Three times in the past month, I’ve been in a pub at the tail-end of the lunchtime session, and a group of young mothers has wheeled in a procession of prams, buggies and pushchairs containing their offspring. Needless to say, my heart sank, and the inevitable chorus of howling and wailing was soon in evidence. A very good reason not to stay for another. It was also noticeable that on at least one occasion they sat and nattered for at least a quarter of an hour before anyone ordered anything from the bar. The old-style publicans would have chucked people out for that. I know for a fact of one licensee who barred a school of women for not putting enough money across the bar.
Oh how are pubs fallen when it comes to this. In the old days, there would have been a cosy fug of smoke and the bar would have been full of blokes perusing the racing pages prior to nipping in to the bookies’. Nowadays, it seems pubs are so desperate they have to act as unpaid social clubs.
A common sight in just one of the pubs I used to frequent on a trip to Redcar was parents meeting their kids from school and wheeling them into the pub and let loose to run riot whilst they got pissed.
ReplyDeleteGoing to a pub now is a rarity and I drink and smoke at home, much more convivial.
I reckon a lot of non smokers would welcome smoking rooms and smoking pubs once the hidden benefits were explained to them. Please continue to post news about pubs post July 2007. I like to keep up with what's going on.
ReplyDeleteBabies don't drink anything, so I really don't understand why some managers and landlords are so keen to get them into their pubs. :)
ReplyDeleteBabies shall be banned from my pub I'm afraid. They interfere with the customers appreciation of the fine music we shall play.
There is definitely a market for pubs that do not let children in, as well as those who do. But in my opinion pubs are places where people go to get pissed, smoke, talk shit, swear and fart. These things are not the sort of places that I would take my kids. (Although kids do like farting, it must be admitted.)
"But in my opinion pubs are places where people go to get pissed, smoke, talk shit, swear and fart."
ReplyDeleteCompletely agreed on that, in every respect.
Also places where you can go to read the newspaper over a couple of pints in relative peace.
The other point is that even for the children themselves, pubs are often very boring places. I used to be alright in a pub for 20 or 30 minutes with a glass of lemonade, say, but any more than that and I got restless.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's really on to expect children to sit somewhere like that for extended periods of time every weekend. What's in it for them?
My pet hate. Yummy mummies throwing wine down their necks whilst kids are screaming in pushchairs or even worse running around and knocking into tables.
ReplyDeleteIf this is Continental drinking (English version) then you can stick it.
As one of posts mentioned above many times I've seen kids still in school uniform left alone whilst the parents are busy getting minging.
"even for the children themselves, pubs are often very boring places"
ReplyDeleteIndeed. While some people bang on about how good it is that pubs are more "family-friendly", unless you're taking them for a meal, pubs offer nothing for children, and so it's hardly surprising they get bored and start running round and making a noise.
And I think that's really more or less the entire problem right there: some parents are mistaking 'family-friendly' almost to mean in the supervised Wacky Warehouse sense rather than in the "children are welcome with parents for a meal if they're well-behaved" sense and that's where you get mothers thinking that it's 'their' pub and it's perfectly alright to nearly spill over that guy who's nearly blind looking for a sit in peace while their offspring run about the place.
ReplyDeleteIt's rights without responsibilities again. Not especially difficult to understand.