(Quack): Newcastle is rated as one of the world's best Party Cities, and yet you seem to have a manifesto to bring it down at every possible opportunity. Why is that?

(Dog): Because - frankly - that whole idea is a fucking sham. It's a cliched, cynical, tourist board lie, like Paris as a city of romance or the Golden Viennese Heart. We've all been sneered at by surly Frogs, and you need no more than half an hour in Vienna to fully understand how Hitler could only have been Austrian. But as long as "Top 10!" looks good on paper, the media will churn it out and daft gets will swallow it. Aye, Newcastle is a party city, but it's a party that's been gatecrashed by absolute arseholes; someone's puking in your fishtank, there's a couple humping on your kitchen sink, and what that dirty bastard is doing upstairs with your mother's knicker drawer, you really don't want to know.

People flock to Newcastle for one reason, and one reason only: if Bigg Market lasses are thick enough to wear next to fuck all when it's minus five, then they're thick enough to chew on your dirty cock if you tell them it's a Peperami. And if you're a lass from out of town, you can come and act the tuppenny whore safe in the knowledge that noboby will bat an eyelid. Are you trying to tell me otherwise? Are our pubs as they stand really part of a great Geordie tradition? Are our tacky chain bars so much better than the tacky chain bars elsewhere? Bollocks, are they. It's the promise of a quick scuttle down a dirty alley that hauls in the tourists, and that's all there is to it.

Judging from the tone of your reviews you give the impression that you'd like to be seen as a mixture of insightful social commentator and...

Hateful hoor? Aye, that sounds about right. Your point being...?

As preparation for this session, I took the liberty of entering "www.theburglarsdog.co.uk" into Google and seeing if anyone had a posted their own opinion of your site.

Aye? Suppose you're going to give us some examples, are you?

"Jaundiced rich cunt" and "middle class toryboy ponce", to name but two.

They're genuine, we take it.

I'm afraid so. Don't you feel that you might come over as nothing but a pompous arse?

Well, yeah. But has it become such a fucking crime these days to try to write in sentences, and to actually still give a splattery cack about spelling and punctuation? Jesus, you'd think it was some sort of class treason to know how a Caps Lock button works. To say we're jaundiced is fair enough, but rich? Has the price of apostrophes gone through the fucking roof, or something? Are capital letters out of the grasp of all but the wealthy elite? And as for "middle class" (wrong) "toryboy" (wronger) "ponce"...well, one out of three ain't bad.

Would you say you're stung by criticism?

It's water off a cunt's back, really. Let's be honest: it doesn't matter who you are or what opinions you hold, someone is going to think you're an arsehole. That's human nature. We're sure there were plenty people who thought Mother Teresa was an interfering old witch. Our Lord Jesus was nailed to the cross for basically saying that folks should play nice for a bit, and we bet He didn't have to put up with some fucking helmet calling His website "mostly shite", which is what we...

You're comparing yourselves to Jesus Christ?

Might be.

Hmm. Putting aside your messianic delusions until our next session, it would appear that these criticisms seem to have touched a raw nerve.

Piss off.

So are you effectively saying you can dish it out but you can't take it?

(long pause)

Next question, wiseguy.

Why do you feel there is so much swearing on The Burglar's Dog? Is it really necessary?

Oh peppery pissflaps, yes. There's nothing wrong with a bit of profanity, as long as it's in the right place. As long as you can say fucking when you mean fucking, and not when you mean "uh...", then we don't see any problem. It's the shitwits in the knock-off Rockports who can't even draw breath without snorking out a nasal "fok'n" that give cussing a bad name. At least we prove that it is possible to swear like a fucker and still construct a semi-coherent sentence.

Besides, when it comes to pub reviews, we think everyone is pig-fucking-sick and tired of reading the same stock phrases pulled from the ridiculous hat of style-mag journalism. Chilled, smooth, designer, swanky, sumptuous, chic; utter fucking cobblers, all of it. Can all these places really be "to die for"? Bars are places where drunk people yell lies at each other in a pathetic attempt to exchange bodily fluids before the cash runs out. Bars are where fights start. There is nothing chic about dribbling your overpriced pint onto laminate flooring, no matter what these wankers insist. If someone at your average glossy bible had the balls to say, "It's exactly the same as every fucking other place that's opened up this year, but I can't tell you that cos I'll lose my cushy expense account" instead of toeing the line every time, then we'd have a bit more respect for the sleazy bastards.

But wouldn't you agree that your colourful language displays an unhealthy amount of anger?

Of course? Why wouldn't it? Let's be honest here; every second of everyone's day is blighted by everyone else. From the inane yap of the morning radio DJ to the sarcastically transparent lies on the late night news, the average day flicks bogeys in your earlobe at every opportunity.

Do any of us punch the air in triumph at the start of another day on Earth? Or are we all pissing away seven hours and twenty-four minutes a day, five days a week, dealing with suffocating bureaucracy interspersed with the relentless, wilful stupidity of co-workers?

Who hasn't felt the slow metamorphosis from law-abiding citizen into potential killer, simply through the cumulative effect of the most trivial of niggles? Who doesn't wish daily death on that obnoxious little spod on the bus home, whose life will amount to less than fuck all but, hey!, if they've got their feet on the seat then that's gotta count for something, right?

Is the finger of blame pointed solely in the direction of other people?

Well, everyone's a fucker nowadays. There's no denying that. But we're certainly not unaware of our own failings. Everything we do and every impotent whine on this site is a reaction to getting older, greyer, fatter, uglier, sweatier, speckier and thicker. More narrow minded, less tolerant. More aware, less able to do a damn thing about it. Our contempt for everything and everyone is a wank in a wind sock compared to our own self-loathing. We think that much is glaringly obvious.

Prior to this session, had you ever thought of seeking professional help; for example a course of specialist counselling, or anger managem...

You fucking what? Have you tried looking on the internet for tips on anger management? We have. We went on BUPA's site looking for help. And you know what it says, what its considered, carefully researched advice is? "If you're angry, then calm down." Well thanks a lot, Private Doc. Jesus, we thought the Dog was a waste of fucking time and internet resources.

That's why we do this, man. Swearing on the internet is a vital part of stress relief. Everyone needs to be a keyboard hero, hammering out their rage in inconsequential blogs like this packet of cack, or they'll end up stabbing some fucker in the neck. The subject is irrelevant; trains or lollipops or size 9 wellies, it really doesn't matter. All we've done is hang our petty neuroses on the peg of tourist information, hoodwinking innocent browsers into reading our bleatings masquerading as pub reviews. Tell you what: if we'd ended up on this site looking for proper information to plan our nights with, we'd be fucking mortified.

Do you feel that not having much in the way of strictly factual information is unimportant?

As far as we're concerned, it's enough to even acknowledge the existence of most of the pubs we review. We put up a nicely laid out page, with a photo, an address and an itty-bitty map; there's even a phone number if you want to ring them and chew the fat. But once we've made an irredeemable arse of ourselves sticking our head above the parapet to promote these dumps with our grating smart-arsery, then it's your turn to hand over your readies and experience them for yourself. If you need to rely on a site like this to gauge your potential enjoyment, then you're really neck-deep in the shit.

Fair enough, we try to put in a few bits of truth about decor and atmosphere, together with the bar's target audience and beliefs - just to prove we've been - but that's where we draw the line. We haven't got the time or the inclination to catalogue happy hours and opening times; we refuse to even allow an opportunity for pub bores to whinge that we've said there was Old Fannyfart on draught when they're now only selling Manky Hanky.

For a site that constantly derides pubs and bars, you never seem to express what you actually DO like. What would be your ideal pub?

Piss easy, that one. In our bar you'd have a room to yourself, with a creaky chair by a draughty window and your own personal rain to stare at. The dusty clock on the wall would always be stuck at thirty minutes after your mates said they'd arrive and, no matter where you stood, you'd still never get a signal on your bloody phone to check where the fuck they'd got to. And every time you drained your glass and stood up to go - fearing you'd misunderstood the arrangements - you'd momentarily black out before finding yourself back in your seat with another mediocre pint in front of you. You'd never be sober enough to sort out your problems, nor drunk enough to no longer care. And on the jukebox would be a cack-handed remix of Bill Withers' "Lovely Day", with Bill holding that "daaaaay" note for the rest of eternity.

Are you quite sure about that?

Why not? It'd still be more fun than even a swift half in the likes of fucking Perdu.

Are you suggesting there's a whiff of the Emperor's new clothes about the current pub scene?

Exactly. We've all been stuck in the house on a Sunday night, after scraping together the last pennies for a few cans and a half-price bag of stale Doritos. We all know that you can't turn on the telly without seeing yet another fucking arbitrary chart rundown of The World's Worst. You could do one of those shows with the bars in this town, no problem whatsoever. Picture it in five years' time. Imagine them wheeling on some bozo with the latest must-have haircut, or some dead-eyed, grasping wannabe with an exotic tattoo at the base of her spine that any Japanese pre-school kid could point out merely reads I-let-them-mutilate-me-like-this-to-be-fashionable-in-summer-2004-but-I-look-like-a-right-fucking-fool-now. "Tee hee!" they'll say. "Do you remember those 'luxe' bars?! What WERE we thinking?! And those DJs! Wasn't it terrible when...?! Aren't we so smug and clever now that...?! Eeh, I could just DIE!!"

We say: stop kidding yourself. Open your bloody eyes, will you? It's fucking shit NOW, you despicable ship of fools. Being all ironic about it after the event is no exoneration for encouraging it at the time.

Imagine if you'd actually bought into all the saggy bollocks these fuckers want to sell you as sophistication. Think of how disappointed you're going to be when you realise that having a black napkin under your overpriced drink doesn't necessarily turn you into a VIP. In the minds and balance sheets of these greedy cunts, you're nothing but gullible, malleable, follow-the-leader cretins, practically queueing up to swallow as much shit as they can possibly excrete, then gleefully paying extra for a monogrammed tissue to wipe your fucking chins.

Digging deeper into the Burglar's Dog, I've noticed that there are a fair few fashion bars about which you've made almost positive comments. Could you possibly explain that?

Simple. We went in for a token pint, certain that we'd never go again, and had a bit of a snooty nose around. Then we walked out with a piss-weak theme under our arms, ready to give them a sound kicking based on that theme the next morning. Trouble is, we're generally too fucking dim to form any sort of structured narrative, so the top-of-the-headisms that we clack out on the keyboard while we're hungover tend to remain as the review, regardless of how terrible the bar actually is. And if the review has a positive slant at the 600-word mark, then that's what we put up. We know they're a family-bucketful of toss; we're just too fucking heartbroken to change them.

Our session is nearly at an end. Where next for the Burglar's Dog?

Fuck knows: This whole internet fiasco is rapidly becoming a spasm in the sphincter. We might just sack it off and do something useful instead. Juggling, midwifery, frog farming...

That's a little drastic. Perhaps you'd be better off setting yourself a goal, to give yourself a sense of purpose.

Like?

Well, maybe you COULD go back and revisit some of the earliest reviews on the site...

Huh?

...instead of contriving ever more ridiculous features.

We've been bloody well DOING IT, MAN.

You know, those critics were right; you are just a little bit out of date and...

Alright, that's enough of that, you twat.

Twat? Listen, dickhead: I'm not the one interviewing myself. I'm not the one so far up my own arse that I feel the need to conduct an embarrassing imaginary grilling to get my feeble points across. There's only one twat here, and it's not the bloke with the PhD. What have you got to say about that, clever shite?

Fuck you, Sigmund.

Fuck me? Just get on with redoing the reviews. And try to get a little bit of humility, you pretentious prick.

Fuck. You.

This session is terminated. Settle your account on the way out, would you?

(Door slams, pictures rattle, receptionist screams in alarm)

Tit.