T'was a sunny August afternoon when Mart took a trip from Reading to join Al and colleagues for a few celebratory pints by the Thames. The venue was the Blue Anchor, just beside the river by Hammersmith Bridge. Drinking started at around 5pm and continued until closing time. Oh dear.

The Blue Anchor is a very pleasant, and historic pub, serving a range of well-kept and well-priced (for London) Real Ales. On at the time were Brakspear Special, Marston Pedigree, London Pride and a fourth that I don't remember. We decided to work around all four throughout the evening, especially when the Pedigree got drained at around 7pm.

In terms of history and trivia, the Blue Anchor was frequented by Gustav Holst, the composer, and is where he wrote at least a bar of his Hammersmith Suite, unsurprisingly. There were you thinking he only wrote the Planets. The pub also has a heavy duty dull steel bar top - not all brighty and sparkly like 'orrible cocktail bars, but a decent point for propping. Having said that, however, we sat outside watching the random punters of the rowing club that boat within pint-throwing range of the pub.

In the end I don't know how much we ended up drinking. I lost count at around 8 pints, and also remember a round or two of tequilla slammers and some whisky somewhere. Al avoided the temptation of breaking into his new bottle of tequilla and trying to coax out the worm, and a moneyed Andy Hewitt bought many of the rounds.

Mart.

Evidence of the authors' state towards the end of the evening can be seen below: