It would appear that the current trend is for people to stay in and drink at home while many pubs are either closing, becoming gastro pubs or, worse still, Indian restaurants.
How many of you are regulars at a pub in which you are there for the sole purpose of drinking and engaging in a bit of badinage with your crew around the bar?
I was thinking that the closure of my local would leave a huge hole in my life. What I love about the pub is the fact that it's a great leveller; a place where The Lord of the Manor can talk to his dustman as an equal over a pint.
This is something which manifested itself the other night when I was talking to a chap who probably earns in a year what I earn in a week. This disparity in our relative material wealth brought to bear no sense of deference from him towards me. We spoke as equals and he listened to my views on everything from Pre Raphaelite art to the art of the backward game in backgammon. The fact that he agreed with every word I said is by the by. Two people were brought together by their mutual love of that den of bonhomie that is the Great British pub.
And long may it continue.
How many of you are regulars at a pub in which you are there for the sole purpose of drinking and engaging in a bit of badinage with your crew around the bar?
I was thinking that the closure of my local would leave a huge hole in my life. What I love about the pub is the fact that it's a great leveller; a place where The Lord of the Manor can talk to his dustman as an equal over a pint.
This is something which manifested itself the other night when I was talking to a chap who probably earns in a year what I earn in a week. This disparity in our relative material wealth brought to bear no sense of deference from him towards me. We spoke as equals and he listened to my views on everything from Pre Raphaelite art to the art of the backward game in backgammon. The fact that he agreed with every word I said is by the by. Two people were brought together by their mutual love of that den of bonhomie that is the Great British pub.
And long may it continue.
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