….is what I was thinking as the bearded acordian player burst into the Lamb and Flag pub in downtown Oxford. He was closely followed by 5 young ladies who started dancing, well more like pumelling the bare floor boards as their leader pulled and teased his organ. The bible is wrong, there are 8 deadly sins, the 8th being Morris Dancing, and this display was dangerously close.

I just wanted a quiet pint or 10 around Oxford, after taking my parents to sunday lunch at The Mitre, I was sat at the bar in a melancoly moment, enjoying my beer and reflecting on CD Tenerife’s shock 3-1 defeat at Hercules, I didn’t want entertaining. As the music finished the players waited for applause, but the silence was deafening, not that it put them off, they moved into the other bar and started annoying a few people in there.

Apart from that, it was a pleasant welcome back to Oxford, even the pounding rain and dodgy Oxon (above) at the station, failed to dampen my enthusiasm. Many pubs have changed here lately so I set out with a zeal to revisit many of my old haunts. The Head of the River (pic below) was always a busy and popular pub but the whole upstairs is now a hotel, never mind, at least the eastern european bar maids were very pleasing on the eye.

There were a few other minor highlights on my crawl, but it all got a bit hazy towards the end of the evening, and tonight I’m meeting some old drinking mates – it’s a living hell, but i will do my best to look like i’m enjoying myself.