"It's accepted over here, not like in the UK."

It always amazes me what people sat in a pub will tell you about their life without you asking a single question.

I went to the pub on Wednesday night to watch the football. The pub of choice for football watching in Cologne was Jameson's Irish bar. Some people think it's morally wrong to go into an Irish bar when you are abroad because you should sample life with the locals. In a way I agree but if you want to watch England or Ireland play football in Cologne at the same time as Germany are playing then you will not get much joy in a local bar saying " Ich mochte zuschauen Andorra V England."

The first half went by fairly uneventfully in both the football and conversation-with-freaks sense.

During the second half more things happened in the football and I was commenting on these events with my colleague. I'm not the type to go to the pub on my own you know. Not this week anyway. So as we discussed/commented on the football, my new friend joined in.

It started with him joining in with the chat about the football which was alright. Nothing too difficult to handle really. There was quite a lot of swearing in the sentences (that's his not mine) and one of us was considerably more drunk than the other.

So here is what I found out from my 4-toothed, bald, drunk friend from Birmingham in the checked shirt. I don't know his name thankfully.

He came to Cologne during the World Cup last year and never went home. He deals in scrap metal. He has a daughter and I think she must be good at football because he often proclaimed loudly at the TV, "My daughter could have scored that!" or "My daughter can pass better than that!" He's an Aston Villa fan but apparently should be a Birmingham fan but doesn't give a £u*&. It was getting odd at this point and I got no help from my football watching friends who deemed that I had got myself in to this conversation and was therefore on my own.

My drunk Brummie friend likes to get pissed every night on Kolsch. He is looking for a wife and will only return to the UK when he has found one. We are all safe. Judging by the state of him he won't be stepping on these shores for a while. Then came the strangest and thankfully final part of the conversation. Despite me asking no questions about anything, I found out that he likes to spend his Friday and Saturday nights (after getting pissed) in the various brothels of Cologne. Apparently for £20 you can obtain the short term company and affection of a lovely Thai girl. "You see it's accepted over here, not like in the UK."

I'd already finished my pint by this point and paid the bill. Thankfully the ref then blew the final whistle to call time on what was a fairly shocking game of football and an even more shocking conversation.