Lady Penelope of Pensby was introduced to some this week and the Pub Column has to say she thoroughly enjoyed herself.

Now before you get the wrong idea, let me clarify the experience related to her inaugural visit to The Nook, one of Liverpool's most intriguing pubs. Curled up in Chinatown, during the city's maritime heyday it would serve as a place for seafarers to spend all their wages on getting merry and later, er, on a bit of real nookie courtesy of the ladies of the night.

The Cornmarket on Fenwick Street is the building Hitler's Luftwaffe couldn't level in one of the oldest areas of downtown Liverpool. Its sumptuously intimate interior, a wealth of wood and leather, was a favourite with The Plod, legal briefs and newspaper scribes who would use it as the perfect place to exchange clandestine tips away from the beady eye of Mr and Mrs Scall, during lunchtime breaks from the dock at the nearby crown courts in Derby Square.