A Guide to the British Pub

Swinging open the doors of an assortment of hostelries, the Department of Social Scrutiny looks for the perfect British public house.

The Department of Social Scrutiny takes the view that the British pub is a unique place of refuge in a busy world, but it has come to our attention that this quintessentially British institution could be in danger of dying out.

Where once our streets were lined with honest British public houses, our towns and cities are now dominated by bars where drinkers are forced to relax in some kind of themed environment.

This has now gone so far that, in one recent case, a traditional pub in Lancaster was stripped bare of all its furnishings and fixtures and re-opened several weeks later themed as itself, having been renamed “The Olde Needless Reiteration”.

It will come as no surprise, then, that theme pubs with quirky names like “The Spigot and Nostril” or “The Famous Celeriac” have spread like wildfire, effectively engulfing the licensed habitat. What is surprising, perhaps, is that there is still plenty of choice.

On a more sober note, the Department has long felt that a solution to binge drinking is necessary, and can recommend a number of soluble tablets for this very purpose. However, we have come to the conclusion that prevention is better than cure, and that British drinkers drink excessively because the current licensing laws do not give them enough time to drink sensibly.

After a broad and wide-ranging consultation in many, many public houses, we are now seeking to avoid the spectacle of massed gangs of yobs roaming the streets causing trouble at closing time, by simply outlawing closing time.

In sampling the hospitality of the fine hostelries that follows, we trust you’ll eventually see the sense of this move.

The Poor Anchors

Located on the harbourside of a south-coast, nautically minded town, and frequented by Ted Heath lookalikes, amiable buffoons and overspill from the local yacht club, this inn oozes the braying twittery of the wealthy classes.

A yachty inn is a very loud place. More used to issuing commands in the teeth of gales, nautical types approach bars with the gravitas of a cruise liner in a duck pond. With bar staff rendered utterly deaf by their overbearing customers, the easiest way to order a pint is to let off distress flares at the door and signal with flags.

The Dead Badger

Usually found in a remote moorland village with a somewhat dried-up gene pool, the first time you walk into this village pub there is a brief and slightly disconcerting silence as all the shotguns are partly concealed, and a deputation from the snug is sent to search police photofits for your likeness. Once the formalities are over, however, it’s straight down to the old country pub customs of telling ghost stories, wassailing and cheating at dominoes while a local lynch mob gathers outside in the shadows of the unlit car park.

The Diptheria Arms

A traditional brewery-owned house, located in a hard-to-find back-street of a large city, this pub does not exist in a financial sense at all, after a rash of brewery mergers and acquisitions misplaced it somewhere along the way. Personal tankards line the shelves, and a man who has not been home for three years perches at the bar flirting with the staff in a way that only a seasoned drunk can manage.

Ye Olde Motel

Found in town centres, on ring roads and absolutely everywhere else. Despite its name, a modern pub that in its misguided stab at antique charm looks as if it was flooded with mahogany wood stain at some point in its brief history. All the furniture is so clean and reflective, you could be forgiven for thinking that you were drinking in a kaleidoscope.

The Famous Old Smackhouse

Found near a large and threatening high-rise estate, this inner-city pub is famed for its drive-by shootings and the police surveillance team parked in an unmarked Mondeo across the road.

Your host for the evening is a man called Skull who has only three fingers on one hand and your throat in the other. The knife scar on his cheek is so extensive it contains knife scars of its own.

The Inebriated Salesman

Incorporating conference rooms and other business facilities, these chain-hotels are often developed around an existing pub that happens to be located close to a motorway junction or airport.

Similar in atmosphere to Ye Olde Motel, in that it has none, the bar features a carpet of unparalleled depth and softness and a variety of beers that are identical, whichever taps they happen to come from. Often full of pissed company reps on interpersonal skills courses, letting their hair, as well as their spouses, down.