Once again :here magazine and a hand picked selection of fools embark on a bacchanalian orgy of booze and ciggies to bring you the essential guide to the pubs on our city. Along the way we hurt a dog, listened to a 71 year old man read poetry, had our pictures taken with postmen and bared our bottoms on Micklegate.

Finding a decent out of the way pub is like finding your younger Sister's diary, a delicious secret that you tell no one about...but return to time and time again. The Ackhorne, off Micklegate and hidden down the alleyway between Walkers Bar and that churchyard where everyone has sex, is just such a pub. Warm, cosy and decorated with countless Royalist pictures this pub is one of those that always has a fascinating mix of characters - including, when we were there, a young chap in beret and a middle aged man who sat right next to us and promptly fell asleep. We make a dramatic entrance, shuffling chairs and tables around whilst one of the crawlers encouraged a small dog to make a horrendous screeching noise... by stepping on it. We ignore its owners furious looks and make merry by drinking a couple of pints and making fun of one of our crowd who has unintentionally come out dressed like Pat Butcher.

Hurriedly crossing Micklegate, and resisting the associated urge to wear flashing devil's horns or pastel shirts, we head down North Street to the First Hussar. Despite the fact that I had interviewed Adrian Spendlow only two days earlier, (see feature on page 17), I had completely forgotten that his live poetry events took place at this pub on the very night we had decided to invade. That'll be my short-term memory loss then. The clash between serious folk poets and a bunch of childish alcoholics was potentially very messy. We tried to behave...honestly. Unfortunately in a quiet room full of people enjoying the beauty of the spoken word it's difficult to ignore fifteen people all ordering at the same time and phoning friends up to join us. Arses that we are. The embarrassing situation became worse when some bloke got up and launched into an acapella, atonal and medieval sounding song called 'My love is like a necklace' or something. The pain on peoples' faces as they struggled not to snigger was excruciating. Golden Fleece and Fibbers barmaid Sue didn't even bother and just laughed out loud. I had to leave the room.

Just when things couldn't get worse or we couldn't get ruder our salvation came in the form of a 71 year old man. This dignified poet took the center of the pub and in the face of a :here posse acting like school children began to read. His commanding, romantic and very Larkin poems shut us up immediately and provided a surreal moment of calm and depth in what was otherwise a frantic and shallow night.

On to the Maltings then, a pub known for its dedication to quality beer, we found one called Hip-Hop, and luckily not for poetry. Notable décor was a toilet against a wall and hundreds of antique signs and notices. Including one for some VD ointment. Intimate and friendly the Maltings, like the Ackhorne, is certainly one of York's treasures. It's far enough away from the center of town to have a real personality and yet is always lively. Whilst in there we were delighted to see no less than eight postmen drinking together. We begged for a picture but four ran off, the others stayed and humoured our drunken photographer. We then spent a while arguing over what the collective noun of postmen would be. We settled on a 'late' of postmen. Ha ha.

So to the Judges Lodgings, our final hostelry. Set on Lendal in the basement of a magnificent building this pub feels like an underground drinking den and smacks of 1950's mod club or Georgian dandy hole. Or is that just me? One of the highlights of this boozer was a top landlord, who discovered me wandering behind the bar to take a photo and was very cool about it. Another, according to one of the sheets that we asked our crawlers to fill in, was a girl in a yellow top. With the soundtrack to Lock Stock booming around this labyrinthine pub we drank until closing time and I learnt that someone I've known for the last two years used to be a male stripper.

At the end of a night that had seen a mass of people sink far too much alcohol for their livers good the inevitable conclusion is to head to Ziggys. Look, it made sense at the time. Unfortunately/fortunately the queue was just a little too long and so we gatecrashed a friends flat on Micklegate. I'm not saying that the stupidity continued but we didn't finish until six in the morning and much of that time was spent daring each other to moon in the street. And believe me you really don't want to see the pictures.