My five favourite bars | Simon Munnery

The award-winning comedian rose to fame as Alan Parker, Urban Warrior, in the early Nineties. His most recent creation is The League Against Tedium, "a man whose only enemies are women and the sea". He is currently in production with a new series for BBC2, and in August returns to the Edinburgh Festival. He lives with his wife in Stoke Newington, north London.

The award-winning comedian rose to fame as Alan Parker, Urban Warrior, in the early Nineties. His most recent creation is The League Against Tedium, "a man whose only enemies are women and the sea". He is currently in production with a new series for BBC2, and in August returns to the Edinburgh Festival. He lives with his wife in Stoke Newington, north London.

1 The Penny Black 17 West Register Street, Edinburgh (tel: 0131 5561106)

A favourite of mine because it opens at 6am, so there are a lot of pure drinkers there. I found it about 10 years ago, while I was at the Fringe, and I've been back regularly since. It has mid-Seventies decor and the carpet is a mosaic of cigarette colours. There's a lot of dark wood too - I like wood in a pub. But it's the atmosphere that makes it special. There's a sort of golden light above the bar, like a neon street light, and it gives the whole place a welcoming yellow glow. If I could describe the atmosphere in one word it would be "holy".

2 The Public Office 100 Adderley Street, Melbourne, Australia I came across this place about a year-and-a-half ago, when I was working at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. It's in a big warehouse, a bit like an early rave venue. It's got disco lights, projections, and trancey visuals. Actually, I met my wife there. She was working as a waitress in the cocktail bar, when I met her, shook her up, and turned her into someone new.

3 The Golden Hart 110 Commercial Street, London E1 (tel: 020 7247 2158)

This is a bit like the London version of The Penny Black. It opens at 5am to serve Smithfield Market. At that time, you get a strange mixture of clubbers, gangsters and market traders in there. Despite that, the pub's got quite a peaceful atmosphere - it's very mellow. You get this amazing golden light in pubs that open that early - it's like mocking the dawn. If you've been up all night drinking and you're looking for somewhere to carry on, this is the place. I literally stumbled across it early one morning. I fell into its door and realised I'd found heaven.

4 The Rose And Crown 199 Stoke Newington Church Street, London N16 (tel: 020 7254 7497)

Good food - very good food - plus the heroes of Greenpeace stay here. When Greenpeace has a mission, it gets people in from abroad, and to avoid them getting extradited it hides them here. I've never seen any of them, but I fondly imagine the place as a den of honest revolutionaries. I tend to go down on Sunday afternoons with my wife. It's got wood panelling and a nice fire in the winter. I came across it when I first moved here six years ago. Or two years ago if you're from the council tax office... you'll never catch me.

5 Baron Of Beef 19 Bridge Street, Cambridge (tel: 01223 505022)

I drank here every lunchtime and evening for three years while I was a student. It had a long, narrow bar and sawdust on the floor, but it's been done up since. I spent my days there with a man who pretended to be my friend. We used to rant angrily at each other about putting the world to rights. There were always rugby teams in there for us to irritate as well. We liked irritating people. I used to walk in wearing a crown of barbed wire on my inverse Mohican, just to annoy people. It worked.