Our latest loud and lewd pub crawl started in one of York's few gay pubs and drunkenly ended in Futureworld at Ziggys. And in the spirit of lazy journalism I've decided to christen the whole messy shebang as our 'alternative' crawl.

'Hilariously' called the Gay Horse by some locals, the Bay Horse on Gillygate is a Tardis of a boozer - not too impressive from the outside but huge and futuristic on the inside...without the futuristic bit. Remembering the rakish behaviour that occurred on previous crawls we were a touch perturbed to see a large sign proclaiming 'No large groups'. We piled in anyway and the landlord couldn't have been friendlier, if a little persistent that we entered the nights pub quiz. Persistent in the sense that every time I went up to the bar he showed me the collection of bottled beer and pot of £97 that was on offer. I said no twice and then just stopped going up to the bar. Surprisingly there were notices dotted about advertising Bay Horse T-shirts and Basketball Caps - I presume that this is one of those pubs that inspires fierce loyalty. And, with signs behind the bar proclaiming 'This week's man is Penetrator', why not?

We moved down the road to the Wagon and Horses, where, shopping columnist Matt Bennett pointed out, 'it's just like having your own pub'. And it was indeed, as we commandeered the empty back room and found a large space full of a pool table. There were a number of things that distinguished this hostelry, a bloke wearing a crazy pair of Union Jack trousers, one of the heaviest toilet doors I have ever encountered and a degree of Christmas decorating that looked like a crazed seasonal loner had stormed the pub with a tinsel gun. Staff were extremely friendly and deserve much thanks for generously giving me a pen - this was after I committed the single most rock and roll act of my life and inexplicably set fire to my own.

After about a million games of pool we realised it was getting late and so headed across the road to the White Horse. Drinking here felt a lot like supping in some frontier saloon, a wild west feeling encouraged by the large amount of chubby single men who amused themselves by staring at us. We discovered another pool table and the group split up, a few frames proving to be more attractive than the delights of the York Arms for some of our crawlers.

Which was fair enough really as this Petergate pub, whilst nice enough, was pretty run of the mill. There was a selection of weird lagers behind the bar, (anything that isn't Fosters is weird to me), and the usual pub collection of plates, horse brasses and bellows decorating the walls. A lovely, if fairly strange, touch was a framed photo of the Minster on fire.

Chucking out time arrived and seeing as it was Tuesday there was very little choice about where to go next. Futureworld at Ziggys is the country's longest running alternative night and offers up ridiculously cheap beer, one of the broadest music policies anywhere in town and more piercings and dreadlocks than on an episode of Jerry Springer entitled 'My son dresses like a freak.' With bottles and cans of lager being sold for a pound, (served, incidentally by one of the grumpiest girls I have ever come across), what was already a heavy night started to get really hazy. Suffice to say I ran around talking rubbish, danced (I think) to some cheesy metal, staggered out of the club, went home, collapsed against a wall and knocked myself out. Which, in keeping with the places we visited, was an alternative way to end the evening.