Barney Britton gets together three of the usual suspects and sees how far a tenner will go in the pubs of Durham…

An Idea.
As a fresher, you’re probably going to want to go out at some point. More than likely you’ll end up at the New Inn quite a lot to begin with, but we forgive you. You’re new here, and you’re bound to be led astray at first. Here at durham21 we want to help you. We want to guide you through the confusing mass of bars and pubs, pointing out the best, the cheapest, and the prettiest. We don’t seek credit, we need no reward – our only remuneration is the knowledge of a job well done, and the warm glowy feeling that Mother Theresa probably got when she helped those who needed her help most. Except that hopefully none of you buggers are going to give me leprosy.

With this in mind, (helping you that is, not the leprosy thing) on Friday 13th of May I had a great idea. It was one of the best ideas I’ve ever had – better even than my idea for designing a universal shower-control (and that was a pretty bloody good idea!) A bar-crawl! But not just any Bar-crawl, oh no. In light of my current financial situation, it was to cost no more than a tenner – a daunting prospect out of term time, and to make it even harder, I decided that this great adventure should explore only city bars, – no colleges. Could we do it? Could we get battered on a tenner? What would we end up drinking to achieve our goal, and would it make interesting reading?

Buying bread at lunchtime, mulling over my great idea, I absent-mindedly checked the price of meths on the hardware stall of the indoor market, and was reassured to find that if all else failed, we could get royally twatted on less than a quid if we had to – blue teeth ahoy!

But that was the worst-case scenario, and I was pretty confident that I wouldn’t end up at two in the morning, sitting in the road, off my nut on turps. Not again. Besides, whatever happened I was not to be alone. My designated companion for the evening was to be Mr Roger Jeffery, ex Jam Night correspondent and hardened Guinness drinker, who literally jumped at the mention of a piss-up. Writhing about with a gleeful grimace he agreed to meet me at eight in the Union for the opening ceremony of both the Olympics and our evening out.

Kingsgate
When we arrived at Kingsgate it was full of foreign students, cheering their nations as they marched around a stadium in Athens – Japan, China, Korea, – I was rooting for the Kayman Islands, and it was then that I spotted Matt Killeya, former editor of durham21 and judging by his enthusiastic whistling at the screen, apparently also a great fan of the people and culture of Kazakhstan. I always thought he was from Manchester. It just goes to show.

“I always thought you were from Manchester” I said, as I returned from the bar. Matt cleverly sidestepped the question by asking me what we were up to. I explained the plan, and he readily accepted the challenge, suggesting also that we should leave Kingsgate as soon as possible, because, as he rightly pointed out; “it’s a bit rubbish now that Kazakhstan have gone past.” I could see his point. Even when relatively full, our glorious Union bar does still have something of the cross-channel ferry look about it, and outside of term time it seems to sag a little, echoing to other, different footsteps until everyone comes back again in October. The most exciting thing about Kingsgate tonight, apart from Kazakhstan, is the new motorcycle racing game, the base unit of which projects across the floor and has already tripped up several Koreans. But fun as it undoubtedly is to watch people falling on their arses – people who aren’t me anyway – we really needed to move on.

But not before we’d picked up the forth member of our party, Akiko, from Japan, who I’d met earlier in the week when I ran a photographic workshop for some of the new intake of foreign and visiting students. The workshop itself was something of a failure – further evidence that listening to me talking about pictures is of interest principally only to me – but Akiko was very polite, and let me explain to her how her Canon IXUS 500 (Or ‘IXY’ in Japan, much to my delight) worked, so you might say we got on. Akiko liked our idea, we spelled-out and swapped names and decided on a game plan. We were to get round as many bars as we could on a tenner each, reviewing each one as we went with scores out of five in categories of atmosphere, value for money, culture and service. Kingsgate didn’t do too well, – although the service was quick, the drinks were expensive, the architecture is awful and I’ve been in fridges with a better atmosphere. To be fair, it does improve vastly during term-time, but we weren’t too sad to leave. So we were off to the second stop of the evening, – the Swan and 3 Cygnets, beloved haunt of arts students, and a great place to spend a seminar.

Kingsgate Scores:
Service: 4/5
Cultural Interest: 0/5
Quality of Beverage: 3/5
Value for Money: 2/5 (or 0/5 if you’re drinking Guinness…)
Atmosphere: 2/5
Average: 22%.

The Swan and Three Cygnets
It’s Friday night, so the Swan’s pretty busy, but I squeezed onto a bench with Roger and Akiko next some fat-arsed women who are probably drinking Carling while Matt goes and gets the beers in. I’m on my second drink and I’ve still got six pounds fifteen left, so I’m not doing too badly, although I did squander an early lead by choosing Guinness in Kingsgate. I justified it at the time by considering my other option, which was probably Carling. (Words that my phone thinks I want to type instead of Carling: “Barking” “Basking” and, oddly: “Spell?”…) I decided that I could save Carling for later – for when I was already a bit pissed, barking and basking might well be involved too by that stage – no point spoiling (or spelling) the evening before it had even begun.

With that in mind, it’s Samuel Smiths all round, – about £1.26 a pint and it doesn’t taste too bad – so it’s down the hatch with that – Matt has a pint of Ayingerbrau, the lager version of the house ale, and Akiko has a half. We all start to chat properly, comparing hometowns, other pubs that we like, and speculating on what’s in Akiko’s Waterstones bag. She’s being pretty cagey about it and won’t open it up, so I’m guessing its not a book… but we’ll leave speculation until later, when all shall become clear, and for now we tot up the scores for the Swan and Three, which by common assent, has made us pretty happy this evening. Service was a good 4/5, quick and reasonably friendly, despite the bar being pretty packed, – the quality of the drinks tonight was very good – the lager was sweet and cold and the bitter was, – well… bitter, and full points for value for money. The atmosphere inside was excellent, busy but good-natured, – no anti-student remarks this evening, or none that we heard anyway, but culturally, the Swan is a little
lacking. Before last year’s refurb it was a dark, smoky, grubby little place with ancient wallpaper, a crumbling veranda and paintings on the wall so stained that they could feasibly have been long lost Rubens. Sadly after it was done up the lights were turned up high, as was the music, everything was cleaned, and loads of identical looking charcoal prints were put up on the walls. So now it looks a bit like the lobby of a travel tavern. So only 2/5 on the cultural interest scale, but never mind. The average was still 76%, which for people with standards as high as ours – is pretty good going.

So where next? Chase is suggested – Akiko seems very keen, but the rest of us aren’t so enthusiastic and decide that Chase should be officially disqualified from the evening on the basis that it’s just too expensive, dammit. I also get upset every time I go in there at the travesty of a ‘renovation’ which they subjected the old boathouse to – (I remember when all this was fields etc. etc.) so we walk on by, and into the Shakespeare, which hasn’t been seriously renovated in a very long time indeed, thank God.

The Shakespeare
After some serious faffing about with our order – I remember asking Matt repeatedly to nick some of the Sex on the Beach shots which have been stacked temptingly close to the counter – “It’s supposed to be a bar crawl on a budget Matt! Free drinks!” – Matt refuses to give in to his conscience and we end up with a round of pints (and one half) of this evening’s guest ale, which seconds after ordering it no-one can remember the name of, but which doesn’t cost too much, and we retire to the little itty bitty room next to the Gents, which has been officially named ‘The Chokey’…

The Chokey used to be a phone-box I’m guessing, but has long since ceased to be used for that purpose and is now the place where the great discontented of Durham scrabble their names, hopes and fears on the walls, alongside fairly intricate diagrams of various sexual organs and lots of paens to a man called Eric who, apparently, takes it up the arse. All good clean fun then, but unsurprisingly, no-one’s in any great rush to explain what all these new words mean to Akiko… We get our photo taken by a man who’s seen Led Zeppelin like, five times, (“Why does anyone want tae drink in a fookin’ phonebox?”) and spend some quality time checking out the graffiti and crouching. I’m three drinks in, and feeling bold I ask Akiko what’s in her Waterstones bag: “What’s in your Waterstones bag Akiko?”

“Oh, nothing really, I’m not sure, I think some Japanese food that you wouldn’t like. I think its bad for English people…” Aha! She’s trapped! I’m interested now, and I will not be deflected. I wait for my moment – Akiko’s attention is diverted by a particularly naughty drawing on the wall next to the door – and I open the bag… and pull out a roll of what looks like wallpaper. Wallpaper that smells very strongly of fish. “It’s Fish bread” beams Akiko, “made with the pink fish – S-something…” “Salmon?” I asked, “Yes, salmon. It’s made with salmon. It’s not good for English people I think.” Fair enough. Fish bread. Cool. Akiko poses, proudly triumphant with the bread, while Matt gazes on in the background. The evening is shaping up nicely.

Before we leave I take a pen and on a spare piece of wall carefully write the most profound thing I can think of in the circumstances: “durham21 takes it up the arse.” exellent. Our job here is done. We drain our drinks and head to the Dun Cow – my favourite pub. Hurrah!

The Dun Cow
In the Dun Cow we grab a seat next to the games machine, facing the bar, and get the beers in. It’s Castle Eden all round in here – a lovely pint and at only £1.90, very good value. We have a go at the hangman game – Matt can’t resist a games machine – but three slightly drunk young men and a non-native English speaker were never going to set the world on fire, and I didn’t help by shouting out random words: “Pineapple! Trouserpress!” So we do fairly disasterously. Then some of Matt’s postgraduate friends turn up, and we stay for another.

The last time Roger and I had been in the Dun Cow, – the night before in fact, – two of the local ‘characters’ had taken great pleasure in showing us their genital piercings much against our wishes, but they were nowhere to be seen this evening, thank God. Just another British custom that I didn’t really want to introduce Akiko to. So what were the Dun Cow scores? My note-keeping was beginning to decline a little by this point, in both thoroughness and accuracy, but next to the little drawing of a tree and someone’s phone number I can see a score: “atmosphere, 4/5″ so Old Elvet’s finest drinking place must be doing something right. Roger was shortchanged however, which pulls the overall value for money score down a little, although he did get the money back. The quality of the beverages is beyond question, and culturally, the Dun Cow has a lot to offer. Home of the renowned (and reportedly quite dangerous) Dun Cow Challenge, and a lovely folk band every Thursday, it’s full of interesting paintings, prints and dark corners, as well as some very interesting regulars, some of whom have penis studs.

The overall quality of the banter is starting to suffer a little as we break into our fifth round of drinks, and this is a sample of an actual conversation witnessed between Roger and Akiko:

Akiko: Where are you living in Gilesgate?

Roger: Nextdoor to you. (pause) What was the question?

Akiko: Where are you living in Gilesgate?

Roger: Next to you.

Gradsoc
Oh right. So on we go, to the final pub of the evening, – the Gradsoc bar, which I’ve never actually visited whilst sober, and cannot therefore remember where it actually is, apart from having a vague idea that it’s not too far from the Dun Cow.

A desperate looking place, Gradsoc is full this evening of very intense looking people in their thirties drinking European lager. Akiko asks for something sweet with alcohol in it, so I get her a Bacardi Breezer and two pints of Guinness for myself and I am surprised to find that I still have some change. Before anyone in authority questions my maths I retreat to a bar table and open Akiko’s fishbread while she’s not looking…

It actualy tastes very nice, if a bit fishy, and goes surprisingly well with Guinness. By this point we’ve more or less given up scoring the bars, but value for money was obviously very good, because I’m well on the way to being pretty battered and I still have money left. The atmosphere is rubbish, but we’re past caring now, and culturally the place is a dive, but the service was excellent as far as I remember. By the time the second Guinnness is downed, conversation has become pretty strained. Akiko is staring at the floor and giggling, Roger is writhing wordlessly about next to me, looking disgustedly at the upholstery, Matt’s talking to himself and I’ve given up on speech altogether and have resorted to communicating via eyebrow movement. Oh dear.

The evening over we head to Matt’s for a cup of tea and some more of Akiko’s fishbread, before going our separate ways, promising solemnly to do this again some time. I’m wonderfully tid
dly, I’ve had a great night, and I still have fifteen pence change left from a tenner. Superb.

Other Bars that we like a lot but didn’t visit.

The Victoria:
On Hallgarth street, a few doors down from the English department, the Vic is a great place for a quiet pint, with log fires, little tiny rooms, and a relatively cheap pint. The whisky (and whiskey) selection is legendary, and it’s home to perhaps the oddest barmaid in the world…

The Colpitts:
The local pub for anybody living in the Viaduct area of the city, about ten minutes walk out of town, the Colpitts is even cheaper than the Swan, and much quieter. Notable for the number of middle-aged male ‘friends’ who congregate there, it has a lovely atmosphere and they pour a good pint.

The Market Tavern:
The pub next door to the indoor market in the centre of town. Not the cheapest place in the world, but a good range of guest ales and some very interesting local characters make it worth recommending. Not on a Saturday night though, when it becomes very busy, and not very student-friendly.

Words by Barney, photos by more or less everyone I think in the end. And at least one by the bloke from the Shakespeare who saw Led Zeppelin at least, like, five times…