CLUB BEER FIVE - CLUB BEARD: IT WAS HAIRY, IT WAS LAIRY

Friday May 12th was the day. We'd originally planned to do it on the 19th so that it could be a greet big pre-FA Cup Final night party for me and all my Newcastle mates, but unfortunately fate (and a referee unable to spot a ball moving when a free kick was taken - bastard) intervened meaning that Chewsoi got to the final instead of us. So, with nowt much to celebrate on the 19th, and itching to get back to the CB fray, we brought the whole caboodle forward. Because we can. Because we're THAT clever.

Arriving at the LSE Basement Bar I was naturally somewhat un-nerved to learn that, due to a delivery mix-up, there was NO Foster's and a mere 2 kegs of Kronenbourg - only 170 pints. How would we cope? Well, I prefer Guinness anyway, but I was concerned. Although one has to admit the thought of Club Beer drinking a bar dry has great appeal. We planned to mark the occasion with a solemn announcement and even contemplated engraving a plaque but in the end the bar staff created a system of syphons, pipes and such like to funnel beer from elsewhere in the building, and the night was thus saved. And they say the Blitz spirit is dead...

With the room suitably decorated with pictures of people with beards, and suitably revolting records playing from the mighty sound system (Pinky & Perky's version of You're Gorgeous was only the first of many anthems to get the "What ths hell is THIS???!!?" response from our assembled cogniscentii) we sat back and awaited carnage, mayhem and stuff like that. And it duly arrived. Crissi was involved in what can only be described as "a scuffle" with an un-named gent who tried to nick her half-finished Club Beard Bingo Card. And one of the people in Maria's band stumbled, half-cut, into the decks, meaning we had to limp through the final hour with a recalcitrant turntable and too many CDs.

THE PLATTERS THAT MATTERED

Tunes of the night were legion, and as ever depended on your level of inebriation, proximity to the loudspeakers and fondness for the work of CW McColl. Andrew berated me at length over the latter's Convoy, claiming we should have played some other tune from the Best Of CD I own (oh, yes) because it was funnier. Ian enjoyed playing Shaddup You Face very greatly but everyone else hated it and we had to violently remove it from the turntable in mid-play. Nessun Dorma seemed like a good laugh at the time but no-one else agreed. Derision and befuddlement greeted the playing of Steeleye Span's All Around My Hat, which I thought was rather unfair. The bloke who wanted The Ramones wasn't too chuffed with the brass band version of Blitzkrieg Bop we played, and when Mitch said he'd accept something from Birmingham in lieu of some METTALLL, it was clear from even a cursory glance in his direction that Showaddywadyy wasn't perhaps what he'd been expecting. Still, being everything to everyone has never been one of our objectives, though we were of course greatly heartened by Rachel's postcard, received on Wendesday, saying she and her Club Beer Virgin friends had had the best night out in months. Aw, bless.