Would be much more helpful if it indicated literally anywhere on the homepage that this was specific to the UK. Being a .com as opposed to a .co.uk, you can't even tell from the domain.
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Find a pub that needs you
91–100 of 365 posts
Re: Find a pub that needs you
#92Man, it's weird being an American sometimes. I do not drink. I am half Irish and half German. Drinking is a _very_ weird cultural artifact from our past. It doesn't improve your life, it has been scientifically proven to not 'help you relax', and there may in fact be no safe amount of alcohol to drink; all the pop-sci headlines that say 'one glass of wine a week may improve your health' are really about studies that…
What's especially American about this remark isn't the experience of consuming alcohol in public. What is characteristically American, I think, is the assumption that we can pronounce a thing good or bad merely on the basis of its effect on the individual, with no regard for one's relationships with other people. Drinking in a pub is a social activity, and the alcohol is a lubricant for that activity. Yes, doing too much of it can cause great harm; doing any amount of it could cause some harm; it does not follow that the thing is a net detriment to society, and that it should be banned.
Re: Find a pub that needs you
#93Man, it's weird being an American sometimes. I do not drink. I am half Irish and half German. Drinking is a _very_ weird cultural artifact from our past. It doesn't improve your life, it has been scientifically proven to not 'help you relax', and there may in fact be no safe amount of alcohol to drink; all the pop-sci headlines that say 'one glass of wine a week may improve your health' are really about studies that…
With all due respect this opinion verges on neo prohibitionist alarmism. The social benefits of alcohol have been widely acknowledged and at a time when we are all spending too much time at home on our phones (arguably worse for health than a pint), communities need more social spaces. That place may not necessarily be a bar and it’s perfectly fine if you don’t wish to drink, but it’s a bit much to refer to a cultura…
Many people have written what you have written, trying to justify their life choices to strangers on the internet.
None of them have ever explained why alcohol, or any drug use, needs to be part of third spaces.
Society is losing third spaces, largely due to unchecked capitalism eroding the society it serves... but 'pubs' are just another form of rent-seeking by landlords. It has been proven without a doubt that third spaces as a commercial venture is ultimately non-functional, yet that is what pubs and bars have always been, and now they are dying out.
Re: Find a pub that needs you
#94Man, it's weird being an American sometimes. I do not drink. I am half Irish and half German. Drinking is a _very_ weird cultural artifact from our past. It doesn't improve your life, it has been scientifically proven to not 'help you relax', and there may in fact be no safe amount of alcohol to drink; all the pop-sci headlines that say 'one glass of wine a week may improve your health' are really about studies that…
It sounds like you don't understand what a pub is like.
Whilst this is definitely not what's it's like, this quaint video is all about the lineage of the pub in the UK, and explains the third-spaceness of them, which I'd argue still exists[1].
Pubs are so important for our communities in the UK, whether that's watching the game, seeing a friend's band, celebrating a birthday or just catching up after work.
Many of the parts of my life have been lived in a pub. If it's criminal, I'd happily be locked up. Or maybe lock me in, a sadly rarer occurrence these days.
Re: Find a pub that needs you
#95Man, it's weird being an American sometimes. I do not drink. I am half Irish and half German. Drinking is a _very_ weird cultural artifact from our past. It doesn't improve your life, it has been scientifically proven to not 'help you relax', and there may in fact be no safe amount of alcohol to drink; all the pop-sci headlines that say 'one glass of wine a week may improve your health' are really about studies that…
What's especially American about this remark isn't the experience of consuming alcohol in public. What is characteristically American, I think, is the assumption that we can pronounce a thing good or bad merely on the basis of its effect on the individual, with no regard for one's relationships with other people. Drinking in a pub is a social activity, and the alcohol is a lubricant for that activity. Yes, doing too…
Maybe it is that way for people in the UK, or maybe people of a certain age group.
However, I am, as I said, an American, but also a Millennial. For many Millennials, drinking isn't a social activity, it is a form of quiet shame. We saw our parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents destroy their lives because of alcoholism, we lost friends and family because of being victims of drunk drivers, we saw people die of complications of a lifetime of drinking.
A lot of us simply chose not to repeat those mistakes as those mistakes effect the people around us in grave ways.
If anything, drinking is an anti-social activity, even if you do it entirely socially.
I just don't see the point in keeping it around.
Re: Find a pub that needs you
#96Kinda wish there was some way to quickly scroll through the pages... Also data seems to be different when ordered by different values?
When ordered by RV£ there are 43703 entries with data. Most negative RV£ change is -£137,500 for 33 Main Road
When ordered by RV% there are 43303 entries with data. Most negative RV% change is -87.0% for PAVILLION HOTEL
Re: Find a pub that needs you
#97For a dumb american, what is a 'pub rate'?
Re: Find a pub that needs you
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bars and pubs aren't really competing against the store or restaurants, they're competing against you drinking alone or with only close friends. If stepping in to have a beer and shoot the shit would cost a significant chunk of a day's wages, you just won't do it, but if I can buy more beer with an hours wages than I can drink in an hour, it's not a bad time.
Weatherspoons charge under £3 for a pint in town. That's 15 minutes at minimum wage. Beer was far more expensive 25 years ago - £1.60 in 2000 in the student pub when I first started buying my own beer, that was about half an hour at minimum wage. On the cost side: Wages are higher, energy costs more, rent is higher (because if the pub can't operate the owner can get planning permission to convert it to a private dwel…
> Weatherspoons charge under £3 for a pint in town. That's 15 minutes at minimum wage.
Yeah but then you've to drink at spoons.
Re: Find a pub that needs you
#99People really struggle when given a link to a web site that isn't for them, huh.
No. It's when the web site doesn't say who it's for at all , that's when everybody struggles. And understandably so.
People only struggle because of a self-centered view that everything is supposed to be for them, and things that aren't for them are a weird exception. A reasonable person will realize that the fact that they don't understand any of what it's talking about means they're not the target audience, and move on (or poke around out of curiosity).
Re: Find a pub that needs you
#100Man, it's weird being an American sometimes. I do not drink. I am half Irish and half German. Drinking is a _very_ weird cultural artifact from our past. It doesn't improve your life, it has been scientifically proven to not 'help you relax', and there may in fact be no safe amount of alcohol to drink; all the pop-sci headlines that say 'one glass of wine a week may improve your health' are really about studies that…
Here is what I will say. Drinking certainly is not a healthy choice. However hanging out with your peers for a few hours a night in public certainly is.
Unfortunately I haven't found any place that cracks that problem in america, especially into the later hours. There isn't really a place for people to hang out and socialize without it being a boozy bar. As someone who doesn't really enjoy drinking I don't even really want to go to boardgame/chess/trivia nights at bars because I feel like I'm freeloading. ( I imagine any given bar patron is having 1-3 drinks per hour and potentially ordering some food if that is an option. I might order some food and have a soda...)
I assume part of the problem being that alcohol has the helpful side effect of greasing the wheels socially. Coffee houses that are open late are generally library like affairs, a lot of people sitting around on laptops or with books, any attempt to start a more social night is, in my experience, refused because of this.