So this was it: Wimbledon, the end of the line. In some ways, the London Men’s Self-Help Pub Crawl Group had been defeated – the trams had stopped and we’d been forced to cut back to a mere eleven pubs instead of our scheduled twelve. On the other hand, though, we had triumphed by refusing to give in to half-arsed public transport and by marching on through the rain to make sure we drank the correct number of rounds.

Our final pub – once again chosen at random on arrival – was the Prince of Wales. No “people’s princess” name-changes for them. Before we got there, however, the honour of the final forfeit evidently fell to me, as this “handover” photo shows.

Pad presents the final forfeit

The only remaining option was:

As you can probably imagine, this forfeit led to some pretty lively banter, with many a conversation along the following lines.

Pad: What

Ian: I’ve

Pad: on

Ian: no

Pad: earth

Ian: idea

Pad: are

Ian: what

Pad: you

Ian: you’re

Pad: drinking?

Ian: saying.

The Prince of Wales (the pub, I mean) was massive, and it felt like a Hogshead-style establishment, though I don’t think it was actually part of a chain. The group seemed divided into two camps of opinion about the quality of the pub, with three of us slating it and four of us lovin’ it lovin’ it lovin’ it:

By contrast, the staff seemed pretty certain about their feelings towards us – I’m sure the barman is making an obscene gesture at us here:

Time, gentlemen, please

I suppose they could be forgiven for not taking too kindly to us, because by this stage we were all in a pretty sorry condition. So sorry that for our first round of drinks, some of us had turned to alcopops: Simon, Tim, Pad and I cracked into the Metz, while Alex and Alan held out with an IPA and a Carling respectively. Ian went for a pint of Old Peculiar, which seems a rather “fudgy” choice at that time in the evening.

But even the most respectable members of the group caved in at round two, as we finished the crawl off with an order of seven bottles of Metz. This is not a round I can say I was proud of buying. (If you look carefully in the photo above, you can just about make me out at the bar, above the barman’s hand, hanging my head in shame.)

Because we’d decided to have two rounds at the last “stop”, we had a comparatively relaxed amount of time to spend in the Prince of Wales, during which time we attained new levels of drunkenness. Eventually, despite our rambling protestations about the legal status of “drinking-up time”, time was called and we had to leave.

Having stumbled out into the darkness, we tried to take our final pub photo of the evening. The result is pretty unspectacular, but I include it here for documentary reasons.

Well, the traffic light came out perfectly

We then, I assume (though I can’t actually claim to remember), made our unsteady way to Wimbledon tube station, where we had to wait a long time for a District Line train (this I do remember). So we had an ideal opportunity to use up the last of our film. I don’t know what the photographer (presumably Pad, Simon or Ian, or perhaps a total stranger, you never know) had said to Alex before taking this, but he looks deeply offended:

Portrait of the artist as a young pisshead

The following week, I discovered that at some point during our wait, I unknowingly blanked someone I know who happened to be on the same train. Apparently Emma was on the next carriage and thought she recognised me – it seems that she was gesticulating wildly with the aid of an umbrella, trying to attract my attention, but I had my back to her. Because the other members of the group didn’t know her, they were simply bemused by her antics. However, rather than turning round to see what was going on, I’m told that I moved cautiously away from the window, fearing that it was some sort of nutter. All in all this is probably for the best since no-one would have been amused by my condition on that night, apart from my fellow pub crawlers.

In any event, these or similar high jinks must account for the improvement in Alex’s humour, as he seems to have perked up somewhat.

Alex sees the funny side, while Alan snarls and Tim contemplates a yellow pole

Finally the train got going and we began our various journeys home. I can’t remember how Ian got back, but living in Putney he may or may not have got off at East Putney station. Tim must have had to change about fifty times to get to Angel, whereas Simon only needed to go to Baker Street so had a comparatively easy route back. It was even easier for Alex, Pad and I, since we were all staying over at “Pad’s pad” in Earl’s Court. When we arrived, not only did we start into some cans of Stella which were loitering in the fridge, but we resolved to watch the video of Jack which I’d bought Pad for his birthday by way of irony. This nauseating cinematic disaster – in which the title character has a hideous ageing disease – is the perfect vehicle for Robin Williams’s schmalzy man–child persona non grata. It is one of the worst films ever made; but that didn’t stop the Time Out film guide from describing it as “perhaps Francis Ford Coppola’s most honest film to date”. Imagine my amusement when Pad bought me Patch Adams for my own birthday the following week.

Pad and I saw sense and fell asleep within a few minutes, but Alex decided he was going to try and watch the whole thing to the bitter end. He nearly made it, but couldn’t face the last twenty minutes, and decided that sleeping on a carpet was infinitely more rewarding.

It was Alan who faced perhaps the most challenging task in terms of getting home. Now a resident of Peckham, he probably should have travelled to Victoria or London Bridge or wherever, and got on a “real” train to his final destination. Instead, however, he managed to outdo his comedy journey home at the end of L2K by falling asleep on the District Line train, and only thinking to wake up when it reached the end of the line – Upminster, some thirty-nine stops from Wimbledon. That’s a lot of sleep. But readers will be pleased to know that Alan did eventually manage to get home safely.

Anyway, that's your lot. Check out the T2K statistics if you can be bothered, and don't forget to sign the London Men's Self-Help Pub Crawl Group guestbook – if you leave a message you will automatically be included in our prize draw, and you could win yourself a copy of the acclaimed Ray Mears autobiography, The Wilderness Years. (Thanks to Ray and Amazon.co.uk for their support.)