No. 120 The Victoria

Visited on 15/12/11. Entering ‘the Vic’ through the back door, you’re faced with a choice as the bar is in the middle of the pub with rooms to either side. When we walked in, to the right there were about twenty ‘middle-aged fatty’ once a year drinkers wearing Santa hats and bawling incomprehensible, unfunny shite at each other whilst choking on ‘Jaeger-bombs’. Reckon they were about half an hour from a minor kick-off followed by a stumbling sweaty and utterly repulsive group hug. Way-hey, its Christmas. Many of em’. You and yours etc. etc. Bah friggin’ humbug. We went to the left. This is a magnificent 13^th century building that’s got 21^st century PubCo stamped all over it. It really must be quite a difficult task to suck the history and grandeur out of such a place and replace it with formula tat. If nothing else, Punch Taverns or whoever are masters at pushing back the boundaries of crassness. The ale in here was alright though, to be fair – just Theakston’s best bitter but on fine form and under such circumstances, it’s actually a half decent quaffer. What wasn’t alright was the price – three English pounds and fifty English pence per imperial pint. Yes that’s right – three fifty for Theakston’s ! Didn’t stop us downing at least three rounds though ! Part way through the first, I was alerted to the fact that ‘a bloke’ was asking if anyone knew Tarquel. A cold icy fear gripped me when my gaze fell on ‘the bloke’ in question – a six foot four bearded biker type. I was slightly re-assured when I realised he wasn’t carrying an axe, but nevertheless thought this was pay-back time. I knew it was a mistake to publicise our itinerary beforehand ! Here was the hit man sent by the Amphitheatre bar (No. 76), the Dee Miller (No. 71), Watergates (No. 106) or any number of other tawdry establishments that have received less than favourable comments on this blog over the past ten months. Eventually we were face to face… “Alright mate, pleased to finally meet you”, came the greeting from the hit-man as he shook me firmly by the hand. Turns out it was none other than Trevor, aka Chunkamunka, landlord of the Olde Cottage (No. 25) and CBP aficionado. The power of the interweb eh ? Well it was great to meet Trevor and his missus Jean, who both joined the party for the rest of the night. So that was it then. We stumbled out of the front door of ‘the Vic’ and then down the steps to Chester Cross – the dead centre of town, with all one hundred and twenty of the City’s pubs behind us. The end. Game over. Finito...    It was only a quarter to ten though. And there was still plenty of drinking time left...