Suffer the little children

In CAMRA’s quarterly magazine BEER, veteran cookery writer Prue Leith has proposed that pubs should provide school dinners for children whose schools have no kitchens.

She seems to assume that pubs have cooking and waiting staff hanging around at lunchtimes doing nothing, whereas in reality pubs would need to recruit staff to carry out this function, and put them through the expensive and time-consuming CRB checks required for anyone working with children.

She says:

Many pubs are empty miserable places at lunchtime, with a couple of old codgers supping their pints in silence in the gloomiest corner.

Sounds like me, really, although I always try to find a spot where there is good light to read the paper. And does she imagine those old codgers would still be there if their quiet space was invaded by a troop of schoolkids? In any case, most of the pubs where that was the case have either closed down or stopped opening at lunchtimes.

To be honest, you have to wonder when she last went in a pub. Some of the comments inject a welcome dose of reality.