Definitely wasn't me...
Me and a few friends took the obligatory trip down to Brighton for my 21st a few years ago...

Friday night, all is well, royally pissed, takeaway, wonder why none of us are having any joy in the lesbian pub, home to sleep.

Saturday morning, and most have had to head home, but three of us stuck around for a session. 11am, cooked breakfast, first pint of the day. Sorted.

I remember nothing until 4am on the Sunday, standing outside a club, eating chips and talking to a few random revellers. One of them was a plumber, and he said he'd fix my boiler. He never did.

So anyway, one of my mates has been leaning up against a barrier protecting some roadworks, when it all topples over. No big drama there, but at least 40 people turned round to have a peek. A tad unnerved by all this unwarranted attention, said mate stands up, turns round, and sprints down an alleyway round the corner.
How we laughed.
"Don't worry," says my new found plumber friend, "it's a dead end, he'll be back in a second.
Too pissed to go and see if he was ok, we finished our chips. 20 minutes later, he's still not back, so we go to have a look, thoroughly expecting to find him hiding in a bin. But sure enough, alleyway is deserted, and there's a 7 foot high brick wall at the end of it.

We're a bit puzzled by all this, so we decide to split up, have a look about, and if we can't find him, meet back at the hotel and wait for him (he hasn't got a key).

About 6am, I give up and head back. We were staying in twin rooms, and we didn't know which room he'd go to, so we took a room each, and got some kip.

Check out time rolls around, and he's not in my room, so i presume he must be in mate's room.

He's not.

Shit.

Right, what do we do?

Pub. Definitely.

Anyway, we give the police a call, who can't tell us anything, and we give the hospital a call, ditto. Pondering our next move, my phone starts ringing:
"Hello, my name's whateverface, I'm (mate's name)'s solicitor, he's been arrested for burglary. Bollocks.

One panicked cab journey to a hove holding jail later, we hear the full story:

When he ran down the alleyway, he was so frightened that he scaled the wall and started running across the rooftops. Seeing something he recognised, he neglected to look where he was treading, and went straight through a skylight. Into a hotel kitchen. Hotel closed, he makes a dash for the back door, locked. Front door, locked. However, front door has a small window in it, so he decides it'll be a good idea to punch through it, and, result, there's a bloke walking past!
"Oi, mate, I'll give you £50 if you let me out of here!"
One petrified pedestrians frantic 999 call later, he's promptly nicked, and taken to the hospital for x-rays on his wrist.

They had to let him go in the end, as there were no fingerprints anywhere, but he was told in no uncertain terms to "never fucking come back to Brighton."

The best thing about it were his x-rays (now on his mantelpiece). Because they didn't trust him to not do a runner (and they were x-raying his wrists) he had to have them done with handcuffs on. I might ask him for a copy.

I know this isn't strictly about pubs, but we were in them all day, so there.

A thousand apologies for length.
(kccat does NOT look like Joe 90, Thu 5 Feb 2009, 23:15, Reply)