“A pint of lager and a vodka and slimlime tonic please”. It’s wrong to laugh at the people who say “slimline” instead of “diet”, I’m sure it is. But what if it’s just post-work, you’re in a pub which (ugh!) faces directly onto Oxford Street and he is wearing a pinstripe suit with a purple shirt? I think in that case it’s perfectly acceptable. The pub in question in this unfortunate instance is the Hog and Pound on Moulton St, Londons Trendy West One, postcode pickers. The first worrying sign was the fact that I was alerted to this pub via text message from a website I drunkenly signed up to when WEBSITE SCROTES came round our table whilst we were sprawled about in a Camden boozer. I signed up under the name “Prussia Anschluss”, hoping that I would get merely BIERKELLER updates but ach no CHIZ.

The inside of the pub is absolutely tiny and packed full of people in those suits with a vague shine on them… not quite sure if they are meant to be like that and cost ‘3300000 or if they are just CHEAP. I suspect the latter to be honest… we look about, concerned as to where this karaoke machine could possibly be located on a heaving Friday night. The King of Corsica usuals could fill the upstairs, no problem. After BIFF BASH BOSHING our way through the cheap suits with our respective odd tasting pints of Directors Bitter, we find a door and wobble down some stairs to find no more seats. ARSE I think, ARSE! So we lean against a PILLAR and I realise the jukebox in the corner IS my sixteen year old self! Hello Radiohead! Hello Manics! How nice to have the company of Sean Moores trumpet.

We talk about STACKS and I get stuck, I note their lack of special promotional offers on ALE. Fair enough, these pubs are often rubbidge. You know what I mean, the ones with the FAKE CHALK notices outside – but are often made into solid gold gems due to offers on the free bouze. However, this was expensive and ‘ORRID. The Smirnoff Ice was lined up like a cheap tart. I felt soiled. So did my drinking companion who went off to the gents, and reported back that the urinals were made of porcelain. Being a chick I disdain this information. By now the atmosphere has congealed around us like a disgusting stinking pan of DRIPPING. We duck out into the cold of Moulton St, our faith in pubs waning. The moral of the story is OXFORD STREET BOOZERS: NO.

The search for a new Friday night karaoke local continues.