Early opening.
Rugby was on too of course.
I won't go on about the build-up, the excitement, the team spirit, the drama - all these things and more have been analysed many times over the past few days. And, of course, Jonny Wilkinson.
There's talk of a knighthood. Some have speculated his new earnings potential could be as much £5m. But the publicity shy fly-half may not take up all the offers as they might get in the way of his practicing. He's a rugby playing perfectionist and we love him for it.
Few people get paid what sports stars do. Still fewer will ever know what it feels like to be a media and popular icon on the scale Wilkinson is.
So here's something we can relate to...
Imagine never having to buy youself another pint for the rest of your life.
Think about it. THAT drop goal with 25 seconds of extra time remaining has put him in a very small group of people to whom we'd all like to say "I'll get this one".
What's that worth? Go back and read it again. Free drinks. Any pub in the country. Forever. Well, OK, except a couple in Shepherd's Bush...
Uxbridge is typical of most large towns on the outskirts of London, with a large pedestrianised high street and a couple of malls in the town centre. Where it is untypical, however, is the relative lack of chain pubs; there's a Wetherspoons, and there's a Hog's Head, but that's about it. No Litten Tree, no Rat & Parrot, no O'Neills, ... you get the idea. So, happily, our Saturday took in only one chain pub out of the 13 visited. Search for Uxbridge on BITE and you'll see our selection; I'll single out the Auberge as a highlight thanks to the selection of bottled Belgian beers available, plus Leffe on tap.
With the town centre mostly completed, Sunday was a day of exploration, by way of public transport, of the surrounding areas. A lot of local pubs for local people around there, and if we'd stayed any longer than we did in most of them I think my coat would have taken on a decidedly Sunday Roast odour, such was the quantity being served. In fact two of our party partook whilst in the Railway Inn, West Drayton, and as a bonus the bar staff gave us a free bowl of roast potatoes to tuck into as all the other punters but us left. They were lovely, too.
No word from the Imperial regarding their policy on groups yet, primarily because I've not put in a great deal of effort to follow it up. I did, as promised, give them a call a week after my first attempt but only got through to their answerphone, and I didn't leave a message. Perhaps I'll try again soon, but in reality my rage has mostly subsided and I'm fairly comfortable just knowing I won't be going there again. That said, a conclusion would be nice, so we won't write off the possibility just yet.
The reason we went to the Imperial is yet to be explained, of course - until now. On that particular weekend (October 25th/26th) we were on a counties-based crawl with a difference. Whereas the previous week we'd visited 10 counties, this crawl was all about drinking on roads in London that were named after counties. A tad convoluted perhaps (even more so when the county town was used where the county itself proved impossible) and quite a challenge, but fun nonetheless. Dreamt up and planned out by friend-of-BITE Dave, it actually started on Friday 24th in order to fit every pub in (and accomodate some that were unlikely to open at the weekend). Saturday started badly as the first 2 pubs were closed (one in E13 and one on Essex Street, near Temple) but pretty much plain sailing from then on. If I remember rightly the entire crawl ended up being 26 pubs, a great deal of them being new (the best kind of pub); not a bad haul.