I blame nobody but myself.

(This is a bit of a belated writeup.)

This year's Monopoly Pub Crawl took place on 8th August 2009. It has been a while since we attempted one of these since we have been experimenting with my personal baby, the Alphabet puB Crawl, and it hasn't really been working. The idea this year was to return to the MPC, something that we knew was relatively simple to pull off, as a morale-boosting exercise, before trying anything more complex. Since nobody else seemed to want to spearhead the idea, I stepped up - about eight people said they'd turn up, but the number at the starting line was nearly double that, due to people bringing friends and roommates whom I either didn't know or whose names I couldn't (still don't) remember. In the unofficial guidelines I say 10 is the maximum, but somehow we managed to keep it all together.

Monopoly Pub Crawl route

At the starting line I was making sure that everybody, particularly the first-timers, had had a hearty breakfast and I was repeating advice from the aforementioned guidelines and informing people in advance as to the route and strategic plans we had in mind. Several teams assembled at Bus Stop E and departed before us; we caught up with and overtook both of them in relatively short order, due to rigid timekeeping by the illustrious Mike.

And what happened next? Well, hypocrisy. While I was going around advising everybody as to safe drinking practice, I was also announcing "This is the year that I drink at every pub", which anybody who knows me will say is optimistic, shading to unrealistic, shading to utterly preposterous. The Comedy at Coventry Street (pub number 20 or so) is roughly where I dropped out and Dan graciously escorted me home. The following morning I watched Life On Mars on DVD, drank huge quantities of water and generally just lived my life one hour and one footstep at a time until I was home again. Yes, I was hung over. Hangovers are a natural result of such activity. I don't make a habit of it.

I regret not pacing myself better and I regret not reaching the finish line, something I've achieved before by the simple expedient of not drinking at every pub, but that is what I get for walking around claiming I know everything there is to know about the Monopoly Crawl and my own drinking capabilities. I'm pretty sure that everybody had a good time, and that's what counts, right?

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Plans for the new Alphabet puB Crawl are churning. If you want to contribute to this effort, please take a look at the current map of suggested pubs and by all means suggest new pubs in this region, particularly beginning with difficult letters.

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