Cheap day return, boundary Zone 3 to Emerson Park, with a gold card, please...

And with that, my adventure started... and the response, "Where is Emerson Park?", which was not entirely unreasonable considering where I was standing, i.e. at the ticket office at Peckham Rye station.

So, having explained that it was between Romford and Upminster (although that wasn't a huge amount of help either, it must be said), we agreed a fare (£2.50) and I set off on my journey via changes at London Bridge, Stratford and Romford, in order to attend a Quiz Night, organised by Havering Liberal Democrats, in the company of my old friend, Peter Davies (direct mail expert to the stars or, at least, Campaigns Department).

Emerson Park, or at least the area between the station and the venue, came as a bit of a surprise, especially the size and scale of the homes. Now, living near to Dulwich Village as I do, I'm not unused to large houses, but most of these were fairly new looking and reeked of new money. Clearly, the suburbs around Romford are not entirely as grim as they are portrayed in the media... although the young women in rather impractical short skirts were still present (I may be getting old, but don't they feel the chill at this time of year?).

The event itself was quite fun, and I even won a raffle prize (an incredibly rare event), although our table came a respectable third in the quiz itself, and the food, whilst simple, was very good, especially accompanied as it was by a brace of bottles of Greene King's Abbot Ale (thanks, Peter, I hope that you enjoy the wine I swapped it for!). With the occasional bit of heckling of the quizmaster (former councillor and Parliamentary candidate, Nigel Meyer), everyone seemed to be having a good time.

And then homeward, stopping only to note the vast numbers of young people queuing to enter various nightclubs, bars or fast food outlets at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night in central Romford. It was then that I remembered, the short skirts and unfeasibly summery outfits are for clubbing (I'm told that nightclubs get incredibly hot)... how could I forget?...