The elderly huddle outside, cradling cigarettes in their gnarled hands as the rain sweeps under the awning. Inside the atmosphere has been drained, the winking and trilling fruit machine a forlorn paean to conviviality. Instead of a tobacco fug the air is redolent with efflatus and neat cleaning fluid.
The perfect public house has never existed: Orwell's
The Moon Under Water was fictional, and even if it had existed would only have appealed to reactionary old men wearing tweed jackets with leather elbow patches. Everyone probably has their own ideal; ranging from bright modernist 'spaces' where elaborate cocktails are shaken by antipodean barmen to troglodyte taverns with booths suited to louche conspiracies.
Each to their own.
Apparently pubs are closing in record numbers, caught in the pincer movement of the smoking ban and alcohol taxes. I'm convinced that the smoking ban is the principal cause, removing the pub smell that obliterated the malodorous vapours emanating from the regulars. My nostrils can achieve a similar workout standing in a bus shelter, so why pay huge sums of money for beer at a hostelry?
Stuff is bad for us, so the legislators must legislate against stuff. Sometimes I think they're trying to force us into a clean white prison where mortality is illegal. Drop some Prozac and do your aerobics dear; you'll be healthier, fitter, happier, and you may get to live a bit longer on your meagre pension.
In Scotland they are planning to ban the display of cigarettes in newsagents. Under the counter items are illicit, and hence desirable. This should see sales soar.
We are governed by geniuses.
