Remember afternoons spent with colouring books and boxes of Crayola? Relive your childhood at Doodle Bar - it does exactly what it says on the tin.

The Venue
Battersea may be hard to get to without convenient public transport but just before Battersea Bridge, hidden among the warehouses and docks, you’ll find this unique bar. An unassuming sign stuck to a brick wall indicates Doodle Bar in cartoon-like scrawl imitating a graffiti tag. Walk across the lot towards a large, low warehouse near the river and keep going until you reach an inconspicuous door in the side of the garage. You’ll eventually enter an open space lit with a garish pink neon sign. A store front with a chalk board door beckons you towards the bar.

Beyond the door lies a tiny lounge and bar area where everything is glaringly white, tinged with a bohemian air of neglect. Ghostly paper lanterns soften the industrial space and fairy lights and sofas shrouded in drop cloths offer an amusing dance space for a DJ. You'll find the drinks behind the espresso machine and a tray filled with markers, pens and chalk at the end of the counter. Outside, a kind of post-apocalyptic, urban wasteland had been created. Grenades and CDs hang from netting, spinning like Christmas ornaments in the sunlight. Plants in whitewashed pots enhance the view of the glassy, industrial architecture across the silt and sand-filled dry dock. A whitewashed Volkswagen Bug (which you can drink in!) dominates the area, filled with similarly whitewashed tables, a ping pong table and even a bathtub.

The Atmosphere
The Doodle Bar encourages the supreme naughtiness of scribbling on the walls and furniture. Once you get started on the doodling, the drive to create is so compelling that you may find your newly nurtured artistic tendencies and impromptu poetry quickly become more important than playing ping pong. You can paint by numbers if you're feeling uninspired by filling in other people's artwork, or even bring your own markers and pens and paint if you are feeling especially industrious. Just don't bother scribbling anything too suggestive, it will be edited out by the staff at the end of the day or during one of their whitewashing parties.

Clad in white, it’s also possible to display your work on the staff. Just make sure to ask before you start scribbling on them. The relaxed atmosphere and therapeutic nature of the self-provided entertainment could fill a lazy afternoon quite easily.

The Drink
The wine is very nice and the beer is very cheap at Doodle Bar. If it's the grape you fancy, spring for the £15 bottle of Berry Bros with velvety, dark cherries and spice. Or if you're short on cash, the Los Cozalots Merlot fits the bill with flavours of resin and pomegranate seeds for only a tenner. There are no taps, but bottled San Miguel or Peroni will cost you £2.50. There’s also a collection of standard spirits.

The Last Word
At Doodle Bar you can march to your own beat. It's an artsy alternative where creative juices flow as liberally as the inexpensive drinks.

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