State Of British Pubs

When I was back in the UK a couple of weeks ago I needed to be in Basingstoke first thing on the Monday morning. So having caught the Eurotunnel early on the Sunday morning it made sense to head straight down to the Premier Inn at Basingtoke (N51 12.364 W1 11.168). As Man Utd were playing Liverpool that lunch time I figured that I would watch the match in my room, have a siesta, then find somewhere for a curry then grab an early night.

Well that was the plan ……

Premier Inn’s don’t have Sky Sports. They have some weird in-house system that is next to useless. About the only thing I can fault Premier Inn on, but on this particular Sunday it was a real pain!

Didn’t think it would be that much of a problem as Premier Inn’s are always next to a pub, but it appears that Whitbreads policy is no TV’s. OK I sort of accept that it can be a pain if every room in a pub is full of TV’s, but a TV room surely makes sense …… seriously, come the World Cup in 2010 they are going to have a lot of very empty pubs surely!!

Plan C – the pub just along the road! Popped in there, said hello to the TWO people sat there having a drink, yes TWO people on a Sunday lunch time, and asked about watching the Football. No Sky!

Plan D – the above pub thought the Witherspoons pub would have Sky, which they didn’t AND the Witherspoons had directed me to the above pub so you would have thought that as they were no more than a 3 minute drive apart they would have know, but I was directed to another pub just along the road …… guess what No Sky! Slightly busier this pub, FOUR people sat at the bar!

By this time I was in Overton, a place I had forgotten all about, but somewhere that I had visited a few times in the past as I knew some people that ran a pub. Unfortunately they left many years ago ….

Plan E – first pub in Overton. No Sky, FOUR people sat at the bar, but they directed me to a pub that would 100% have Sky Sports

And it did!!!

So by Plan F I had found a pub that was showing Sky Sports. Had only taken me FIVE pubs but heh, I had found one. Next on the agenda, some food.

They had a Cavery for £6.95 but a) couldn’t see the Football from there and b) didn’t want one. Asked for a sandwich. Nope!!! Only option was the Cavery, couldn’t even pay for the Cavery and get some meat stuck between two slices of bread! They would do some chips though, so chips, crisps, nuts and pint of very nice Real Ale. I couldn’t have been further from Almerimar culturally if I tried.

Now at first sight this pub was a bit busier but:

• The chap sat on my right drank one pint of Bulmers throughout the whole game
• His son and girlfriend joined him, and had one coke each and ate 3 packets of crisps ….. that they had brought with them!
• 2 guys sat in front of me left at half time having drank a half a lager each
• 4 other people arrived at various stages and in an hour drank no more than a pint each

As for the restauarant, it was virtually empty!

Now I know there is a recession, and the no smoking ban certainly hasn’t helped, but it has to be said that I came away feeling extremely sad at the state of the Pubs that I saw that day. And United lost which really made my day NOT.

As for the curry that evening. Found a very pleasant curry house in Basingstoke, that had a total of 15 people in, which I suppose wasn’t too bad for early on a Sunday evening. Food was great, but evening sligthly spoiled by the guy that came in to have a row with the owner accusing him of having been rude to his mum on the phone.Lot’s of swearing and shouting, and the chap left with the parting shot that he would be back later to put the windows through, which as I was sat next to the window at the time was somewhat disconcerting!!!

I must say I was more than happy to get back to Almerimar!

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