JEREMY Clarkson’s new ‘100 per cent British’ pub has dared play American music, but the British love of the pub has always been based on myths:
The myth of the good jukebox
A quid a song? It was always streaming at iTunes prices, and you’d miss half your song because you hadn’t noticed the bloke before’s Def Leppard had finished. The shit musical taste of others is a perpetual problem, especially in the 70s when kids given money to go away would spend their 10p on Showaddywaddy as revenge.
The myth of national identity
Brits like alcohol and talking, but beyond this how are pubs an intrinsic part of a shared culture? You’re not drinking there as a big fan of George IV. Are the blue blocks in the urinals part of our national identity? Have we irrevocably lost our culture now you don’t uncover a topless woman by buying peanuts?
The myth of funny regulars
Those who drink at the bar, anaesthetising themselves against the disappointments of life? They’re not getting a lot of other offers. Their banter certainly isn’t up to Cheers standards. They stand one step from the alcoholic anonymity of Wetherspoons and they know it.
The myth of a rite of passage
Better than getting shitfaced in the park, but a major milestone? More of an event in the 1950s when accounts suggest you were given a pint of bitter then ignored by your elders as you tried manfully to get the bastard down.
The myth of warm community
Unless you live on the Mull of Kintyre, the social composition of your local pub is: 90 per cent strangers; five per cent vague acquaintances; the local Rotary Club; a twat from the year below at school. Basically it’s only a community hub if you live in EastEnders. Is that a community you want to be part of?
The myth of the flirtatious barmaid
She won’t be the landlady. She’ll be a student on the cusp of reactive depression due to the repetitive innuendo, mindless conversations about crisps and ignorant shit spouted as fact. Why would she flirt? This isn’t Coyote Ugly. It’s The Flintlock public house in Hinckley, Leicestershire.
