The Great British Pub

Ok, I commented on yankeebean’s election post that there are wonderful things to celebrate about being in Britain.  This is my attempt at warding off homesickness while I observe the election happening back home. 

I love the British Pub, for so many reasons.  Mostly, I love that the British adore their cultural icon so much.  Their enthusiasm has rubbed off on me. 

I love that:

You can immediately tell from the first step inside whether you are welcome or not and whether the pub is your kind of crowd. 

Customer service has little place in most pubs.  In fact, being ignored is part of the experience.

Every once in a while you find a landlord who wants to make witty remarks to twist around everything you say to make you look like an idiot or a slag.  (and it is always the time when its the last thing I want to pretend to laugh at)

You are guaranteed to be called Love or Loveah (this is my attempt to spell the little extra syllable sometimes added to the end of Love)

Under no circumstances am I to order a whole pint of anything.  Until last weekend I thought this applied to beer and then to my fiance’s horror I ordered a pint of diet coke. 

Many pubs are in beautiful old buildings kept in varying states of repair.

Some pubs are even haunted – as is the case of so many in Yorkshire.

Some pubs have become posh foodie havens where one can turn up one’s nose at lager and packets of crisps in favour of whole baked Atlantic sea bass stuffed with couscous and fresh Italian herbs then drizzled with a light white wine and lemon sauce. 

And last but not least… no matter which pub you are sitting in you can always get a cup of tea.

However, I have one very big problem with the British pub.  You can always find football on tv.  In a future post I will dwell on the fact that football season lasts about 48 weeks a year.  We have sky sports now but I used to spend many a Saturday and Sunday in the pub watching football.  Each weekend I had a growing resentment toward this use of my time and I decided that pubs should be legally required to alternate football weekends with ballet weekends.  How nice it would be to sit down with my fiance and a nice half pint of Yorkshire Terrier and watch Coppelia with fellow ballet supporters.

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