The Church

"Look at it this way Max. You don't have a job, you don't have any money, you've lost your girl and you're hungover from drinking cheap cider. Your life can only get better from here".

That's not entirely true - I could be hungover from drinking cheap vodka - but there is plenty of truth to Adam's typically brusque observation. It's 11.30 on a Sunday morning, and we're standing in the rain, queueing to get into the most hallowed of London's many Kiwi and Aussie themed pubs, a pub in which strippers and boat races are as much an institution as the sawdust on the floors. What can possibly go wrong?

The Church has been a hotbed of Antipodean debauchery since 1979 - kind of a moist petri dish of flu germs, if you will. I've been informed by many that it is "a place every New Zealander must go to once while in London", and I figure I might as well get it out of the way early on. It sounds like the kind of place I've come halfway round the world to avoid, except that back home you can't find a busy pub for love nor money on a Sunday. Which is a shame, because many of my most memorable drinking occasions have unfolded on the Lord's day.

In a token attempt to fit in with the crowd, I'm wearing my lurid green "Mambo Beer Man" t-shirt that left no one who I passed in the street on the way here in any doubt about where I was going. Many others have gone all out though: there are groups of girls dressed as nuns, bumble bees, Spice Girls. Many of the gentlemen have donned superhero costumes, including a particularly impressive Buzz Lightyear. Who said you don't dress up to go to pubs in the UK?

After an hour of queueing we eventually push inside to find ourselves in a massive converted theatre with bars along the sides. It's almost like The Holy Grail in Christchurch meets the Upstairs Cook, but with even shittier music. In front of the stage is a massive pit (which accurately describes both its physical and moral appearance) already jam packed with young drinkers. In keeping with the classy nature of the establishment, drinks are purchased three at a time in bottles and cans and given to you in clear plastic bags, which you can then carry around the venue at your leisure.

Unable to face getting sprayed with alcohol and sweat in the pit, Adam and I head to the relative calm of the top tier of seating, where we can gaze down at the pit and all the dubious activities taking place therein. On the stage, some terrible comedian with a wig is warming the crowd up with some predictable anti-American jokes. They're lapping it up of course, except for one dreadlocked American at the front who has taken exception, as they always do. To be fair I think even my collection of Salvador Dali jokes would be a hit with this easy crowd.

Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Fish.

The "comedian" clears off and is replaced by, ho hum, a stripper. She begins her provocative dance while the PA system plays "Lola", which isn't really the kind of song you want to hear while seeing a chick get naked, but the crowd loves it anyways. A guy comes out now and begins stripping, then they take turns to spank each other. Wild and aroused, the crowd roars and pushes up desperately against the stage like Darfur refugees at a UN food drop. Surveying this scene I don't find myself surprised at all that we share 98% of our DNA with the apes.

I wander up to the bar, looking to score another three cans of Fosters in a plastic bag, and find myself standing next to a pretty American girl. She looks at me and smiles. Better think of a friendly greeting that showcases my irresistible powers of wit and charm whilst assauging any fears she might have that I'm not the nicest guy in the world.

"Hey", I say.
"Hello!", she says with a friendly smile. "Lots of you guys here today!"
What ever does she mean? Is my fly undone? Too late to check now.
"Oh, I mean Australians", she says, noting my confused look.
"Oh. Actually I'm a New Zealander".
"Oh, Noo ZEEE-land! And what are you doing in London?"

I explain to her that I'm fleeing the oppressive regime of Our Glorious Leader, Comrade Clark, who has run my country into the ground with his social engineering, unsustainable welfare policy and economic mismanagement.
"Wow, I didn't realise they're still communists in New Zealand!", she says.
"It's not a widely-publicised fact".
She thinks to herself for a moment, then looks at me as if about to ask a really stupid question, like is there a bridge between New Zealand and Australia, but opts not to ask it. "Anyways, you have a nice day Mr New Zealander".

A good mate of mine who I haven't seen since high school is among the thousands of revellers writhing about in the pit. I can see him clearly from my vantage point, chatting up some unfortunate-looking girl in a shiny bright red dress that is struggling to contain her generous curves. He and his mates have some sort of taxi drivers' uniform on and he's wearing aviators and a sweatband, which suggests that since leaving high school he has become a tosser.

I push gainfully through the crowd, which to the touch feels like a kind of soft, yielding wall coated in beer and sweat, until I'm within touching distance of my old mate. He's still all over the girl.
"Maybe we should just leave him to it", I say to Adam, who has followed me down.
"Nah, let's ruin it for him", he says with a worrying degree of enthusiasm.

The only way to attract his attention is to clap him solidly on the back. He turns around, looks at me blankly, raises his eyebrows in acknowledgement, then turns straight back to the girl. That was unexpected! Is he too drunk to recognise me? Or am I too drunk to recognise that it's not really him? More worringly, does he now think I'm trying to pick him up?

This is an awkward situation, which can only really be satisfyingly resolved by pretending to take a phone call and striding away purposefully in the other direction, as if looking for someone else in the crowd. We take up a new position in the centre of the pit, surrounded by Germans hooking up with each other and popping pills. Everyone is getting in on the kissing act, except me, Adam and one of the Germans who the girls in the vicinity have deemed too ugly to participate. "Bastards", he says to me with a rueful grin, then pops a pill to cheer himself up.

Some New Zealand v Australia boat races are taking place on the stage as I return to my vantage point above the pit. No one cares who wins because they're more interested in coercing one of the Aussie girls to get her tits out. Which she does. It's hard to know what's going on, but it appears that New Zealand has won the first two races. Typically, the Aussies are accusing us of cheating like the sore losers they are. Oh look, the girl has got her tits out again, and all the participants cheer and shake hands. That's more like the ANZAC spirit we know and love.

I'm fairly conscious of how I acquit myself overseas, so as not to give foreigners a bad impression of New Zealand, but clearly no one else in here is. I suppose in a way bars like the Church are a good thing, because they allow us to exhibit our unique brand of drunken idiocy behind closed doors, but when those doors open at closing time and thousands of pissed ex-pats spew forth into the streets of North London, the ugly side of our drinking culture is suddenly unleashed upon an unsuspecting public.

Drunken Aussies are staggering about every which way in search of kebab joints and alleyways to piss in, harrassing strangers and friends alike in the process. A camera crew question Adam about Green Party politics, which he deals with most eloquently considering he's pissed off his tree. An Irishman, not a day over 18, is jumping around in the background yelling "I want to be a Kiwi! I want to be a Kiwi!". Don't they all?

I can't say my four hours at the Church constituted a life-changing experience, but there certainly were amusing scenes from a "better them than me" point of view. The best part of it is that's it's still only four in the afternoon, which gives us the rest of the day to go back to my place and attend to my bottle of duty-free whiskey. And why not? It is a Sunday after all...