A day spent in the drizzly, cold Docklands. Installed the kit I was in town to sort out and then popped over to Harbour Exchange for my delayed meeting.

The meeting goes well and fairly quickly, and I'm left with three hours to kill before my late train back. I'd much rather get open returns, but one must always count the pennies when dealing with expense claims!

I figure that it wouldn't be too much of a wait if I made my way over to St Pancras, and sip a couple of quiet ones at the Baby Betjeman, where I could use the wireless and get on with some stuff. So, I make my way back across town and just miss the 5pm mad-dash - which was nice.

However, disaster strikes. The Baby Betjeman is no more. It has ceased to be. Bereft of life, it lies in peace. Well. It's closed, anyhow. All that's left is the giant parasol and a chalk noticeboard saying that they've closed up because the 'proper' Betjeman pub is nearing completion - at the end of April! Bollocks.

The only other option is the on-platform 'Champagne Bar', which is entirely as pretentious as it sounds. I find a seat by the bar and order a cup of tea, in true British stiff-upper-lip style. However, tea doesn't last 2 hours and curiosity gets the better of me, and after supping my (rather bland) tea I take a look at the drinks menu.

This place sure does sell a lot of plonk. For obvious reasons, though, they only sell a few varieties by the glass - meaning that if you want to sample an 1990 Krug, you'll be stumping up a few hundred quid for a bottle. There is nothing non-Champagne-related on the menu, apart from a couple of sparkling wines.

Madness and boredom takes me, and I order a ten-quid glass of Bollinger. The cheapest Champagne on the menu - something I've never heard of, and likely to taste of cat's piss - is £7.50 a glass. I figure if I go with a 'name' I've heard of, it'll at least taste good while I'm struggling to get over the cost. It is, actually, very nice - but worth £10 for a single glass? I think not.

It's only after I order and drink my Bolly (darling!) that I notice that some other people at the bar appear to be drinking lager. At least, they're drinking something that looks like lager out of large goblets. I double-check the menu, and no - there's no lager or beer on there anywhere.

When the barman (or, more probably a 'Champagne Waiter') asks me if I would like another drink, I ask for a lager. He replies, somewhat nonchalantly that they do not have any lager. I gesture over to two guys clearly drinking lager and express my disbelief in his assertion. "Oh, zaht is zee beer, made from zee Champagne".

WHAT THE FUCK?

Beer? From Champagne? You what? I tell him I'll have one, even if just to see what the hell it really is. It turns out to be Kasteel Cru, a lager brewed with 'Champagne Yeast'. "Made from Champagne" is stretching it quite a bit - but, it's only £3.75 and for fizzy (naturally!) lager it's not too bad.

Speaking of stretching the truth - I noticed that the Champagne bar at St. Pancras claims to be - with no hint of irony whatsoever - "the longest Champagne bar in Europe". This is fine, except for one thing.

The bar, itself, is a small square - there are four seats at each side. It is, by no definition of the term - 'long'. Evidently, I'm not the only person to notice this and a fellow Kasteel Cru drinker pipes up and asks a waiter. The response is that it's the length of the seating area - which runs down a fair length of one of the platforms which makes it the longest. There's tenuous links and there's tenuous links... really!

On the train back I watch the Coen Brothers' Oscar-laden new movie - "No Country For Old Men". It is everything I hoped that "There Will Be Blood" would be - full of suspense, mystery and damned fine acting.

Tommy Lee Jones is excellent as the pathos-driven local Sheriff, and - who-da-thunk-it - Josh Brolin can act, playing the hunted 'man in the wrong place at the wrong time' - but the show is totally, and utterly stolen by Javier Bardem's psychotic hitman, Anton Chigurh.

If there's a list of top movie psychopaths, then Anton is right up there with Tommy Devito (Joe Pesci, Goodfellas), Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper, Blue Velvet) and Hannibal Lecter. Woody Harrelson and Trainspotting debutee Kelly MacDonald provide excellent supporting parts. The only let down is the ending, which is disappointingly inconclusive.