The landlord at the Woodman pub in Highgate was shocked to be awoken by news his porch had collapsed in the middle of the night, but he hasn’t let it put a dampener on business.

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Tom Helliwell, who lives above the pub, managed to sleep through the collapse overnight on October 8 until a passer-by gave him a call.

He said: “I was in bed and got a phone call saying the porch had collapsed. If anyone had been there we’d have had a problem – we didn’t know there was an issue.”

Tom added that the 10pm curfew had proved lucky in this case, as otherwise punters would have still been around when the porch collapsed.

He explained the disruption to business had been minimal, thanks to rapid debris removal by his landlord.

In response to the incident, Tom ran a campaign to find the best funny tagline based on the incident. He said the leading candidate was: “The lobster thermidore is so good the porch fell off the building!”