Friday

For tonight's richly deserved Friday night entertainment, Mike suggests an evening in The Tollgate - which suits K and I as it's just across the road and, being a Wetherspoon's frequented by only society's most wretched specimens, serves irresistibly cheap cider. I had planned to meet Mike there at 7, before K and a couple of others turned up at 7.30, but Mike is held up, meaning I get a chance to sit inside (no seats outside, more's the pity) and watch the place slowly fill up with sad-looking old men, younger men with white paint on their trousers, young women wearing gold jewellery and skint studenty types (a bit like me, I supposed) who were willing to wait at the long bar as the skeleton staff attempt to put together something approaching a Friday night.

The staffing situation is a problem, actually, and when the time comes to buy my round I end up waiting a full fifteen minutes for one of the two barmaids to finish shuffling up and down in pursuit of a glass...some ice...some vodka...some coke...the till...the customer...the till...the customer again - it's excruciating viewing when all you want is a glass of cider to help yourself tune out from this Wetherspoonsian madness.

OK, so it's not that bad - and by 10pm it's K, Mike, Tim, Ant and myself around a table merilly bantering and getting surprisingly smashed on Weston's Organic. K and I decide to make a move, but not before stopping at the off-licence to get a 2 litre bottle of Strongbow (£3.49 of undeniable quality beverage), for which we are reduced to paying in 5ps, such is our combined change situation. Tonight, it must be admitted, has not been a high water mark in terms of classiness, but it's nice to get home on a Friday night after a walk of 30 seconds, having spent only around £10 for a perfectly pleasant evening. We pour ourselves a glass of Strongbow (I suppose we at least didn't just pass the bottle back and forth) and sit down in front of the TV to watch Rev, a new BBC sitcom starring Tom Hollander which seems very funny - though that may just be the cider chuckling.