The First Post (JD Wetherspoon), Portsmouth

This is another old school Spoons with the classic plastic dark blue and gold external signage and a fairly drab interior. It's just a long room with the bar on the right and a patio at the rear. There was a fair daytime brigade contingent present on my late Tuesday afternoon visit, the noise from which resembled a farmyard or the House Of Commons. There are actually two sets of four hand pumps here with one set hidden away at the end of the bar on the right. These had two ciders, Directors and Abbot. The four at the front had one unused being employed to advertise mulled cider, Sambrook's Junction, Milk Street Beer Blonde and Goddard's Duck Folly. I had a pint of the Milk Street one (£2.65) which was cloudy and poor but the Duck Folly which came with the Steak Club was excellent. The Curry Club here is the cheapest I've seen at £5.59. The staff here were OK so that along with the absence of Doom Bore and Ruddles lift it a bit but it's never going to be more than an average Spoons.

Official site of The First Post - www.jdwetherspoon.com

Official site of The First Post - www.jdwetherspoon.com

Bog-standard 'spoons in a shop conversion, with no distinguishing features whatsoever. However, the bar staff were notably efficient and attentive. Just four real ales on handpump, but the range of styles was good with Abbot, Titanic Eight Bells, Andwell Porter and Irving Red Plum available.

Another average 'Spoons shop conversion. Dingy lighting stops the gangs of coffin-dodgers getting scared and the yoofs losing their trademark pimples. The ex-shop-and-post-office now boasts carpeted floors with chewing gum details, while dumb gaming machines oversee the room like robots in some post-apocalyptic parody and sorry-looking hanging baskets, long past their best, complete the picture. Only 2 ales on - I had fff Alton Pride which was drinkable but not on top form and a little disappointing. Not worth breaking a journey for but probably fine for a lunchtime stop.

This Wetherspoon pub stands on the site of a chemist shop, which was built in the 1840s and housed Cosham's first post office. In the past few years, this pub has been a branch of John Menzies. The last time I went in this pub with my brother it was 5 o'clock and a lad at the bar collapsed with amount of ale he'd had. On another occasion I was served free pear cider by a young lady with a very tight fitting t-shirt with the words 'Pears' on it. You get the picture and what more can you expect from a Wetherspoons in Cosham, a town where it's oldest buildings were demolished in the 1960's and replaced by a car park. It's the 'land of the living dead' and they gravitate to this 'watering' hole for the cheap booze and food. 5 real ales. If I don't paint a lovely picture of this pub, I can't and leave it to a local reviewer who writes "This pub is going downhill fast. Used to be ok, typical Spoons really, but the clientele is declining by the week. Where do they find them?????"