Varsity

Greyfriars Road, Cardiff [map]


After an extended winter vacation (largely spent skiing in Aspen, thanks for asking), we’re back on the Cardiff bar scene.

And where better to kick things off than in the delightful milieu of, erm, Varsity?


The customary panorama of lagers starting with C on tap: Carling, Carlsberg and, rounding out the unholy trinity, Coors. Be very suspicious of anyone who ever orders a pint of Coors.

More intriguing is the hulking pump on the left bearing a clip that reads 'Dirty Tackle', beneath which is daubed 'Coming Soon'. It's not entirely clear whether this constitutes a promise or a threat.


The seating options are many and varied, and even include evidence of a recent game of musical chairs.

Note also disco ball, presumably there in an optimistic bid to bring a touch of glamour to the place.


The Photographer, arrows fan that he is, heads straight for the dartboards.

For the record, we'd like to point out to whoever scrawled those house rules on the wall that the plural of dart is darts. Not dart's.


We finally settle in a corner from where we're afforded this view of the, um, action.

After a few moments of quiet contemplation, we realise that something is horribly wrong. To wit: what the hell is going on with those tables straddling two different heights of floor?


The Photographer goes in for a closer look.

Whoever came up with the concept of sawing the legs off one side of these tables to allow them to be half on/half off the stage is evidently some sort of Coors-drinking joker.

Fat Cat

Greyfriars Road, Cardiff [map]


It had been a long day of drinking by the time we lurched into Fat Cat. We'd covered eight, nine pubs consecutively, with barely a thought for anything quite so prosaic as eating.

Indeed, The Photographer was by now doing a remarkably accurate impersonation of a recently-escaped lunatic. We needed somewhere to quietly regroup, to reflect on the task at hand - and to consider the fact that we were out of our minds on booze before teatime.


Given the circumstances, Fat Cat wasn't necessarily an obvious choice. But as soon as we reached the bar, the familiar vista of those draught lagers - Foster's! Kronenbourg! Amstel! - had a calming effect on us both.


Of course, the modus operandi of the place is to flog gallons of luridly-coloured pop to pre-Oceana revellers, while somehow attempting to maintain the ruse that it is actually a joint for the discerning sophisticate (ref the artful etchings on the mirror or those knowingly retro lampshades).


In actual fact, it's hopelessly derivative and charmless: the file name of this photo should be melancholy.jpg. But we'd reached the pint of no return and were just grateful for the swift service and a sit down.

Sometimes, that's all you want.

The Crockerton

Greyfriars Road, Cardiff [map]

The Crockerton. It's not going down in the annals as a classic pub name, is it? Still, fair play to the place for sticking rigidly to the principle of What You See Is What You Get. 

The outside suggests a garish disco-box, in which 37 different types of luminous alcopop that are more E number than degrees proof are available.


And what do you know? This Lloyds No.1-branded fast booze joint delivers precisely that, albeit with a slightly narrower range of alcopops than we initially anticipated. 

It is, after all, a Wetherspoon with music. Welcome - if that's the word - to chain pub hell.


To be fair, it's not quite as bad as all that. For starters, there's plenty of seating, even if the tables are tightly crammed in right next to each other. It's like a battery farm of booze.


The view from our table. It's always worth sitting as close to the bar as physically possible - saves on unnecessary walking back and forth.

We were almost tempted to not even bother getting up and just bellowing our order at the barman instead. Whether Lloyds encourages this form of impromptu table service remains to be seen.