The first Matlock pub crawl in 1999 was a surprise for me, and Suzie got loads of my mates to come up and tour the local pubs, it was quite and experience. There have been several more since, with some epic air guitar in the Underpants. Scroll down past the text for the photos...

Transcript of the 1st pubcrawl, see photos below:

The night started out very bizarrely for me, as more and more of my friends kept randomly turning up at Suzie's house over the course of the afternoon. Obviously, what with me having a PhD and everything, it only took me 3 or 4 hours to work out what Suzie had been planning, after Trix (who I didn't even notice at first as I didn't have my contacts in!) turned up with Tiger, followed by my sister TTRZ, and Elmo, who I had just said "Goodbye until next year!" to earlier that day. Basically I was stiched up like a kipper. But did we have a laugh? OR WOT!!!!!!!!

Here are the guilty parties (Sorry Elmo, you got chopped off, but you will feature later, don't worry!):

Left to right: Franke, Sophie (TTRZ), Me, Boozie, Tiger, Stugo, Bex, Sara, Matt (Oscar), Nicki (Mum), Tom (Big Girl's Blouse), Hazel, Trix (well, some of his head anyway), Sam (man mountain), and Tufty (Tufty).

From then on, the carnage started fairly quickly with the aid of several pubs in quick succession, with many pints of Snakey B consumed, along with some odd pineapple stuff TTRZ turned up with (pictured above).

Here we have Bex and Sara, interrupted whilst probably discussing the best way to bag a young professional.

....and then the Ginger bloke ran off with all the booze and the tottie! We laughed ourselves SICK! Guffaws!" Yes it's the ginger man Trix himself, replete with sharp suit, trainers, and a jug of water for his pernod. Nice!

TTRZ, Frankie and Elmo, and the random hand of weighage. Oh, and some Snakey B.

Now, we find ourselves in the last pub, namely The Boat, after a particularly treacherous journey via the insides of some less than swanky but character filled pubs, down a very dark path and over the river Derwent. I think there might have been some more of that pineapple stuff along the way too, but I'm not sure. See if you can tell by the expressions of my sibling and I.

As you can clearly see, the effects of the copious quantities of Snakey B  consumed had started to take it's oh so predictable toll on the more light weight members of the crawlers. You don't want to see the other places Elmo nearly got lipstick onto Frankie.

I'm not sure what Sam was doing to Becky at this point, but it certainly made Tiger grin. Time was running short at the bar by this point, so those with limited volumetric capacity, but a taste for more of the leg weakener moved on to the dreaded Alcopops. Thank god nobody suggested strawpedoes, or else there may have been casualties (myself very much included).

"... and that's how it works, you see!" Apparently Tom had just come out with yet another perl of wisdom that was of such clarity and foresight that Suzie was, for once, left speechless (Hazel may have an alternative explanation. Probably involving the words "Oh dear" and "Yes Tom(?)"). This did however give us a good opportunity to note the effect of Snakey B on a PhD student's tongue.

Censored shot: I think the less said about this the better. Just let it be said that the guilty parties are Frankie and Elmo, again.

"Oi! Who do those randoms think they are anyway. They are singing like footballers (spit)! Surely we can do much better!" Look out everyone, I think the singing contest is about to begin.... Suzie's brother James has a particularly interesting stain on his right shoulder in this snap. I fear one of the boys may have a spillage charge to face on tour?! By the looks of it, perhaps rather unsurprisingly, Matty is blaming Fat Sam. Or is he just doing the "I'm a little teapot" queer thing again?

Then suddenly we were all distracted, I'm not sure by what. Possibly the opposition singing, but Elmo seemed to think it was something stuck to her wrist.

Anyone who has been on a hockey bus with me will recognise this grimace. Of course style and volume are far more important than getting the words exactly right. At this point the landlord appeared with a video camera and proceeded to immortalise our sonic performance on tape. I have yet to get a copy of this film, but I'm sure it would be most informative concerning the various states of sloshedness found amongst us, and as a permanent record of our collective vocal talent. I will get my Matlock connections on the case of it's acquisition.

So, after a good old snakeyB filled pub crawl, we scaled the hill back up to Boozie's house, and crashed out all over the place. Apparently someone was sick all night and kept everyone awake. Sounds like a pretty "Big girls blouse" thing to do to me! Apparently, a couple of people spent the night in the only unheated part of the house. The day after there were unconfirmed reports concerning the discovery of a few shreds of fine tweed, a ginger hair or two and a large dent in the floor in that part of the house.

All in all, it was an absolute top drawer night out, and a Big Up goes out to all you folks who drove miles or sat on trains for hours to do something this random! Also, lots of cheers to Suzie for organising it so well, so I never had a clue it was going to happen!

Cheers! Here's looking forward to the next one!  Fin.

Then there were more in later years....