Tuesday 4 November 2014

Last orders


Hello. Me here.

Back to pubs. I was reading an article this morning about the imminent closure of Kate and Wills's favourite pub - 'The Old Boot' (no puns intended) - and it was followed by a short list of Britain's oldest pubs. I was mildly surprised to see that out of about ten featured, I had visited about four in the not too distant past (including The George, above), and considering they range quite a few miles apart, I think this is some sort of achievement.

When I was still popping-off shotguns in the countryside, I insured myself through The Countryside Alliance - that controversial organisation which was set up to protect the relatively modern sport of hunting foxes with hounds.

To my mind, the C.A. performs one vital role for the countryside, and that is to champion rural pubs and Post Offices, both of which are under extreme pressure by the need to maximise profits for potential shareholders when the Royal Mail gets sold off to a bunch of avaricious bastards who would be happy to see Olde Englande go down the toilet just so long as they can retire in comfort, and a similar ambition by the shareholders of breweries, who are more interested in property prices now than they are in maintaining ancient social hubs for isolated communities. The squeeze on local councils by central government does not help either.

The classic British pub can be traced back to Roman times or before, and the reason they were called 'hostelries' is because they catered - almost exclusively - for travellers. The first ones were to provided R & R for soldiers marching from one end of the country to the other, and slightly later ones did the same for Christian Pilgrims. Slightly later still, all Southern roads led to London or the provincial ports, usually for reasons of commerce.

Two groups of people built the roads on which the pubs were usually situated - the Romans and the 18th century entrepreneurs, and whole industries built up either side of them, not least Highwaymanship.

It's always been about commerce and making money, but these days you make money by sitting in an office or at home, staring at a computer screen - you don't even need to get on a golf-course any more.

There is a generation of fat kids who have not grown into obese adults through drinking beer.

I had better stop here - I am depressing myself by thinking about the speedy erosion of any traditional institutions which exist in order to enrich community life rather than maximising income from the  capital expenditure of a handful of outsiders. By 'outsiders' I mean real outlanders - even people who have never set foot in England and probably never will.

The big, private corporations are just waiting for the last of the old people who do not use computers to die off, before they sell off the last of the traditional methods of communicating.

These days, I try not to become impatient with the old woman in front of me in the Post Office as she holds me up by chatting to the person behind the bullet-proof glass. It may be the only conversation she will have with another human being all day.

32 comments:

  1. We found pubs, especially in the north but in London too, very good value for meals or just a drink. But they did not seem economically sustainable to me. I think pub owners love being just that, and hopefully can keep their financial heads just above water.

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    1. You have to ask why these pubs are becoming unsustainable, having been doing good trade for hundreds of years previously, and why about 15 pubs a week have going out of business for the last few of them.

      In the really old days, you walked into a pub and asked what food was on offer to go with your ale, and were usually told 'mutton', in one form or another, because of the huge woollen industry.

      Now, if a pub does not have a menu which compares to a Jamie Oliver restaurant, people tend to walk out and find somewhere with more 'choice'.

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    2. The point being that food is such good value in pubs, because it is a loss-leader to sell beer.

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    3. ... and beer produces almost as much tax revenue as tobacco...

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  2. I thought it was the other way around, no profit on beer, lots on 'pub grub'. Heaven help us if the old traditional pub disappears; there's no better institution in the UK.

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    1. There's not a lot of profit on beer for the tied landlord, but plenty for the big breweries and HMRC.

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    2. The large breweries own restaurant and hotel chains. They make more money for shareholders like me this way. Pubs can't survive on old guys having a pint of real ale on the way home from work. Food isn't a loss leader in most pubs, it is how they make money.

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    3. It - food - is the only way many pubs with tied landlords make any money, other than old men like me drinking in them.

      The trouble with shareholders like you is that there are now too many of you, even saturating civic contracts.

      You need to thin yourselves out, and quickly.

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    4. I know what you are saying and am with you but it is a fact of life that drinking habits have changes and the breweries buy up all the big brands. That is the way to make money for shareholders. Diageo just bought the Bushmills brewery in Northern Ireland. Jobs are safe for the time being. They already has Johnny Walker, Guinness (of course), Smirnoff. Who cares about pubs. I do but you see what you up against. Funny I just said fuck you on my blog but because the clock is always wrong here I don't know if it was simultaneous.

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    5. You didn't have to remove the fuck off bit, you just screwed up my comment.

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  3. When England fails you, try Dublin, where there are still plenty of old pubs where failing journalists and Bruce Springsteen hang out. Offering anything with any more vitamins than a small packet of peanuts would be beneath their traditional dignity.

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    1. I have heard that 1 pint of Guinness is the calorific equivalent of a loaf of bread, so who needs food?

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  4. And welcome back after your blogging break. There were all sorts of rabble here while you were away.

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  5. I think enterprise was ever thus; the accumulation and use of capital was slower back when funds to pay workers traveled by stage coach, in strongboxes tucked under the guard's feet. (Did someone ride "shotgun" on English stagecoaches?) The "old" way of life has always given way to the ideas of some modern new generation. I wonder if it always dismayed the older generation as much as it does now it happens at the speed of light. And thus it will ever be.
    Fortunately you are secure in your own local.

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    1. They rode 'blunderbuss', and the reason for those trumpet-muzzels was for quick loading, not spread.

      My own local has ongoing, but different, problems.

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  6. As an 'old woman' Tom, I would like to tell you that one of the assistants in our local Post Office, has a chat with everyone, no matter how long the queue is. Some folk complain, but let them I think, as everyone goes away happier for her words. She is all of 25!

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    1. Good for her. What sort of hurry are you old people in anyway? (I make allowances for your seniority by not saying 'us' instead of you).

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  7. I love our local pub. The bar area is always full of damp dogs drying out by the log fire and locals drinking pints. But the real attraction for me is the superb food they serve in the restaurant - best for miles around. Long may it continue.

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  8. I understand your anger, Tom. The Olde England as we foreigners like it will be only preserved in (shallow-clichéd) TVseries like Midsomer Murder...
    Quite a lot of ale-brewers come over to Berlin and found a brewery (well, four or five,) - and they find a market and a brewer's festival here.
    On Sunday we visited a private brewery in the Spreewald, it was from 1788, (though their beer lasts only 2 weeks), and it would be sad to see such traditional places go.

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    1. I live in a Midsummer Murder fantasy world too, Britta. Nothing wrong with that, until there's a real murder.

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  9. The pendulum will swing back in time and the Olde English pubs will be the hippest/olde thing.

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    1. It still is, but they are - for the above reasons - thinning out quicker than stock-dealers.

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  10. I agree that it will be a terrible shame if the old English pubs disappear. They are such a symbol of English life in the vein of Midsomer Murders as you say. They are so different from Aussie pubs where the main occupation is drinking ( though that is changing too in some places). We have found in our travels that the pub was often a social gathering place where people of the village dropped in for a coffee (or hot chocolate but rarely tea) after dinner. However I'm talking about out in the country, not in the cities and towns, I have little experience of them.

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    1. Oh we like our drink here too - don't get me wrong. There are always one or two dedicated alcoholics in any British pub, but how they can afford to be there from 5 until midnight is a mystery to me.

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  11. The pub that we used to frequent, ' The Kick and Dicky ' has closed down now and ' The Queen Victoria ' is now Morrisons !! XXXX

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    1. Sad. There is a pub in Dorset which you would probably like, Jack@. It's called 'The Cock and Bottle'. Every time I drive past it, I think of a busy night in Accident and Emergency.

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    2. OOOOOOooooo, you are awful ……. especially the comment about the moist dogs !!!! XXXX

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