Another month, another dizzying round of weird, wonderful and scary York hostelries. Along the way we drank from shoes, eavesdropped on strange old men, seriously offended an entire pub and gatecrashed a domino tournament. This one got messy.

It all started off sedately enough with a quiet couple of pints in The Punchbowl. Along with the venue that seems to have been calling itself 'Br' for the past year, The Punchbowl is your average Geordie's introduction to the Micklegate run. The two most notable aspects of this pub are the eight hundred TV's, (I counted), and the huge windows over-looking Blossom Street which created a kind of service station effect. We passed time, whilst awaiting various latecomers, by watching two crawlers sipping from their boots, studying a hulk of man who was clearly enjoying his food and all shaking our heads when a woman wandered over and asked if any of us were George Bradford.

We were starting to get annoyed with the wall of TV's, which seemed to be playing 'Careless Whisper' on an endless loop, and so headed to our next pub. Avoiding the traditional Micklegate route we instead turned left and plunged like a hen parties neckline down Nunnery Lane.

The Trafalgar Bay was our second stop and turned out to be a warm and friendly place sporting madly anachronistic features such as 'Electronic Chess'. One crawler was much enamoured with a sign labelled 'Wobble-ometer' located over a corridor. He considered stealing this, (funny at the time but a portent of terrible things to come), but instead just asked Ruth and Steve, the lovely landlords, if he could have it. They obliged and pointed out that the sign commemorated a, now deceased, regular whose state of inebriation could be judged by how many times he struck the corridor wall as he stumbled to the toilet. What a nice way to be remembered.

Just before leaving we played a fruit machine very slowly just so we could listen to the conversation going on next to it. Which involved a sloshed old man tell another, less sloshed, old man that he was 'gorgeous'. Repeatedly.

Next up, The Victoria Vaults, there were thirty-two of us at this point and, seeing as it was a Monday night, the bar staff looked suitably bemused. With a huge open area surrounded by comfy seats, lots of Victorian pictures and some small cat-shaped teapots we felt right at home. In our cheery state, (someone had suggested the idea of straight gin chasers), we were riding a wave of happy bonhomie and hilarious banter...in our own minds at least. However, by the crossed arms stance of the growling landlord, it is possible that we were actually appearing to be a large group of twats.

A couple of drinks, a small play fight involving the boot drinkers and a girl getting letched at on the way to the toilet later we were on our way to The Cygnet. And, it transpired, not without a small memento.

The Cygnet, in the middle of a housing estate off Nunnery Lane, was not on our original pub-crawl route, (it was suggested in the last pub because of its 'scary' factor and put to the vote), and probably will not be on any pub-route ever again. We piled in and straight away realised that it was the kind of pub that held domino tournaments. We realised this because we interrupted a domino tournament. There was also an old man sucking a lemon in the corner but I think that was incidental.

The place was packed and full of the most 'local' locals you've ever met. We were on their turf and the landlady's comments to three massive blokes to 'watch them - they look cocky', didn't create a great deal of confidence. The phone call that arrived a few minutes later kind of made the situation worse as the landlord from The Victoria Vaults informed The Cygnet that a 'group of students' had just stolen a small pottery car filled with pot-pouri. Damn that 'Wobble-ometer' drunken kleptomaniac. Can't believe we got labelled as students though. A quick exit was required, although not after more pints, a game of pool and a barrage of stares. On the way out the old man was still enjoying his bitter citrus snack.

Our final pub was Bishopthorpe Road's White Swan, which was by far the friendliest venue yet. Landlord Rachel let us stroke her dog and had this to say about us, 'well you all seem to be jolly nice to be honest.' Well, nice when we're not stealing, play fighting or drinking from shoes I suppose.