Ah yes... at 5'2", I was in the rare position of actually having to duck through one bit of the 'Trip'... although there is that shaft that allows mutant tall people to stand erect. I was also served a giant Yorkshire pudding and sausages in what appeared to be a ceramic representation of a flat cap. But that was several years ago.

It seems to be the trend that historical pubs are taken over, run into the ground and then left to rot, quietly. There doesn't seem to be any public outcry over this until it is too late, simply because we are no longer a pub culture.

I know you'll all be hopping up and down saying 'I go to the pub every week', but what happens in that pub the rest of the week?

They're no longer seen as community meeting places - particularly in areas where alcohol is prohibited to a large section of the community. Pubs these days are seen as a place to eat during the day and get monumentally pissed in during the hours of darkness. Very few that I go in these days have quiet areas with comfy chairs and space to relax. There is always a big screen TV somewhere, a sound system blasting out some mindless pap in the guise of music and so many hard chairs and tables that it's impossible to steer a straight line back to your seat. If there are comfy seats, they're usually in the form of a padded pew that runs around the wall of the pub like some bus shelter.

I'm sure that there'll be several posts now telling me that there are pubs just like that, that there are quiet little oasis in secluded streets and villages - but that's not much good in the cities.

Pubs in cities - particularly cities and towns with a university, like Nottingham - are there purely to get people pissed and get a profit. Students do not want to sit down and discuss literature like they did in the Eagle and Child (there are exceptions but they tend to be universities with towns in them like Oxford and Cambridge). They don't want to eat there - that would waste beer money. People standing up with nowhere to put their drinks down, drink faster than people sitting comfortably. With loud background noise, people talk louder and faster, when they talk faster, they get dry mouths...

As long as the big main congolmorates own the majority of breweries and have the capital funds to buy out any pub building at all, then the "village pub" or the pub as a community centre is doomed. And unfortunately, it looks like the 'Trip' could be headed down that path.

LTS