Not so cheap
MANCHESTER was hailed as one of the cheapest nights out in Britain last week.
A survey said that £16.17 can get you partying.
I have to say I had my doubts, so I took on the challenge.
The cost was worked out by Young Persons’ Railcard.
Top of the shopping list is a pint of beer, which the survey researchers said cost an average of £2 in Manchester. I rang the PR firm behind it to find out when the research had been done. Was John Major still prime minister, I asked. No, it was recent I was told.
Perhaps I have expensive tastes. But when I bought a pint for my experiment, it cost me £2.80.
Since £2 is meant to be the average, that means, on the law of averages, there are places out there where a pint costs £1.20. Hmmmm!
Anyway, for this fantastic night out, you get only one pint of beer. Yes, just one.
I’m all for drinking responsibly and all that. But one?
It’s all the more baffling because they reckon that you need to line your stomach before your session and recommend a tin of beans at 11p and a loaf of bread at 28p.
I went to Spar (admittedly not known for its economy) to buy these. And a small tin of beans was 43p and the smallest loaf of bread on sale there was 70p.
A game of pool cost exactly what they said: 50p. Perhaps things were going better.
Perhaps not. Entrance to a club cost a fiver, the railcard people said. Average, remember.
Were all their researchers students and did they go out on a Tuesday night in February?
A bus journey cost £1, they said. Well, I know that a bus journey the 3.5 miles from my house to the city centre costs £2. So I guess that’s a pretty short bus trip.
A kebab (even if I’m drunk enough to think a kebab is a good idea, I’m always sober enough to rationalise it – it’s more of a lamb salad) costs £3 they said. I found one for £2.50! Huzzah! And a bag of chips was the same price as they said. A quid.
For some reason, a cup of tea is on their good-night-out shopping list. I have never craved a cuppa on such an occasion. But they reckoned the average price for such a necessity was 30p.
I asked for one in a bar. It cost me £1.90.
Last of all, there’s the taxi ride home. They said a short taxi ride in Manchester costs £3. They just didn’t say how short, so I suppose I cannot criticise. After all, someone might leave the Printworks after a night out and flag a cab to Victoria Station. I suspect that’s what the railcard people did.
Intrigued, I wanted to find out where they bought those cups of tea to find an average, where those journeys were and where Manchester’s cheapest beer is quaffed.
But that information wasn’t public, their public relations people told me.
We just had to take their word for it. It just showed Manchester prices in comparison with other cities’.
And the cheapest city in Britain was Bristol, where the average admission price for a club is, apparently, free. For it really to be average, even if just one club charges £1, somewhere else must have to pay you to go in.
And that would be too good to be true – just like the rest of the survey.