Saturday 4 January 2014

Don’t turn your back on your local

I thought this graphic which was posted to Twitter by Shane Swindells of The Cheshire Brewhouse was well worth repeating here.

For the second year running, we are seeing various “charities” encouraging people to abstain from alcohol completely during January under the “Dry January” banner. What anyone chooses to do as an individual is up to them, and you would be deluding yourself if you thought your local pub would stand or fall on your custom alone.

However, by turning this into an organised campaign and actively encouraging as many people as possible to take part, it is effectively promoting a boycott of pubs at a traditionally slack time of year when they need as much support as possible. Which, of course, is the intention. The personal has been turned into the political.

One of the best things I have seen written on the subject is this article by Tom Sykes in which he argues, quite correctly, that staying off the booze for a month has its roots in guilt, not science, and a month of pub-friendly moderation would be far more of a genuine challenge.

5 comments:

  1. July 2007.
    The last time I walked into a pub for a pint.
    And I am sorry to say I will keep it that way until common sense returns.
    They rolled over, they listened to the lies.
    I have no sympathy for them whatsoever.



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  2. Yes, that's a great article. The airtime now given to this propaganda claptrap is really getting on my tits.

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  3. Unlike many other smokers, I have not completely boycotted pubs. I will sometimes go to a pub with a beer garden when it's warm enough.

    i.e., not in January.

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  4. In the last few years the pub trade has forsaken it's smoking customers,whats stopping it giving the remaining drinking dummies the Heave Ho and convert to butty bars and drop dead boring week end "meal" depots.
    Coq au Vin and Oz grape juice plus
    mind sapping small talk.

    Cheers

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  5. Martin, Cambridge6 January 2014 at 22:29

    My wife tells me she will be spending January recovering from a session on Imperial Stout in the Angel, Northern Qtr (I was driving); I shall be attempting to enjoy as many different pubs as I can at moderate levels, but do have a trip to Newcastle on Sunday that may scupper that.

    Pubs with fires are at their best in January.

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