Alcester. Very pleased with itself.

Alcester's nice and it knows it. Romans under the floor, the Mop Fair filling the streets once a year, and the Court Leet still sends blokes out in robes to taste the ale as an official duty. Lucky sods. It's Allster, by the way. Get it wrong and someone will put you right before you've finished saying it.

Then there's the water. The storm overflows round here spill at 7.5 times the typical town's rate, which makes the ale tasters the only people in town who know exactly what they're drinking. There are 10 pubs and 6 charity shops for a town this size, so that's the afternoon sorted. No public swimming pool. Given the overflows, nobody's pushing for one.

The editor, who wanted the ale tasting job