Alphabet Challenge (with drinking)
Posted: 02 Oct 2005, 01:59
I can't remember how or why I came across Geoff's website but it inspired me and a couple of my friends to spend a day in London doing something on the tube. As we're all recently (between 3 and 15 months) ex-students we decided to combine the alphabet challenge (since a full run would require far too much forward planning, an all-lines was too short, a Z1 didn't take us far enough out of where we already had a vague idea about, and we were only available at weekends anyway) with a students favourite pasttime of visiting pubs...
...and so the challenge was created.
We decided to visit stations starting with A-Z (obviously without J, X, Y & Z) in order the same as on the normal alphabet challenge. Our twist was that at each letter we had to get off the tube, locate a pub and drink at least half a pint of our favourite drink there. (aka. 1 unit, although we specified half a pint in order to make the volume a factor too) Of course this meant that the entire challenge would take far longer than a traditional version of the alphabet where you can stay on the same train and do multiple stations just by sitting on the same train. There was also the actual finding a pub at each station, and then persuading them that we weren't nutters and could they please serve us just half a pint and sign our sheet to say we'd been there. (for the record the timings we took were when all 3 halfs were poured at each pub). In order to make things a little easier we only had to arrive OR depart from each letter. (eg. we could arrive at Bank [but it had to be a Bank labelled station and not Monument, despite them being connected] and depart from Cannon Street while walking between them) In the end though we only made 2 walking connections on this run.
For a first attempt, and not really knowing what we were doing we managed as far as V before we ran out of time on the licensing hours and couldn't get served. However we did skip U since Upton Park was too far our to get to when we would have been heading there. We also had to revise our route on the morning of the challenge when we discovered that a major part of our route (Circle, Met, H&C from Baker St to Liverpool St) was closed for engineering works. (Our moral from that story is to check the TFL pages before the day of doing it) We probably could have successfully reached W and got served too, apart from more engineering works between Hitchin and Kings Cross (and us oversleeping) which meant that our train arrived in Kings Cross late, and we didn't get our first halfs poured until 11:43, wasting an entire 43 minutes of licensing hours.
Over the course of the day 22 half pints only equates to 11 pints but we found that we all had different points where one of the 3 drank faster or slower than the others. There's also something strangely wrong about sitting down in a pub only to throw half a pint down your neck, be wanting another one, but have to run back to the tube station and down an escalator to make the connection. Also some of the locations require a fair amount of searching around in order to find a pub nearby. The wonders of the internet gave us a vague idea of how far we'd have to go, but in some cases weren't accurate, or lead to somewhere such as The Ritz Hotel which clearly wasn't suitable. Some stations such as Regents Park and Great Portland Street or Cannon Street and Bank are also so insanely close together in geographical terms that if the route requires you to visit both of them then there's a question of "do we want to find somewhere slightly further away the first or second time of visiting?"
For the record our cheapest round of 3 drinks (2 half lagers, usually Fosters and 1 half cider [yes, for me], usually Strongbow) was suprisingly at Green Park in the heart of Mayfair. Our most expensive was at a poncy bar (that'll teach us not to look around enough) in the West End although Ickenham came a close second where we reckon the staff at the Ember Inns franchise (Coach and Horses) overcharged us, so we definatley won't be going there again.
Other interesting moments were swapping to a "fast" Metropolitan train at Harrow-on-the-Hill which left a minute after the slow train we had been on. The "fast" train, although it didn't stop at any intermediate stations, and as far as we could tell being on a separate track to the slow train still slowed down just outside each station and remained frustratingly behind the slow train all the way down. I can only assume that under normal circumstances a "fast" train can overtake a "slow" train but it didn't happen on the day.
Only one of our pubs (chosen at random based on what we could see from the station entrance) turned out to be a gay bar.
We were ID'ed (all three of us were either 21 or 22) at about 1/3rd of the pubs.
We lost most of our time due to chatting to interested bar staff
At each pub we asked the person who served us to sign a sheet saying that we'd been there and most of them seemed interested, or possibly bemused about what we were doing. Myself, Matt and Richard are definatley doing it again and we're going to learn from our mistakes this time (especially that the shortest route may not necessarily be the best if nothing's open). We reckon that our theory is sound but we definatley want to get round everywhere next time.
...and so the challenge was created.
We decided to visit stations starting with A-Z (obviously without J, X, Y & Z) in order the same as on the normal alphabet challenge. Our twist was that at each letter we had to get off the tube, locate a pub and drink at least half a pint of our favourite drink there. (aka. 1 unit, although we specified half a pint in order to make the volume a factor too) Of course this meant that the entire challenge would take far longer than a traditional version of the alphabet where you can stay on the same train and do multiple stations just by sitting on the same train. There was also the actual finding a pub at each station, and then persuading them that we weren't nutters and could they please serve us just half a pint and sign our sheet to say we'd been there. (for the record the timings we took were when all 3 halfs were poured at each pub). In order to make things a little easier we only had to arrive OR depart from each letter. (eg. we could arrive at Bank [but it had to be a Bank labelled station and not Monument, despite them being connected] and depart from Cannon Street while walking between them) In the end though we only made 2 walking connections on this run.
For a first attempt, and not really knowing what we were doing we managed as far as V before we ran out of time on the licensing hours and couldn't get served. However we did skip U since Upton Park was too far our to get to when we would have been heading there. We also had to revise our route on the morning of the challenge when we discovered that a major part of our route (Circle, Met, H&C from Baker St to Liverpool St) was closed for engineering works. (Our moral from that story is to check the TFL pages before the day of doing it) We probably could have successfully reached W and got served too, apart from more engineering works between Hitchin and Kings Cross (and us oversleeping) which meant that our train arrived in Kings Cross late, and we didn't get our first halfs poured until 11:43, wasting an entire 43 minutes of licensing hours.
Over the course of the day 22 half pints only equates to 11 pints but we found that we all had different points where one of the 3 drank faster or slower than the others. There's also something strangely wrong about sitting down in a pub only to throw half a pint down your neck, be wanting another one, but have to run back to the tube station and down an escalator to make the connection. Also some of the locations require a fair amount of searching around in order to find a pub nearby. The wonders of the internet gave us a vague idea of how far we'd have to go, but in some cases weren't accurate, or lead to somewhere such as The Ritz Hotel which clearly wasn't suitable. Some stations such as Regents Park and Great Portland Street or Cannon Street and Bank are also so insanely close together in geographical terms that if the route requires you to visit both of them then there's a question of "do we want to find somewhere slightly further away the first or second time of visiting?"
For the record our cheapest round of 3 drinks (2 half lagers, usually Fosters and 1 half cider [yes, for me], usually Strongbow) was suprisingly at Green Park in the heart of Mayfair. Our most expensive was at a poncy bar (that'll teach us not to look around enough) in the West End although Ickenham came a close second where we reckon the staff at the Ember Inns franchise (Coach and Horses) overcharged us, so we definatley won't be going there again.
Other interesting moments were swapping to a "fast" Metropolitan train at Harrow-on-the-Hill which left a minute after the slow train we had been on. The "fast" train, although it didn't stop at any intermediate stations, and as far as we could tell being on a separate track to the slow train still slowed down just outside each station and remained frustratingly behind the slow train all the way down. I can only assume that under normal circumstances a "fast" train can overtake a "slow" train but it didn't happen on the day.
Only one of our pubs (chosen at random based on what we could see from the station entrance) turned out to be a gay bar.
We were ID'ed (all three of us were either 21 or 22) at about 1/3rd of the pubs.
We lost most of our time due to chatting to interested bar staff
At each pub we asked the person who served us to sign a sheet saying that we'd been there and most of them seemed interested, or possibly bemused about what we were doing. Myself, Matt and Richard are definatley doing it again and we're going to learn from our mistakes this time (especially that the shortest route may not necessarily be the best if nothing's open). We reckon that our theory is sound but we definatley want to get round everywhere next time.
When we do it again though we know where to avoid due to the prices at least (Coach and Horses, Ickenham for one [overcharging so-and-sos])
