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Pubs closing because wives are alright these days

DRINKING establishments are shuttering because men no longer mind being at home with their spouses, it has emerged.

For decades pubs were a valuable refuge for the married and miserable, but modern men no longer feel that evenings at home with their life partner are a fate to be avoided at all costs.

Publican Stephen Malley says: “People think that it’s high staff wages that’s closing pubs. Couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s bloody women’s fault, as usual.”

“When I took over The Horse and Cart thirty years ago, we were packed every weekday night. Men would clock off work and come straight in to moan about their wives who as far as I could tell they barely saw but loathed immensely.

“Now, even our regulars only pop in for one before saying they want to go home and see the missus. ‘Want to’, mind, not ‘have to’.

“The wives of old – the angry harridans brandishing a rolling pin – are gone. Now men see their wives as a person they like being with, watching telly with and talking to. Women have upped their game and it’s devastating the traditional British pub.”

Malley will retire after four decades as a landlord next month and his pub will close. He said: “Funnily enough, I remarried recently and I’d like to spend a bit more time with the wife myself. I’m a hypocrite, but I prefer her to some random pissed blokes.”

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Six nondescript Northern towns misguided enough to have Tourist Information Centres

NOBODY but a resident or a Reform candidate dreaming of an MP’s salary would ever visit, but these two-stall market towns have Tourist Information Centres anyway. Why? 

Garstang

Also covers five other regions and has the ‘Hidden gem’ seal of misery. Lists three local attractions, but if you’re not into farms, fishing, or flogging yourself over fells, you’re f**ked. Does have a Booths, a posh North-only supermarket chain the very existence of which would be unfathomable to Southerners. But not so much they’d want to check it out.

Batley

Like many other towns in the region, Batley’s attractions are something old and once industrial. There’s a museum, an interiors design outlet called Redbrick Mill in an old mill, and a place called The Mill that isn’t in an old mill. Expecting the Fox’s Biscuits Stadium to be the Yorkshire equivalent of the Wonka factory will lead to disappointment.

Accrington

Boasts the usual Northern tourist magnets: parks, an art gallery in an old house and a shopping arcade in an old mill. Accrington Stanley, one of the twelve founder members of the football league, has has survived by being on land not interesting enough to develop into a retail park. When said in Scouse, the town’s name conjures phlegm.

Northallerton

Located in a car park, Northallerton’s Tourist Information Centre provides visitors with fantastic reasons to leave Northallerton. Determined to stay? There’s an old house with gardens that isn’t yet a David Lloyd health club. Rishi Sunak’s the MP here. Tourist Information doesn’t know where, or if, he can be located.

Bolton

Is it in Lancashire, or Greater Manchester? Bolton doesn’t know. Largely empty, as most of its inhabitants populate mainstream TV and radio, visitors can hang about on Le Mans Crescent to be in the background on the latest Maxine Peake detective drama, or pretend to be Paddy McGuinness by going to Park Cake Bakeries and feigning interest.

Thirsk

The World of James Herriot, who wrote books about vets putting their arms up cow’s arses, is here. Cow not included. Otherwise you’ll be directed to the war memorial, a supposedly cursed and but to appearances very ordinary chair in the town museum, and to f**k off 36 miles south to York where there’s something to see.

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