Aye, and was bloody gorgeous as well, you ate it while you read the Young Soldier Forgot to say then the baskets got banned and they swapped to plastic ones. A third of the population died because of eating out of a straw basket and another third died because they ate chips out of newspaper, the last third will die because of climate change making the plastic baskets and reconstituted paper to put in them
As I said mate, I don't think there's anyone who's that guilty, it's a collective thing ... ... it's just that our pubs and clubs were once a national treasure and that's quickly slipping away. Again, no blame from me, I just find it's sad that Saturday night is now, for many people, sitting at home watching 'celebrities' baking scones, trying to dance the Paso Doble or endless hopeless people displaying their 'talent' while two middle aged men called Ant & Dec jump around like overexcited schoolboys ... 99% of this would've been booed off stage at the club back in the day. "You're out early Tommy." "Aye, one of the extras from Coronation Street is baking a flan so I want to get a good seat."
Where l play golf, we had what was called car park golfers. Turn up, finish their round and go elsewhere. We brought in a new general manager who had some very good initiatives, and the atmosphere and bar usage has increased dramatically.
Two pubs in my village. One does food and is very expensive. The only food available at the other one is a knuckle sandwich. Guess which one is busier. Although having said that, there are very few young people in there most nights.
We have pubs in the Lakes shutting right left and centre, talk to the managers or tenants and you will find out there is a other agenda going on behind the scenes with these pubs owned by the brewery’s.
It was Mrs Smug's 20th wedding anniversary yesterday, mine as well coincidentally. So we went to the Crusoe pub and restaurant which is right on the little harbour at Lower Largo, beautiful. They have a people carrier to shuttle people home, you have to make your own way there, and it's free. As a result last night, despite being a Monday had plenty in the restaurant and the pub. You can't book a time so it's pot luck but waiting half an hour is time for another
I used the word guilty but in the sense of I’d rather be going to a nice pub , but don’t have that option. When having beer at home, I’d rather sit in the quiet and dark than watch the types of program you mention, I go with sport , films , natural history ,docs . Another topic maybe , but there’s another cultural change , the amount of people who let themselves be taken over by all this cheap to make tv . ( eg It’s incredible how many different combinations of “ emergency”. “ 999”. “ ambulance”. etc in order to create so many of these programs on different copy cat channels)
Me too, thought about little else than pubs for the last couple of hours. Still , brought back some nice memories of times in good ones in the past
Have you ever read a book called The Pillars of Hercules by Paul Theroux, Smug? If not, I would recommend it. I don't read many books but this one fascinated me. It's about a journey that the author makes around the Mediterranean, starting at Gibraltar and ending in Ceuta (the pillars of Hercules). He made the journey at a time of unrest in Slovenia and Croatia and takes in some of your old stomping grounds in the South of France.
I know of it, meant to get it ages ago but forget ... ... you've just reminded me so I'll order it now. Cheers.
Net Zero in a bit of bother. It's a real opportunity for the Tories to gain some ground mind. Every sane person knows we won't be able to phase out petrol cars or gas boilers by 2030. It just isn't possible logistically - the petrol companies have no intention of changing all their stations to electric (my money is on them waiting for hydrogen to become viable) and the grid can't cope with everyone going electric anyway. Labour will of course promise to reinstate 2030 and then the Tories will be able to get in amongst them on costings etc. A rare forward thinking and smart political move.
I thought that, but high risk strategy. Mind you they are so far behind they need something to create a difference between them and Labour in terms of policy, to try and make Labour look incapable, because as it stands they will win whatever their policy is. The tories need to try and create a policy debate, whether the media are interested in one I doubt. Could backfire and they lose more ground. Inflation news ok, core inflation decent. Still expect BofE to raise rates this week. Will it be the last? I think it probably needs to be, so fingers crossed. It would look better for Sunak and Hunt if Truss wasnt in the news saying she was right blah blah blah.
Do you think the Net Zero policies are feasible within the timescales set? It might be for rich people, who can afford an new electric car and a ground source heat pump (that's totally inadequate as a boiler replacement for Northern Britain at the moment, but that's besides the point), but what does the vast majority of us do? It's a rare good decision to delay it, because the targets were always divorced from reality. Oh, and of course Blair telling Starmer what to do is strong leadership.....
His 5 promises are looking as empty as a Nightingale hospital ... ... 6 if you add his promise to ban these dangerous dogs by Christmas.
No new gas boilers from 2026 was just not feasible in the first place, so clearly needed a rethink. Some good news on hydrogen vehicles, two motor manufacturers are testing engines using hydrogen fuel successfully with significant benefits on the emissions. Too get these vehicles past the homologation stage will take sometime, the good news on that is, only the engine needs to be homologated not the vehicle if the vehicle is an existing fleet.
