The hot takes and unpopular opinions
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The main problem with pubs in NSW is the smoking laws. They're so idiotic that outdoor smoking can mean an open section in the middle of the pub that does nothing to ventilate the pub whatsoever. An awesome pub I used to frequent allowed what used to be just an eating area to be a smoking area and the pub is essentially a full smoking pub now.
Far too many pubs turn a blind eye to people vaping inside too. Why are vapers so inconsiderate? Was at a party on Friday where one dude was a vaper and he started vaping inside and kept doing it despite multiple people asking him to stop - until the host threatened to kick him out.
The sooner I become supreme dictator and summarily execute all you smokers and vapers the better. TBF, I will let you live and keep smoking, in camps, outside the cities where you'll spend your days beautifying the roadsides.
Hmm, this post might be another for the Grumpy thread.
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@Nepia said in The hot takes and unpopular opinions:
The main problem with pubs in NSW is the smoking laws. They're so idiotic that outdoor smoking can mean an open section in the middle of the pub that does nothing to ventilate the pub whatsoever. An awesome pub I used to frequent allowed what used to be just an eating area to be a smoking area and the pub is essentially a full smoking pub now.
Far too many pubs turn a blind eye to people vaping inside too. Why are vapers so inconsiderate? Was at a party on Friday where one dude was a vaper and he started vaping inside and kept doing it despite multiple people asking him to stop - until the host threatened to kick him out.
The sooner I become supreme dictator and summarily execute all you smokers and vapers the better. TBF, I will let you live and keep smoking, in camps, outside the cities where you'll spend your days beautifying the roadsides.
Hmm, this post might be another for the Grumpy thread.
Even dumber is the rule that smokers can't eat in their own smoking section. I know of pubs where you can't even see a smoker, let alone smell their smoke, yet they're forced to eat their burgers in the fresh air with us puritans.
Do their fellow smokers get upset that their Dunhill Blue tastes off when polluted with the smell of a greasy burger???
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@Nepia I said when they banned smoking in pubs in Qld that what they should have done was implemented a clean air standard so smokers could still smoke but everyone else wasn't affected.
There's not much worse than a smoker going into a dingy confined space and coming back reeking of smoke.
Vapers on the other hand are against the wall on day two.
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@voodoo Dunhill Blue used to be my cigarette.
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@antipodean said in The hot takes and unpopular opinions:
@voodoo Dunhill Blue used to be my cigarette.
I may have inhaled a few in my time also
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I can’t speak for Aus or NZ but I fear that the lovely picture you paint of the typical English pub is one that is getting rarer and rarer. So many pubs are being closed down and many others being hoovered up into a mass of corporate sameness. Oh and don’t get me started on Irish “theme” pubs.
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@Catogrande said in The hot takes and unpopular opinions:
I can’t speak for Aus or NZ but I fear that the lovely picture you paint of the typical English pub is one that is getting rarer and rarer. So many pubs are being closed down and many others being hoovered up into a mass of corporate sameness. Oh and don’t get me started on Irish “theme” pubs.
You can't spoil my memories pal, even if they were never real.
Had so many good nights at the Holly Bush in Hampstead - the interweb says it's still going strong
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@Catogrande yeah a couple of the nice pubs I used to frequent over there are no more, one closed the other just a cafe.
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@Catogrande RIP The Gunmakers in Clerkenwell. Just hope The Griffin is still going.
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@Catogrande said in The hot takes and unpopular opinions:
I can’t speak for Aus or NZ but I fear that the lovely picture you paint of the typical English pub is one that is getting rarer and rarer. So many pubs are being closed down and many others being hoovered up into a mass of corporate sameness. Oh and don’t get me started on Irish “theme” pubs.
I think there is a real town / country divide here.
Around us once you venture out of the town you have Red Lion, Cricketers which are beautiful standard English pubs full of vibrance and atmosphere. Tough to get a table. The Victoria used to be an old mans pub which has just totally been redone & is now up there with the other two. The Sands was my local, which unfortunately closed at Covid and hasn't reopened. It's up for sale at the moment. As you go further afield there are countless more.
However, in town it's Wetherspoons (dodgy as fuck), Slug Lettuce & one another which I've never been in. Reeks of blandness.
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@MajorRage yeah in twells we had some great locals, 3 within less than 5 minutes. In orps we have the shitty high street ones and go the other way to Petts Wood there's a harvester I think and a spoons. But venture a bit further (15 min bus) and you get stuff like the five bells in chelsfield.
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Paranormal Activity
The usual normal, overhyped no-action garbage
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5 Bells still going strong! That does my heart proud. What about the Bo Peep?
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@Catogrande said in The hot takes and unpopular opinions:
5 Bells still going strong! That does my heart proud. What about the Bo Peep?
Yeah I'm not gonna google that.
Edit: We only discovered the five bells by pure chance - bus from right outside our house during the fuel crisis and that was the closest we could get to the farm shop. Happy accident!
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@Bones said in The hot takes and unpopular opinions:
@Catogrande said in The hot takes and unpopular opinions:
5 Bells still going strong! That does my heart proud. What about the Bo Peep?
Yeah I'm not gonna google that.
You’ve not been then? It’s just up the lane a bit from Chelsfield. Used to be a cracking pub albeit a bit twee.
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@Catogrande oh yeah have seen that one on the bus ride home! Haven't been as it looked like silver hair is a requirement.
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UK vs NZ vs Aus pubs... I've come to the conclusion that there's shit ones, and good ones (with character) - in each country... but in each country, the "flavour" of the good/shit is slightly different.
In the UK - you get the corporate bland shit like Wetherspoons, Slug/Lettuce, All-Bar-One, etc. Even, to a lesser extent, the 'chain country pubs' - Harvesters was one, I think? "Hungry Horse"? Some others... those places in the countryside - that are big bland chain attempts at replicating the "good". And then the good - the classic village pubs, hitting your head on crossbeams every time you go for a piss. Sometimes a beer-garden on a canal.
NZ - it's nearly the reverse, in the North Island at least. Just off the top of my head - really shitty bland country pubs, with some farming tools on the wall in an attempt to be "character" - but really... shit beers on tap, and just... country-bogan. And a very few decent bars in some of the cities. Although I'm probably prejudiced, as most of the bars I frequent - in my 2 years back in-country, I'm already known to the staff, and typically get staff/hospo discount.
South Island - might be reversed again? Some classic country pubs - my recollection of Chch bars (admittedly-pre-earthquake) - was decidedly Slug/Lettuce/All-Bar-One-esqueAus - I don't have a wide experience... but my feel was more of a UK pattern.... plenty of shit "glossy/corporate bars" in towns, with some fucking cracker country pubs... and in Melbourne at least, some quirky fucking-random country-type-pubs in the middle of the city.
