It had been trailed for a few months ahead, and I'd sworn off it; the living nightmare that was Brexit was only a few months old and Wetherspoon's Tim Martin was one of its most gracelessly triumphant fuglemen. He could keep his (incredibly cheap) pints and his (superhumanly fast) nuggets. I didn't cave piecemeal as soon as I set eyes on the Royal Victoria Pavilion, renovated, now the world's largest Wetherspoon's, I was overswept by its charm.