Trivial things that annoy you

i think they're moving around by themselves!

 

It's the Gnomes .................

 

Getting put through to a call centre where I cannot understand a word the foreign person on the other end is saying!!!!!!!!

Val

 

I get that Val. Depending on my mood I may ask them to repeat and repeat and repeat. Or I might say, just a minute, put the phone down and don't return for 20 mins. Or, if they can't pronounce my last name correctly I know its not a call I wish to waste my time with. Or if they call me Mrs. (husbands last name) then I definately know the call is NOT for me.

 

The amount of pubs I frequent that can't seem to grasp the idea of toilet hygiene.

Lack of toilet paper

Lack of working lock on toilet door

Blocked toilet

Some places don't even have a seat that's fixed. One country pub I visited recently didn't even have a seat.

No soap or working hand dryers.

Sorry but is it really too much to expect? If this is what the level of hygiene is like in the public areas what on earth is it like in the parts the public don't see like kitchen and cellar.

 

I have a great sense of nostalgia for the kind of country pub that doesn't even bother with toilet seats. Reminds me of my mispent youth, I suppose. Didn't actually do us any harm, and I get a slight feeling of disappointment if I go back to some rustic haunt and find it's had the treatment - tiles, potpourri, hot air driers, coordinated loo roll. Everything's too hygienic nowadays, it's just not necessary most of the time.

 

I know where your coming from. There's sometimg very comforting about a good old fashioned grotty boozer as opposed to these new gastro pubs which feel very clinical and lack atmosphere.

I don't drink in my village anymore because all the pubs have been turned into foody places. All chrome fittings, leather sofas, modern art on canvas and halogen lighting. It's almost like walking into an IKEA. I used to love going to grotty pubs where you could sit at the bar and chat away with the landlord or some of the regulars and local characters. Sadly the old fashioned local pub is dying off.

It's such a shame that the kind of pubs we like to drink in happen to be the ones that are the most grotty. But I guess they are the ones with the most character and atmosphere. We like to go out to chat and make company and often it's the local boozer pubs where you find the most friendly people and have the best night out. It's a shame in some ways that these kind of pubs are dying out in favour of places that resemble sitting in a doctor's waiting room. I guess you can't have it all ways.

'You wanna go where everybody knows your name'. Unfortunately most pubs now couldn't care less what your name is. Get you in, take your money and kick you out. Gone are the days when a pub was the hub of the community and an extension of your own living room. Quite sad really.

 

The smoking ban is responsible for that!! Folk like to have a drink, puff on their pipe or ciggy, Oh the good old days!!

Val

 

Well it certainly didn't help but I think pubs were on the slippery slope before that tbh. In the 90's around here, pubs seemed to take one of two routes. Either cater for football or food. Many of the respectful old inns became gastro pubs and undertook massive refurbs and became lifeless, emotionless places to eat where you'd be lucky to get change out of a tenner for a sandwich and a pint. Staff with name badges who never bother to socialise with the customers. Then the ale houses turned into football pubs which attracted loads of drinkers but equally loads of trouble.

Breweries stopped caring about the quality of licensee they employed and took on any scruffy looking lout who'd done a two week course in how to tap barrels and was daft enough to pay their ridiculously over inflated rents; who in turn allowed just about anybody through the door to make a living. Standards dropped and so did the clientele. A lot ended up being closed down.

A few have since opened up and had the guts ripped out of them and turned into some trendy new open plan wine bar with bare white walls, chrome fittings and comfy sofas and flat screen TV's showing music videos. Ghastly places with no warmth or character often frequented by teenagers.

It's very difficult these days to find a real traditional pub that hasn't been messed about with one way or another.

 

I'm going to name and shame now.

The Hydro, Redcar, around 1992 to around 1995. The actual door to the gents toilets was bust. Didn't matter though, because so was the door frame. Going to the toilet was simple enough. You simply lifted the whole door frame to one side so you could get in, and then when you came back out again you lifted the whole assembly back up again and balanced it over as much of the hole (the doorway) as possible while taking care to misalign it by 6 inches or so to stop it simply falling in.

Leos, Redcar, around 1994-1999. Any lad that went there regularly knew to wear shoes with good thick soles. At least an inch thick. This was to enable you to go to the loo, wading through the unavoidable wee pond, without the wee coming over the soles of your shoes and flooding in. You also had to not be bashful, because the only way to take a leak without standing in the deep part of the pee pond involved lobbing it out in clear view of the doorway.

Both establishments have long since closed down, so I can't see a problem naming them. one establishment, which for a while didn't have a single working urinal and so had buckets instead, is still open so I wont name that one.

 

I and many others around my age used to know these places as 'spit and sawdust' pubs.