Diary Saturday 2nd July 2016

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I took part in an annual pub crawl treasure hunt today, called The Independents Day Treasure Hunt in celebration of free-house independent bars, with a name that puns the pending US Independence Day July 4th celebrations. As the team I was on won the treasure hunt in 2014, we set the questions last year, 2015, and the winners of our quiz set this year’s treasure hunt conundrums, and we entered as competitors again. We were to finish 5th this time in a chase after clues set over eight city centre bars with a 9th bar used as the start and finish post. The clues were tough to crack, often referring cryptically to details on photos or artefacts in a bar. For example the clue ‘this took down the house of Milhous’ referred to a drink called Watergate Seltzer in an old photo in one pub – Milhous was President Richard Nixon’s middle name and he was brought down by the Watergate Scandal. In another we had to find a ‘decapitated composer’. It proved to point to a portrait of Mozart from which the letter M from the start of his name was broken off, or de-capitized) . A fun day, with only ten points between first and last place contestants – well done to all, my thanks to my three team mates, the staff of all the bars involved, and the question-setters (from our own go last year I know how hard that is) and well done to the winners who will be running the 2017 event. After the crawl /hunt, I got some food and went to the cinema to chill out watching the very disappointing Absolutely Fabulous movie which I’ll review soon. Arthur Chappell