I wasn’t really old enough to enjoy the illicit thrill of the afternoon lock-in, but I think myself and Mr Hopkins may have discovered the closest remaining version over the weekend.
Trying to be good boys and do something constructive with our Saturday afternoon we had visited a couple of galleries in h*xton and then headed out towards The Chisenhale. However, having waited some time for the bus, by the time we got there I was dying for a pee, so a swift half was called for.
We ducked into the first boozer we came across, The Young Prince, a slightly forbidding looking shop-front type place, a long narrow pub, with no windows except those at the front and not much in the way of ambient lighting. Having relieved myself we sat down to find that the pub was showing the Leicester v Man U match on hooky Spanish satellite telly (for those of you not from the UK, pretty much the only time it is impossible to watch football here is between 3 and 5 on a Saturday afternoon as the authorities fear that if it is shown then (the traditional kick-off time) no one will go to real live matches), and the combination of this dark, unknown (although by no means unfriendly) and fairly empty boozer in a different part of town and the Spanish commentary on the football did give a certain frisson to the afternoon, and, somewhat inevitably, we didn’t get to any more art.