Say No to Quiz Night

Traditionally, Wednesday night is Quiz night. Over the past few weeks, Wednesday night has been cinema night. This week, as a result of an overcrowded pub making for poor sandwich potential, Wednesday night is Pub Crawl night...

Pub Number 16: The Golden Lion

The last time I went to the Golden Lion, it was January, and I had given up drinking. As had Paul and James. So while James' friend drank his pints down, we sampled the extensive J2O collection and got surprisingly drunk on sugar. So as to continue with the tee-total connotations, I settled into a not particularly comfortable sofa with a pint of blackcurrant and soda, with a straw.

On Wednesday night, this pub lacks atmosphere - it felt empty and cold. On weekend nights, it's better but its the kind of place we never think of to go to. Maybe we should...

We lost £1.50 on the quiz machine

Pub Number 17: The Three Cranes
I have lived in York for almost 9 years and there aren't many pubs in the town centre that I've never been to. The Three Cranes is one of them. It is also one of the pubs that Neil refuses to go to on a Saturday night, so tonight, we swallowed our fear and walked through the doors, where we turned heads for a moment. They were probably all jealous of our relative youth.

The clientelle are generally men in their 50s who like their ale. There is a dartboard on the wall and a framed collage of what must be all the locals heads attached to other photos, making it look like they're standing next to various celebrities. There is a good selection of beers and ales and it's the kind of place that the barmaid will offer to top up your pint of bitter if the head spans more than 2mm from the top of the glass. The kind of place where you might find an abandoned housing benefit leaflet in the ladies toilets (which were a bit grimy and no hand dryers, but acceptable - unlike the mens which were apparently minging. A sure sign that not many women cross the threshold of this city centre old mens haven.)

This pub feels like someone's living room. Its cosy, and despite sticking out like sore thumbs, we weren' t made to feel uncomfortable there.

Will we return? Yes... when we're all 20 years older.

Pub Number 18: The Lendal Cellars
This pub is exactly what it says on the tin - an underground cellar (which used to operate as part of the Hogshead chain - not sure whether it still does but thought I'd throw in that historical fact anyway.)

This is another pub that its easy to forget about, but one which is actually not bad. If you want to hide away from the rest of the world, you can meander your way down to the back of the table lined tunnel, or if you fancy a bit of daylight (or moonlight), there's an ever expanding beer garden. If, like us you are looking for somewhere to empty your wallet on quiz machines, then there is a choice of two, and the one we chose gave us so much money that we didn't have the energy to put it all back in, and so everyone gained £1. (To compensate for the £2 each that we'd put in)