Why Do They Have One, and We Haven't?

Ok. So first of all, I'm a loser. Who had any idea that the little local cinema was going to sell out tonight, when we planned a date night to go see the new movie about Stephen Hawking?

Oh. You all knew that I should have booked tickets online two weeks ago? Oh.

Anyway, there we were, out and about, the sitter at home with the kids, and we had no where to go. So we had a think and decided (wait for it...) to go to the pub.

But we decided to go to a pub we'd never been to before. One in a village a good 20 minute drive from where we live. Let's call the pub 'The Chequers'. 

It's amazing. 

It's comfy, and welcoming, but elegant. It's got a good area for proper settling in by the fire, but it's got a bar, and a dartboard, and snacks. And none of the comfy chairs around the fireplace match, and most of them are a touch threadbare. But it's also a restaurant, and the place is well turned out, but not over the top. Chairs and tables in the dining area are large, dark wood pieces, and the chairs have seats upholstered in green leather, with the brass studs going round the edges. 

But what makes it great is that it's all a bit eclectic, and shabby, but without being a dump. Sure, it's got trendy lightbulbs in the hanging lights, but it's got a leg of cured, acorn-fed ham sitting on the bar, waiting for your order (and they serve it sliced oh so thinly, on a plate, with blanched almonds). And it has hunter green wainscoting, but it's got a tiny Victorian stuffed alligator on the bar, holding books of matches. MATCHES! No one does matches anymore. I love matches.

Taxidermy? Yep. They've got it, and I love it. This place has a deer's head mounted behind the bar -- it's Clive. But it's good, and it works. They've got huge glass jars of snacks behind the bar on the glass shelf - the aforementioned almonds, but also caper berries, wasabi dried broad beans, chilli peanuts. And a popcorn machine. And the selection on tap was pretty great (I have my sources).

Sunday nights they do their steak night (there's only one chef on Sundays - the rest get the day off). For 16 quid, you get a bib lettuce and bleu salad, flat iron steak, chips, and a cheese board. For an extra 7, you can have one of each of an excellent selection of oysters (St Austell natives, pearl, etc.)

These two guys were having a late dinner, and came over from the bar to a table nearby when their food arrived. It smelled pretty good, and we commented. They (one in his early 50s, one in his early 70s) didn't miss a beat, and handed round the chips. And they were good. They ordered merlot (larges), which came with glasses, and each had their own tiny carafe. 

Upstairs, the private dining room can be reserved with no extra charge. It seats about 20 or so, and it's a proper private room, with double doors that close, and bookshelves filled with books, and candles, and other tchotchkes. Dark green walls, leather-covered chairs, and the table set and the candles burning, ready for a party to sit, and eat, and enjoy.

SO -- in a nutshell: fabulous, slightly tatty, taxidermy, good snacks, good booze, steak, classy, and totally nice, but not overbearing staff. Excellent, right?

Then why can't they do that in my town?

The big thing these days in my town is that the people who own one of the oldest pubs in town want to convert it into three houses, and sell up. And people are outraged. Because the owners have said 'it's not a viable business'.  But I wonder how hard you're trying, really, when you're closed a lot (how can you offer B&B rooms but be closed on a Monday?), you don't cater to people with kids and dogs, the food isn't great, and you're not exactly the friendliest people around. I've walked in the door there as a party guest, and been given a shoulder cold enough to cause frostbite, let alone going in for a drink, just for the heck of it.

Clearly, things can be viable - it has been before - and it's been a pub for hundreds of years - so YES - viable! It just seems that either they don't really care, or they're shit at it. I'm inclined to think it's a bit of both. And I never have been able to understand people who go into the 'people' business, when they obviously aren't particularly fond of people.

There's another pub in town, and that's been recently taken over by a nice couple. They're nice. And they try so hard. And that's part of it. They're so all-fired determined that you're going to have a great time at their pub, they're going to beat it out of you. As a pub landlord, is it really best practice to suggest to a group of 40-something dads who've come in for a pint at 8pm on a Thursday that they 'line up some Jäger shots'? And the fake flowers. Ugh. And the fact that there's a fire only in one fireplace. And that none of the tables look like they want someone to come sit at them. 

I know. I'm complaining. But it's something my husband and I talk about all the time. What would WE do, if we were running a pub (or a B&B, or...)? Because you've all been there, when you've gone someplace, and it's been 'meh' when it could've been 'WOW!' So what's missing?

Is it an innate sense of aesthetic? Is it that some people don't know how to do classy? Is it differing standards of comfort? Is it a cash thing? Is it a lack of desire to provide something for your customers that goes just a smidgeon beyond satisfactory? WHAT?

About that 'not a viable business' pub. Let me tell you one thing...if you deck your place out with furniture that someone might want to sit on (for more than five minutes), if you welcome people in with a smile on your face, if you do a few good things on your menu instead of a cornucopia of mediocre choices, and you make it a place where people want to stay, instead of a place where they can't wait to finish and go, it might change things a bit. 

I'm not a pub landlord. I'll never be one. But I'm a customer, and I know what I've seen that works, and what doesn't. 'The Chequers' works. The pub in my town could work, too. But only if someone chooses to put into it what they want to get out of it.

These are trying times...

I've been reading a book called All Consuming by Neal Lawson. The screamer is 'How shopping got us into this mess and how we can find our way out. So obviously cheerful from the start.

But the thing that I continue to ruminate over as I read chapter after chapter is that I can't actually fathom that there are people out there that fit the descriptions of people in this book. The sorts of people who actually make sure that their babies have completely new everything - clothes, shoes, toys, furniture, doo-dads, bottles, etc. The kind of people that REALLY throw away a kettle or a microwave because it was 'out of date after a few years' (Journal of Consumer Policy 27, 421-49). The sort of people who don't ever reuse, recycle, etc. People who never think, when they buy that cheap item of clothing/whatever, about what that cheapness may mean to the person, somewhere, who made that cheap thing so that it could be purchased in a nice, clean, spacious, western store.

I'm honest about the fact that I love (LOVE) IKEA. I do. I'm a HUGE fan of organizational furniture, and IKEA is exactly that. PLUS, they've got organizational units that can be used in CONJUNCTION with their organizational furniture. Bliss, right? And I have some of their furniture in my home.

But I also have furniture in my home that has been handed down through three generations, bought at an auction house, brought home as a hand-me-down, scooped up from a dumpster or skip on the side of the road. I'm surrounded by items purchased in charity shops and second-hand stores. I wear dead people's clothing (Thanks, Kinky Friedman).  And I buy old clothes, and I create new things out of them - bags, pillows, stuffed animals.

My children have both slept in a cot acquired from Freecycle. We've bought a new mattress for each kid because cleanliness and health can be an issue. But the cot itself has had at LEAST four other kids sleep in it, and if I've got anything to do with it, I'll pass it along to someone else who'll need a cot soon for their kid. My kids have also worn clothes that have been passed around between groups of friends who've all had kids on a rotating schedule. We see pictures of our kids, and know what year it is by the clothes they're wearing. And we've rotated toys, pushchairs, car seats, foldable buggies, bottles, cups, sleeping bags, swimming suits, etc.

I know people who've spent over 4000 GPB on their children between birth and two years old, not including child care costs. I think that I may have spent about 400 GBP on BOTH my children between birth and two years old.

And I'm sitting here, in a chair I got from Freecycle, and had recovered, with my feet on a footstool (that my mother-in-law recovered for me) that I acquired when I moved into the first house I bought. I have my coffee cup sitting on a coffee table given to my by a friend who had to move his dad out of the family house and into care. And the basket holding my firewood was salvaged out of a dumpster - in perfect condition. Two out of my four lamps in this room are hand-me-downs.

My slippers, yoga trousers and t-shirt pre-date my oldest child. There's a pillow on my chair made out of a t-shirt that had a D-train (Bronx to Brooklyn) logo on it. And I just sewed up a hole in some school tights for my daughter to wear to school tomorrow, instead of binning them.

Are you seeing a link here? It's not that I'm cheap (although I CAN be; it's in my genes). It's because I somehow also inherited the philosophy that it's actually OK to 'make do and mend', as they say here in the UK. My grandparents all went through the Depression, and then through the post-war years of penny-pinching that was necessary. And I remember thinking how silly it was when my Grandma used to scrape every last bit of chocolate brownie dough out of the mixing bowl with the spatula. But now, of course, I realize that by doing so, you get ONE MORE BROWNIE. It's that simple.

By sewing up that pair of tights, maybe there's one less thing that gets chucked into landfill. And while I know that IKEA provides jobs to so many people, maybe by my having a hand-me-down coffee table instead of a flat-pack one, I get to have something that's been around for a long time, meant something to someone once, and maybe saved one tree out there, somewhere. And maybe it also saved a tiny bit of petrol, and a tiny bit of energy in not having to move that one extra flat-pack coffee table to my local IKEA warehouse.

When I do buy something new, I'm going to continue to see if I can't find it made by someone local, or someone who might be trying to start a new business, or maybe from a local auction house, so that someone's memories don't get thrown into the huge container marked 'Wood and Timber' at the local recycling centre. With the holiday season fast approaching, and shops gearing up for that major consumer outpouring of professed love and affection-based spending, I don't think I'm going to participate that much this year. I'd rather check out my local craft fair, and buy something that someone actually made, by someone who lives within 20 miles of where I live. (NB: I KNOW that there are people who buy the lovely shawls made by Nepalese women who need to make money, and resell them on to people here - I respect that. But I need to support people out there who are making things closer to home).

A few other things to think about: Libraries. Local post offices (if there are any left!). Local INDEPENDENT shops. Just because you've got a WHSmith to hand, doesn't mean you have to go there. Use your local library instead. Between 1987 and 1997, almost 90 per cent of local councils in the UK reduced access to their public library services (Sheffield University's Centre for the Public Library in the Information Society, 1999). Use your local post office. They sell stamps, but they also sell lots of other things - greeting cards, wrapping paper, bits and pieces you always need; the people who work at your local post office know more than you could ever believe. USE THEM. And use the local indie shops. Buy your magazines from the local newsagent - not the chain supermarket. And consider the local deli, sandwich shop, jewellery store, knitting shop, butcher, breakfast joint, frame store. These are the places, and people, who make your community unique, and wonderful. By supporting them, you're keeping your money in the community, and you're helping the village or town you live in thrive. And that says a lot.

I know Mr Tesco and Mr Sainsbury need to make their shareholders happy, but maybe instead it would be OK to shop at the Coop, or Waitrose. I'll bet you never knew that Waitrose was employee-owned, did you? Don't give in to the hype that it always has to be bigger, or better, or newer, or shinier. I'm proud of my old, slightly beat-up car. And I'm proud that I sew up holes in tights, have a compost bin, grow veggies, sew costumes for my kids, knit baby blankets.

Surely I'm not alone?