Our yuletide revelry was crowned with a trip to the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome, Britain’s last remaining circus building, for their ‘Christmas Circus and Water Spectacular’. And spectacular it was too, with gravity-defying flying acrobats, trapeze artists spinning around a giant hoop without a safety net for comfort, and a grand finale of Busby Berkeley babes bringing the show to a fantastic watery close.

The show was followed by a mini pub crawl with our fellow festive revellers. We managed to down a few sherries in Yarmouth’s best dive bars, including one partially boarded-up establishment where we were offered a couple of knock-off air fryers. I was almost tempted.

Our final stop was the Blackfriars Tavern with its bewildering range of award-winning real ales and ciders. As CAMRA’s* National Cider Pub of the Year 2025, we had high hopes of a warm welcome on a chilly day. But, instead, we got the cold shoulder from the miserable landlord and his missus. I’ll leave it to a recent one-star review to tell it as it is.

“Very unwelcoming staff with a strong whiff of arrogance. Thank you for making us feel not worthy of treading the same carpet as you.”

The beer mat sums it up too. The po-faced pint pullers can be as rude as they like, but punters must remain saintly at all times. So before anyone could say ‘bugger off’, we buggered off.

*Campaign for Real Ale.