Childcare tick...

I don't know Toronto at all, and will be on my own (ooh must ring Segs) where shall I stay hotel wise?

The Novotel seems to be a popular spot as it is just across the street!

I've invited a FB friend. Never met her, lives near the Yard, Canadian via North Shields. Mad as a bag of bunnies. I think she'll fit in.

When my eldest daughter turned seven, I was living on the Esplanade. We had a party for her at the Organ Grinder. We had quite the crowd. There were very many loud fruit machines. A friend, Hose-B, a fugitive from Venezula, brought sacks of quarters, hundreds of dollars worth, he climbed on the table and spun so each sack burst and they flew all over the restaurant; the crowd went crazy. Happy, if hazy, days. I was very sorry to see the place go, though by that time I knew the manager and understood the logic behind the closure.

I was, at that time, banned from Brandy's because, in the era, we played pool for money and my partner, Richard, had played the deliberate in-off shot one too many times. I lost the kids winter coat money in there one year in the early 80s, a disgrace of which I've yet to hear the end.

The Yard, well I was banned from there in 1982, and thrown out again by Steroid Steve some years later. I suppose when I look back at the years in Canada, nowhere else will really register, being in that bar was the best of it.

Is eating involved?

Pub food, (with sweet potato fries if you're called James).

One might eat beforehand then. I am ready for fun and jollity, any miserable buggers will be slapped.

Bloody brits. A sniff of the hard stuff and spoiling for a fight. Tut.

There seems to be a fairly large number of first-timers signed up for Friday, so perhaps someone should make a rudimentary attempt at structuring this a bit.

The published meeting time is 7 pm but I know from experience that the place will be packed by then. It might even be worse than usual if some iced hockey or other is being broadcast.

We'll get there a bit earlier (thirsty of a Friday) and we'll try for the table in the "library". As you come in the door from the street, the bar is in front of you, go to the left side of that and take a few steps along the corridor and there's small room on the left again. It has a biggish table which we'll aim for.

Don't count on us getting it though, then it's every wo/man for itself.

Use your initiative, poke everyone at the bar until someone says "Oh, I say, so nice to make your acquaintance".

Good plan, we can aim for earlier too. I will be the short fat dark haired woman with the tall blond bald man. But you know this.

Right so negotiate driving and parking in Toronto, meet earlier than 7 and eat before I come, then try and remember layout of said pub on my own, and poke random strangers without them thinking I'm trying to chat them up.... and then hopefully find everyone...

Easy peasy

Amateur mistake. Eating wrecks your buzz. Eat on the way home if you have too.

Not much chance of that...I'll be too busy trying to stay upright on the way home.

I would pm you my cellphone number but I have made a resolution to stop helping people.

Yeah me too..... I'll just get called a lightwait otherwise. Ah if this was a night out back home, I could walk home with a tray of chips...good times