Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Trip Report Back from heavenly England

Just to re-hijack this thread, since two of the old lags apparently don't know how to score free booze from somewhere specifically set up to give it away.

Obviously there's an English problem, on account of it looks naff to knock on an almshouse door and ask for a free can of Younger's Tartan (the Scotch do little else from one day's end to the next)

So you pretend you're an ordinary tourist, and hang round the porter's lodge asking intelligent questions. You then ask about the dole. The nice lady ferrets about in the lodge back room and comes out with a small wineglass of something local (fine) with a plate of, if I remember rightly, a few cubes of Lidl Own Label white sliced (not so fine, but il faut souffrir...)

You chat, she looks meaningfully at a box that says something like "if you're not a real tramp, a couple of quid in here helps us carry on doling out free booze", you chuck in whatever you'd put into the box at a decent country church, and everyone goes away happier.

Especially the flannerpooch, because if I remember rightly, they made him wait outside, and he only likes waiting by himself where lots of people are going to make a fuss of him. Seems to be a Winchester thing: the cathedral wouldn't let him in either. Only Prod church he's ever been barred from.