State of the Union's Pubs and Bars - Parte the Firste

Pubs. They're everywhere. I heartily recommend them and you'd best get in now before ALAC start infiltrating the nation's policy committees with the same kind of sanctimonious fervour as ASH and the NZQA have done. Luckily for you slothful pricks, I'm on to it. A pub in each club catchment area of our mighty union. This week: Mahu, Silverdale, Bays, Takapuna, Northcote, Navy. Next week: Helensville, Glenfield, North Shore (Devonport), Massey, Marist (Albany or some Irish bar somewhere. Preferably the latter.)

Mahurangi: Puhoi Pub. A real step into the Victorian era but without 10-year old slave labouring street-urchins stuck up the chimney. Except for sometimes on lively Friday nights. Often there's an old guy in the corner in his slippers who gets his lunch and dinner brought out to him. Something about this warms my cockles. The beer is good, the atmosphere unparalleled, and if you're caught short you can craftily rip a kroner or yen off the wall, pretend you're a tourist with no dollars left, and you might get a free pint out of it. This works better if you're blonde with nice tits. I'm not so I just got punched by a Harley rider in a scary jacket. Get here now because the land around the place is being sold off like hot whiteware to the kinds of cunts you want to throw rocks at. It's a rural gem.

Silverdale: Miss Cue's. The first thing you notice is that there're lots of pool tables and phenomenal-looking young females, many of whom are even of legal drinking age. Chances are, if you're reading this, you're too old to enjoy the latter - coz there's not much in the world uglier than swarthy, wrinkled has-beens trying to hook into young beauties. One particular former All Black with a prominent public profile springs to mind. Coasties are reknowned for their socialising, love of music, and teenage pregnancies so stick to the pool tables, enjoy the beer, and leave at 8 when they turn up the stereo so loud that your ears start to bleed and the punters start having sex.

East Coast Bays: I went to the Brownzy because it's a bit of an institution and has an interesting mix of older regulars and younger trendies. I also went there because they serve jugs and have a Totalisator Agency so I could get skinned on the cheap and blow all the cash I'd saved on beers, on the nags instead. Had to wait seven years for a taxi but I passed the time watching a fight between a white boy who thought he was black and a brown boy who thought he was black, over whose cap was on the most dope angle. Probably.

Northcote: The Northcote Tavern. This is the best pub between Puhoi and Gore. The pints are still under 5 bucks, there's a heap of screens and gambling opportunities, and the staff are grumpy in the way they should be - life-beaten, weary, and aware, unlike in other places, where staff are grumpy because they're just too cool to be serving piss to the people who keep them in a job. The 'Trough' staff know yer tipple and remember it, and when you coax a smile out of them you feel like you've won a hundred bucks. Not that I'd know what that feels like coz the dogs I bet on are fucking useless.

Takapuna: A comparison here, because there's a few to choose from. The Copper Room is a faux-Southern bar set up to make yer standard Shore tosser feel like he's really a rugged, independent joker from good farming stock. Surrounded by pissed middle-management arseholes - women with make-up caked over their wrinkles and pot-bellied, priapic fuckers trying to hook into them - I lasted about a couple of hours before repairing to the toilet to explosively shite out what I presume to be an especially virulent chicken vindaloo purchased earlier from a place in Henderson (lest people think The Copper Room fayre was responsible. It wasn't because you'd have to take out a second mortgage to buy food from there.) Staff seemed nice enough, beer was overpriced but I like the bucket-style pints. The clientele are, by and large, loathsome. Pat's Garage, on the other hand, we love: cheapish pints, lovers of sports, huge areas for problem gamblers of every persuasion, and buses to games against Auckland at Eden Park. When the Poe closed its doors, we were bereft. In Pat, we were re-born. Not many women go there but if The Copper Room ladies are the alternative then I'm happy with the status quo.

Navy: I drank a bottle of Old Navy Spiced Rum once then puked on my cat. She wasn't grateful.