The price may be right but there’s something lacking as RICHARD BELL discovers at a new venue at Oxford Castle.

I’m assuming the snow will not have disappeared by the time this article is published, and I’m hoping you’ve all enjoyed the days off, countless snowball fights, building of snowmen and all the other wonderfully childlike games we like to play in this sort of weather.

The snow has that incredible effect.

On the other hand, some of us have had to grit our teeth and brave the cold, fighting our way through the blizzards and drifts to be able to bring you news on the latest venue to open.

To my delight, this New Year seems to have produced a great many new clubs and venues, not to mention an enormous amount of new club nights, designed to tantalise us with their offers of new tunes, new drinks offers and a whole new crowd.

And one of these is the Swan and Castle, which has risen from the ashes of Bar Ha Ha in an attempt to bring us the ultimate in pre-clubbing enjoyment.

In some ways it really does do an excellent job of this.

After all, what you really need from a pre-clubbing venue is for the drinks to be cheap enough to provide you with enough Dutch Courage to get you onto the dance floor, confident enough in your ability to do the ‘robot’ better than Optimus Prime at a rave, but without breaking the bank and spending all the money you had hoped to spend at the club afterward.

The Swan and Castle provides a wide range of drinks at deliciously good prices.

A single can cost as little as £1.49 and with the option to double up for only a pound – well, you simply aren’t going to pass it up are you?

The beer is also pretty good value, and cocktails can be purchased by the jug for a mere £6.15.

The trouble is that cheap drinks aren’t the only thing that can guarantee a good night out, otherwise our good nights out would be in the booze aisles of Tesco, and unfortunately the Swan and Castle lacks the warm, fun atmosphere that gears one up for a night out.

All in all, the long trudge through the snow, fighting the freeze, led me to a new venue that’s interesting only because it’s new.

The lack of an atmosphere makes the place feel empty, and a lot less like the kind of venue you’d want to start your night in, no matter what the weather is like...