The perfect pub
Everyone wants something different from a pub. Actually, everyone wants something different from a pub at different times. The perfect pub needs to be continually evolving to suit your requirements. However, right at this point in my life I thing the perfect pub should be:
Quiet - A pub is for talking in, not shouting over the dance music or Sky news played at an earbleeding volume.
Made of wood - Wooden counter top, wooden floors, wooden tables and wooden chairs. Wood absorbs beer and atmosphere in equal measure. Glass chrome and marble are simply too cold (architecturally).
Must have a fireplace - For those knee-seeringly hot blazes mid winter.
No TV - I know this one will be disputed and loads of you (myself included) love to watch the rugby, golf, motor racing or some kind of kick the ball game occasionally BUT NOT ALL THE TIME!
A collection of newspapers available for browsing.
Beer-mats supplied with your pint.
Ashtrays - Ashtrays were not just for smokers, they were receptacles for ripped up beer-mats, unwanted ice, skangy crisps that you were just too scared to eat, bits of gristle from your sandwich.
Sandwiches - Decent wholesome cheese and ham stuffed sandwiches, fresh and filling. Keep the avocado salad and prawns for a proper eatery the pub sandwich is about filling your belly with ballast and soakage.
Women are welcome in my Perfect Pub, just not allowed to be any louder then the loudest snap of a domino tile on the table. That goes for youth too.
A decent selection of drinks. When I want gin I want a choice of gins. When I want rum I want a choice or rums. Having 6 optics behind the bar and 5 of them being the same brand of vodka is just wrong.
The pub should be about a mile and a half away from the house. They you can work up a nice thirst on your stroll to the pub and not feel too guilty about getting a taxi home.
The pub should support local events but never ever allow money collectors in. Same goes for rose sellers and wandering minstrels.
An occasional impromptu live music session is welcome. Organised diddlydi ballad nights are the work of the devil himself.
Smelly snack-foods should be outlawed. The only acceptable snack food is salted peanuts, cheese&onion Tayto and the olive in my martini. (I might make an exception for pickled eggs)
A proper smoking area. The cigar garden should be warm and dry in the winter, cool and airy in the summer, have tables and chairs and should NOT be the beer barrel store yard. Smoking areas are in a very sad state of affairs in general.
A taxi rank outside.
Downhill on the way there and uphill on the way home...Well, I can dream.
The pub should have many small snugs and sectioned off areas to allow for privacy/seclusion and general 'get out of the way'ishness. If a bunch of lads want to discuss the latest purchase of an association football player by their favourite team then let them but don't expect me to listen to them argue. Put up a wood partition that I can escape behind.
Some pubs exist that meet my some of me wants. If I could take elements of Harry Byrnes, Mulligans, The Longstone, the Yellow House and half a dozen other from around the country I'd be a blissfully happy customer.
Would your perfect pub be as old fashioned? Would you rather have a heaving shoulder to shoulder hyper excited crowd yelling over the music at each other? Or perhaps a pub with a stage in one end for live music? Or a TV filled edifice with a different horse-race on each screen? Perhaps the pub of your dreams come complete with polished chrome poles and girls to dance from them.
What, gentlemen, is your perfect pub to be like? What does the perfect pub need?
I'm sure there is a 'Sims Pub' game in the making here.
