Why are all the pubs closing? Doh!
Friday, March 6, 2009 From this week's Daily Mash. (I suspect that my colleague Neil Rafferty, who co-founded the online satirical magazine and is a spokesman for Forest, may have written it.)
Millions of people across Britain who never go to the pub were last night asking why all the pubs were closing down.
As it was revealed that 2000 pubs have closed in the last year, non-pub goers said their community would not be the same without the local pub they never went to.
Margaret Gerving, from Peterborough, said: "I was delighted when the smoking ban came in because it meant I could finally go to the pub without being killed.
"But then I didn't, mainly because I'm not the sort of person who likes going to pubs. I prefer to stay in with a carton of pomegranate juice and a bag of pine nuts and make long lists of all the things I want banned.
"Now it turns out that nobody else is going either because quite a lot of the people who used to go to the pub also liked to smoke. But none of this explains why all the pubs are closing down."
Former pub owner Charlie Reeves, from Hereford, said: "We were told that the smoking ban would mean lots of young mums and dads bringing their children in. But that didn't really help because there's only so much Guinness you can pour down a three year-old before it falls asleep.
"Then there's the added factor that a pub with children in it isn't really a pub, it's a fucking hell hole."
See HERE.
Reader Comments (26)
How dare you misquote me!
My ideal evening in, does not consist of "a carton of pomegranate juice and a bag of pine nuts and make long lists of all the things I want banned".
Pomegranate juice, yes, but pine nuts never, I have a nut allergy. As for making long lists of things I want banned, that is absolutely stupid, do you honestly believe I would endanger trees, by making "long lists", as you like to call it?
Lastly, I do occasionally go to my local pub, in fact I went just last week with my local "Save The Black Polar Bear", group, and we did have a good time, even if we did have to wear our carbon filter activated, surgical face masks, in order to protect ourselves from the likes of yourself, and your cohorts, who gather outside and blow their poisonous fumes as all that enter.
Pubs are closing down by the hundreds because of a lack of freedom of choice for pub owners and there customers, and because there isn't enough gullible robotic minded fools "like the person who wrote the above comment" to fill the pubs caused by the governments smoking ban. As for twits having to wear carbon filter masks, they would not have to wear them if smokers and the rest of the liberal people in this country was allowed to have there own venues to socialise in, seperate from the gullible few.
What an absolute fool you sound Mr Everiste. My good friend Margaret has a duty to her group, which I am proud to be a member of, and a duty to our planet, which we should all uphold.
It is the likes of you Mr Everiste, who would condemn the future of our planet for the sake of those horrible and evil smelling things which you insist upon poisoning the rest of humanity with.
How much longer do you think this planet and the polar bears can exist if you continue with your evil ways?
Think again Mr Everiste, and stop now before it is too late.
WHAT EVER! anyway enjoy wearing your mask, i hope it adds another day to your life.
Have I entered a parallel universe here?
Jane you talk about saving Polar Bears and the planet. If you truly believe that then what are you doing using ( wasting! ) electricity to disagree with someone on the internet. If you want to save the planet unplug yourself from the national grid, sell your car and anything else you may have that "hurts" the environment and go live in a fucking cave. What will I be doing? I'll be raping this god forsaken shit hole you call a planet for everything it has! Global warming is a Myth, it's just another way for gullible fucks like Jane & Margaret to spend money on shit like "energy saving" light bulbs. Answer me this question: How did the Ice age end without CO2 emissions?
Erm...
I think a few have missed the satire in that first comment.
Bollocks! Anyway thats where I stand so there! :P
well put carl
There seems to be a view among the health zealots that those defending freedom of choice cannot spell. Weird.
Did anyone ever see the news report about the two Muslims who opened an alcohol-free pub?
Joyce, My apologies but I've seen the view I'm about to put somewhere else, maybe on this site somewhere:let's not concede the argument by using the word 'free'. Alcohol-lacking might be more appropriate.
I think Margaret and Jane are taking the mick out of the antis like the majority of the citizens on 'our planet' (polar bears and invading aliens included)!
Come the revolution Margaret, odious turds like you will be first against the wall.
Are the first and third posters here, Margaret and Jane, a joke? If not they should go and mate with a tree and if that doesnt work they should go back to the asylum for more electric shock treatment.
A pub owner in Wales who cant sell his pub is now putting it up for a raffle!
What an absolutely lovely bunch you all are, we have a Mr John Holmes talking about putting people up against the wall and murdering them, and we have a Ms Ann, who hasn't even got the guts to put her full name, speaking about sticking people in asylums and giving them electric shock treatment.
Can't any of you see what absolute fools you are making of yourselves? Come and join us, and help to save our planet, instead of existing from day to day, just to try and destroy it.
vos es totus fossor
I'm getting a bit lost here. What was the original subject? Anyway, I am as passionate as Margaret and Jane about saving the black polar bears. If they have to wear surgical masks to do so, then so be it. Brave women!
"vos es totus fossor", said Jane. I was very good at Latin at school but, sadly, probably due to smoking, I can't remember it all. I'm beginning to learn that if I didn't smoke I could remember everything and would live forever. Has fosser anything to do with fossils? If so, that is a very good simile. After all, they have survived for millions of years. Mind you, they are all dead.
What puzzles me is that smoking, the great killer, has been around in the civilised world for about 400 years. Much longer than that in the uncivilised world. What puzzles me, and I really am eager to learn, is why are we ourselves still alive? Why are we not fossils?
I am always eager to learn and await enlightenment.
Meanwwhile - keep smokers out of the pubs, away from the sidewalks and long live the black polar bear!
PS: "vos es totus fossor" - what DOES it mean?
"vos es totus fossor" You are a fool/clown.
Thanks, Dave.
I can't believe I didn't get a mention, the fucking cheek!
Carl: Perhaps you should moderate your language, dear boy. Can't you see that Miss Seedling's very name shows she is a lady.
Some might say there could be a touch of urine extraction about all this?
Cheers to The Mash for publishing this article. Since Neil Rafferty interviewed me (good bloke BTW) there've been some developments.
We got done by Health and Safety for giving two year olds Guinness (and to be fair, they were having trouble keeping it down). Well, if I couldn't sell alcohol to the kids coming in with their parents I knew I'd go down because I couldn't compete with the couple of muslim lads down the road who've opened up an alcohol-free pub so I've decided to diversity. The lounge bar's now a juice bar serving a range of healthy snacks like wilted leaves on a ryvita (very popular) and the snooker room's a high-tech play space for the kids. In the two weeks we've been open we've taken £23.47 but the grant that the council gave us should tide us over til we pick up. The wife looks after it - I spend most of my time at the muslim pub down the road because it's still got a snooker room.
Thank you for the update, Charlie Reeves.
I hope you applied and paid for the Change of Use with your local council. Hope you have installed sufficient low level toilets and handwash basins for the children. Hope you are employing sufficient staff to monitor their activities. I believe the ratio is about 1 to 3, but there are around 27 government bodies and about 116 registered funded children's charities which can guide you through this legislation. Fees must be paid, of course.
Regarding your snooker, I understand that our government may be looking at the dangers of Repetitive Strain Injury from this and all other wrist activity pastimes. Perhaps Mr Everiste can further enlighten us on this.
Better to be safe than sorry!
Margot Johnson -
Is that what the grant's for? We thought it was by way of compensation for losing all our smoking customers and because the council's short of nurseries and wants to encourage juice bars and we helped them do it on the cheap. So the £500 we got is going end up back with the council for all those fees??
Mind you, the wife did say something about having to go on a 6 month course to learn how to lift the kids off the mini-chute...
"Have I entered a parallel universe here?" - asks Dick Puddlecote.
Yep - seems like it, Dick.
But certain people APPEAR not to have cottoned on.
And it's not even April yet !
Best stay in our own, I think.............;-)
Get a life Miss Seedling. I take it your parents come from the tree lineage and obviously of the prickly variety.