I met a businessman who was working in Russia back in the 1990s, shortly after it opened up to foreign capital. He said that there were no pubs, beer halls, and the like, and that if people wanted to drink they normally bought a few bottles and sat around in one another's kitchens getting hammered. Public drinking, he said, was officially frowned upon under the Soviet Union, because people got together and grumbled and complained about the government. Gossip could spread, people could get ideas, and realise that there were like-minded malcontents across the community. It caused trouble for the authorities.
There's probably a good deal of that with our government. With no pub on the street corner, and X being severely curtailed or banned, they will prevent the spread of new ideas and "Are you thinking what I'm thinking...?" type conversations.
I’m sat in a Wetherspoon in Birkenhead drinking an excellent pint of real ale stout which Tim Martin has sold me for £2.20. The place is half full at 7pm on a Thursday but completely full at lunch times, even on a Monday, with people eating and drinking food for less than £15 a head including a drink. This is Birkenhead, one of the poorest places in the UK, but it’s not full of drunks or unpleasant people. Just locals and retired people enjoying a chin wag and a drink. Maybe we need more Wetherspoons, they seem to be a successful business model? The pub co’s ruined the pub culture in this country, granted the government isn’t and hasn’t helped, but they’re not main the reason for the massive closures in recent years, more the straw that broke the camels back. Prices are too high in most pubs, stupid rents and tied beer prices in the pub co houses are mainly to blame, greedy breweries selling off properties to them 30 years ago instigated and fuelled the crisis. Labour MP’s banned from your locals might make you feel a little better but it was consecutive Conservative governments who set the ball rolling towards the social disaster looming in front of us.
Meanwhile Wetherspoons continue to reap the profits and replace the old locals with identical environments and identical nationwide offerings. We’ve sold our souls and community hubs for an anodyne and slightly vacant group of real estate but at least we have that, soon it might be more or less all we have.
"Well if it helps take the burden off the NHS..." - an NHS nurse friend of mine after I said that current taxes/rates etc were causing pubs and restaurants to shut down. We did not see eye to eye on this one. Pubs are a force for good, a home from home, and infinitely more popular than the average politician.
Spot on about the regulatory strangulation of the pub, but there’s an even quieter killer here.. the widening chasm between the bar and the supermarket shelf.
For decades the supermarket prices have remained artificially stagnant compared to the pub. The state effectively punishes the 'controlled' environment of the pub while allowing supermarkets to sell industrial quantities of booze at a fraction of the price per unit.
Ironically, most of us find a 50p hike on a pint at our local easier to swallow because we value the landlord and the 'third space.' But when that same increase hits the weekly grocery shop, it feels like a tax on living. If the state actually believed the 'pub is the hub' mantra, they’d realise that the biggest threat is the fact that it’s now four times cheaper to drink alone in a kitchen than to have a conversation at a bar, but pubs are bad for public health aren't they..
I met a businessman who was working in Russia back in the 1990s, shortly after it opened up to foreign capital. He said that there were no pubs, beer halls, and the like, and that if people wanted to drink they normally bought a few bottles and sat around in one another's kitchens getting hammered. Public drinking, he said, was officially frowned upon under the Soviet Union, because people got together and grumbled and complained about the government. Gossip could spread, people could get ideas, and realise that there were like-minded malcontents across the community. It caused trouble for the authorities.
There's probably a good deal of that with our government. With no pub on the street corner, and X being severely curtailed or banned, they will prevent the spread of new ideas and "Are you thinking what I'm thinking...?" type conversations.
Destroying the pub will not destroy the demon drink, it will just make us a nation of lonelier, sadder home drinkers.
I’m sat in a Wetherspoon in Birkenhead drinking an excellent pint of real ale stout which Tim Martin has sold me for £2.20. The place is half full at 7pm on a Thursday but completely full at lunch times, even on a Monday, with people eating and drinking food for less than £15 a head including a drink. This is Birkenhead, one of the poorest places in the UK, but it’s not full of drunks or unpleasant people. Just locals and retired people enjoying a chin wag and a drink. Maybe we need more Wetherspoons, they seem to be a successful business model? The pub co’s ruined the pub culture in this country, granted the government isn’t and hasn’t helped, but they’re not main the reason for the massive closures in recent years, more the straw that broke the camels back. Prices are too high in most pubs, stupid rents and tied beer prices in the pub co houses are mainly to blame, greedy breweries selling off properties to them 30 years ago instigated and fuelled the crisis. Labour MP’s banned from your locals might make you feel a little better but it was consecutive Conservative governments who set the ball rolling towards the social disaster looming in front of us.
Meanwhile Wetherspoons continue to reap the profits and replace the old locals with identical environments and identical nationwide offerings. We’ve sold our souls and community hubs for an anodyne and slightly vacant group of real estate but at least we have that, soon it might be more or less all we have.
It hates anywhere we can talk to each other, pubs, church, X, clubs
Plus, alcohol is haram to Britain’s new settler colonizing owners.
"Well if it helps take the burden off the NHS..." - an NHS nurse friend of mine after I said that current taxes/rates etc were causing pubs and restaurants to shut down. We did not see eye to eye on this one. Pubs are a force for good, a home from home, and infinitely more popular than the average politician.
This is literally what alcohol duty is for! Drinkers are already paying upfront for the extra costs they impose on the state.
Most of the nurses and doctors I’ve known have been some of the biggest piss-artists in captivity. 🤔
Spot on about the regulatory strangulation of the pub, but there’s an even quieter killer here.. the widening chasm between the bar and the supermarket shelf.
For decades the supermarket prices have remained artificially stagnant compared to the pub. The state effectively punishes the 'controlled' environment of the pub while allowing supermarkets to sell industrial quantities of booze at a fraction of the price per unit.
Ironically, most of us find a 50p hike on a pint at our local easier to swallow because we value the landlord and the 'third space.' But when that same increase hits the weekly grocery shop, it feels like a tax on living. If the state actually believed the 'pub is the hub' mantra, they’d realise that the biggest threat is the fact that it’s now four times cheaper to drink alone in a kitchen than to have a conversation at a bar, but pubs are bad for public health aren't they..
I don’t even drink but support every well written and funny word