The people who run the Porter & Sorter – which used to be called the Propellor – don’t mess around. When we arrived, they had quite clearly been open for some time, and I assume that this is connected with the fact that the pub serves the members of the Royal Mail community who work nearby. Indeed, its current name derives from the fact that it is sandwiched between East Croydon railway station and the Royal Mail sorting office.

The night before, some of our party had been out for Pad and Tim’s birthday (they only have the one between them), but we were in reasonably good shape as we’d been fairly disciplined, what with a big day ahead of us and all. Still, it’s always difficult to drag yourself out of bed early, travel across London (with or without a valid ticket) and then get the beers in. But we managed it. According to the official records, Tim and myself went for 6X, Simon had a Bombardier, Pad had a Courage Best, while Alex chose Young’s AAA because that’s the kind of premium lifestyle he aspires to. Alan, of course, went for his perennial favourite, cider (in this case Blackthorn). We conjectured that at this point Ian was still asleep, so he has a dash by his name on my list of drinks.

First of the day

Despite being down a dank side street (the drizzling weather didn’t help its appearance), this was actually a very pleasant pub – at least, that’s what the majority of us thought:

Simon in particular seemed to take violent objection to the Porter & Sorter, though I don’t remember his exact reasons. In fact, judging from bodily expression, I’d have thought that the person giving it the low marks would be Alex. He doesn’t look at all happy, does he?

Is Alex hanging on a meathook?

Personally, I put the wide discrepancies in opinion here down to the fact that it was the first pub, and hence we were getting the feel for the marking system – hey, by this point, we had nothing to compare it to (apart from Burger King in my case, which is doubtless why I gave it a 7). Arguably, the Porter & Sorter had a lot going for it: two fruit machines, a good selection of beers, and toilet paper. But, to be honest, our thoughts were elsewhere. All we had done by this stage was walk down a small side street into a pub – what we were really in Croydon to do was get on a tram.