Etcetera.So yes, the village pub has a structural demographic problem, and yes, it does need addressing. So it's got a new owner, and the new owner has stripped it of every bit of soft furnishing - no carpets, no curtains, no pictures, and no cushions on the expensive new hardwood chairs. No jokey local in-jokes, no quirky stuff around the bar.
Nothing, in fact, but a loud, loud echoing clatter. All the walls have been redone in trendy puke-grey wainscoting, and the bare floors and ceilings and tables bounce every single scrap of noise back at you, so that you can't even hear what the person across the table is saying to you. Yes, I'm old enough to know what social deafness is, but this level of auditory attack is right off the scale. Last Saturday night there were maybe eight people in the pub, and the noise was already intolerable.
Look, people, you've already proved that you can't bring in the yomping yoof, even though you've made your newly-varnished floors fit for hobnailed boots. You've dumped the bloody carpet, which was the only thing that used to absorb the pleasant nattering even when it got too loud for comfort, and you've replaced it with a wall of sound that would have had Phil Spector reaching for the noise-cancelling earphones.
And for what? Well, you've lost me for a start. Bastards.
BJ
