Читать книгу Grumpy Old Men: A Manual for the British Malcontent - David Quantick - Страница 17

Pub. There’s a word. It’s short for ‘public house’, you know. And therein lies a clue. Pubs aren’t bars, they aren’t inns, they’re not roadhouses or gin palaces or after-hours clubs, they’re public houses. Which means that, while they are indeed open to the public and a jolly good thing too, they are also, in a way, sort of, houses. Rundown houses, admittedly, that smell of fags and have a slightly sticky carpet. Houses that might belong to someone who does drink a lot but has got it under control, but houses. Because the best pubs are a bit like a little home from home. There might be a fireplace. There will be people you know. The landlord and bar staff will make you feel like a welcome guest. If there is a jukebox, it will confine itself entirely to singles and albums you own yourself, with particular reference to records you bought between the ages of 15 and 25. It will be warm. It will not be enormous. And it will be a pleasant place to spend the evening with friends. Oh, and there might be a big black hairy dog that likes crisps.

What it will NOT be is a theme pub. Theme pubs are, as their stupid name suggests, pubs laid out according to a (do you see?) theme. Now traditionally, in a way, all pubs are theme pubs. Their theme is Beer. Some pubs have slightly more developed themes like ‘The Landlord Was In The Navy’ or ‘We Collect Dirty Crinkled Foreign Banknotes And Stick Them On The Wall’. Other pubs are unintentionally themed, like ‘Pub Full Of Cockney Murderers’ or ‘Pub Where They Play A Bit Too Many Goth CDs’. But these are not what we mean by theme pubs.

Oh, and the beer is some sort of bottled ant sweat with a Confederate flag on the label that no-one in America has ever heard of.

This is what we mean by a theme pub: a pub which used to be normal but was turned, at great expense and for no real reason, into some kind of museum of twit crap. Thus the Bird In Hand might be gutted, remade and remodelled into Graceland, an Elvis Presley-themed pub. Where once there was a duff painting of a dog looking askance at a pheasant, now there is a white neon guitar with ELVIS written on it. Where there used to be some weird old bits of broken farm equipment, there is a sequinned satin jumpsuit in a glass case. And where the jukebox would occasionally deafen punters with random selections from Thin Lizzy’s Live And Dangerous, now all it plays is DJ remixes of bad Elvis singles. Oh, and the beer is some sort of bottled ant sweat with a Confederate flag on the label that no-one in America has ever heard of. The bar staff are suicidal and the clientele is that delightful mixture of bewildered tourists and recently-released serial killers. But it is a Theme Pub and as such looks good in the brewery’s free magazine.