have to investigate this.

I recited Tom Cruise's phone call to Kittridge from the movie Mission: Impossible, which was partially filmed at Liverpool Street station (and at Tower Bridge, come to think of it). We got on the bus and got off at the secret bus stop which lets you take the secret rear entrance into the Old Red Lion. On the way we recognised another group of Crawlers who had waited with us at the stop outside the George (Old Kent Road) for a while before hailing a taxi. We had turned over the idea of hiring a taxi to take us around all day and concluded that it would have cost a thousand quid upwards. They appeared to have abandoned their taxi and begun to walk.

Projected on a big screen inside the Old Red Lion was a football match. At least one London team was involved, possibly more than one, which explained why so many people in football shirts had been around the place, including on my train journey up in the morning. A family of eight had occupied a complete set of tables in my sleepy, empty carriage, and several of them had ordered beer. Now, on the one hand, I was myself on my way to a 26-pub crawl intended to begin around 11:00am, but on the other hand: Ordering beer, warm beer at that, needlessly expensive beer too, from the refreshment cart on the train, bad lager, at 9:30am, with teenage kids in the seat next to you, on the way to a football game? Couldn't you wait until London? Do I get to hang on to the moral high ground here? I hope so.

Here the second round of Chance cards was drawn and I had to get a "red drink" (I elected for Pimm's and lemonade, which went down nicely and fortunately contained little enough alcohol that I didn't ruin myself) while Chris had to speak in the foreign language of his choice (mercifully choosing French over Japanese) and James B. had to give a toast to the Queen (la Reine).

We continued up the road to The Castle on Pentonville Road and it was after this brief stopover that Dave decided to make use of the crazy Barclay's bike rental scheme thing. There used to be two routes from Pentonville Road to the next pub. You can get a bus, although it still drops you a certain distance from King's Cross. Or you can walk it, which is a very serious one-kilometre slog, admittedly downhill, but directly into burning sunshine and at the hottest part of the day. This point, just after pub number six and before pub number seven, is The Wall for me. This is the point where you realise that you've probably had enough beer for an evening but it's 1:30pm and you're not even a quarter of the way there and there really are twenty more pubs after this. But there is now a third route! You can do what Dave did, rush off and find a bike from somewhere, rent it, ride it down the hill with no helmet, find somewhere to stow it, and then catch up with us on foot.

We put a stop to that kind of behaviour fairly quickly after realising that while he was as chipper and articulate as he always is, Dave had, in plain fact, been drinking all morning.

The Duke of York at King's Cross station is gone, possibly with good riddance as it was always something of a hole. Our stopgap solution is the Betjeman Arms in St. Pancras station next door, which is an altogether classier affair and has a cool semi-indoors "outdoors" bit out near the platforms, within eyeshot of the Eurostar. Nearby, a table tennis game was taking place.

Up Euston Road there are two choices, the Rocket and the Euston Flyer. We selected the latter, but it was mostly arbitrary and next time around we could go the other way. We slogged all the way to Marylebone station which is always a long and fiddly link, and slouched in the far corner of the Victoria & Albert slugging pints of water. This pub isn't a great place. I've always found it far too dark and empty for my liking. Previously I've given up on beer here and moved to Red Bull and vodka, but the "alternate pubs" plan was serving us very well indeed.

After this is what I think of as the confused middle section of the Monopoly Crawl. You basically start at Hyde Park Corner and meander through six or seven pubs, meticulously avoiding national landmarks and significant public thoroughfares in the name of alcohol. The Rose & Crown at Park Lane is a little... well, little, and seldom has seating anywhere but deep in the back where it's dark. Ye Grapes in Mayfair (one of about 40 pubs in the district) is respectable but I realised for the first time that it was stuffed to the gills with, well, animals which had themselves been stuffed. The Blue Posts at Piccadilly is the most unremarkable and forgettable pub on the route. This is where Rob and Elliot caught up with us, having simply been lazy starting out in the morning. The Red Lion in Pall Mall is a wonderful little establishment, posted inside the very narrow Crown Passage (don't look at me like that, most of the pubs on the route aren't actually on the roads they're supposed to be on). The Lord Moon Of The Mall in Whitehall is a completely boring and invariably crowded Wetherspoons with a big frightening sign warning about bag snatchers. Here, we came closest to a catastrophic timekeeping failure when Elliot's Chance card required him to order, pay for and down another drink in what amounted to less than ninety seconds. The bar was "zero deep", however, and he succeeded.

The Sherlock Holmes in Northumberland Avenue I don't even remember. Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street is a memorable bar, but not in a good way because it's so ancient, tiny, crowded, black, expensive and claustrophobic. The clouds burst on us (no jacket, remember!) during our transition from there to the Strand, but thankfully dried up just a few pubs later. In the Strand I vetoed the Wellington, which is usually overflowing by this time of the day (6pm!) and we visited the Lyceum, another pub stolen from the late lamented Alphabet Crawl. This was a big improvement. Here, chance cards caused not one but four distinct people to "switch drinks with the person to your left". Chris cunningly concealed his until the last, enabling to transfer his sturdy bitter to poor Mike. Three other people got to sip nice Sam Smith's lager.

By this time hunger was really setting in. The dinner stop should really be earlier in the Crawl, but it can't be helped. The Marquess of Angelsey at Bow Street was standing room only. The Chandos which is "at" (i.e. further away from it than several others) Trafalgar Square was emptier but still busy. The Moon Under Water at Leicester Square was as rubbish as it usually is. Then it was Burger King again for another hefty dose of delicious, nourishing, energising, sugary, alcohol-absorbing junk food. By this time, as we always find, we were miles ahead of the game, and some of us who were itching to push onwards (and were long overdue for another drink) actually skipped ahead to the Comedy at Coventry Street.

Finally there is the amnesiac section, which in previous years I've either dropped out before reaching, or been too drunk to clearly perceive. I'm still not a hundred percent clear on the route through the rest of Soho to hit the pleasant Captain's Cabin "in" Regent Street. Because there is no real pub near Vine Street and the official one on the route is nowhere near it anyway, we made up our own choice for this stop and crossed Piccadilly Circus to visit the Queen's Head and the Devonshire Arms, two very small and really rather enjoyable establishments just to the north of it. O'Neill's at Great Marlborough Street is pretty much just a stop along the way, not remarkable, but our Bond Street choice, the Hog in the Pound, is a really nice place to be, especially to sit outside after dark, or to visit the TARDIS-like basement which extends beyond the physical confines of the pub above.

And we never saw Spongebob again because they were probably following the new route, whereas our 2006 printout had the "real" final pub, the one which needs you to walk all the way along Oxford Street in order to win your final drink and win your "passed Go" medal. Of course we made it. In better shape than ever! With an hour to spare until closing time! We spilled out onto the street loudly discussing business management and assembly language.

It was more of a social event. I guess the booze can get in the way of that.

The MPC is over for me. I can do it standing on my head. I have plans afoot for a different concept next time around, and not the resurrection of the tragically unpopular and doomed Alphabet Crawl either. No. The Crystal Maze Pub Crawl, my friends. Mark my words...