In 2030 I will turn 30. I hope to be in the pub, but maybe a little less often than I am now. Judging by the way things are going, that might be easier than we’d like to admit. And not just because we lost 383 pubs between the start of the year and the end of June.
I’ll set the scene: it’s seven years from now. Off I go, to one of the last four pubs in London, and park my e-bike next to three thousand others. I walk through the entrance, the etched Victorian glass door replaced by government-mandated energy-efficient double glazing, and there they are: eight 0 per cent beers on draught.
Human beings like pork scratchings and a fag and a pint, and will do forever
‘Do you have anything alcoholic?’
‘What?’
‘Sorry, I feel a bit ashamed. But do you have a lager with some alcohol in it? A crisp Corona? I’ll take a Carling? Please?’
‘Sorry mate, you’ll have to go to a specialist bar for that. Sure I can’t interest you in a ginger shot?’
OK, that might be too pessimistic. But us young’uns really are shunning the fun stuff: more than one in four Gen Zers are teetotal. Even without the changes in preferences, the country is going through a puritanical phase.
Let’s head back to 2030, where we have calorie counts on the beer pumps. They’ve been introduced because Labour says they’re a good idea. I look down the bar for the least worst option, growing conscious of my waistline. BrewDog Punk IPA sounds nice, I’ll just have a check and… 292kcal. Argh!
Oh, Guinness isn’t that bad: it’s just 210 calories. That’ll be the one pint please, mine for just £14.50. The bar only accepts govcoin, which was introduced by Jeremy Hunt in his twilight as chancellor. I step outside for a cigarette.
‘You can’t smoke out here! We’ll call the police!’
Silly me. It’s been so long since I went to the pub that I forgot that, almost a decade ago, Rishi Sunak banned cigarettes outside pubs because he hates them, so no one else should be allowed them.
I stub my fag out frantically.
‘Sorry, gov. Haven’t been to the pub for so long. Cost of living and all that.’
‘Well you should know the rules. You can only smoke weed out here.’
In I skulk, hungry after all the stress. I ask for a menu. I want a steak and ale pie but can’t focus on the description of the food when next to each item is a massive label that reads: ‘UPF! Ultra-processed food score! There’s ascorbic acid in the pastry and the sauce has a hint of soybean oil along with other binding agents! Death! Death! Death!’ I order some kefir.
It’s not exactly cosy in here. Buildings aren’t allowed boilers anymore and open fires were banned thanks to the risks from ‘ultra-fine particulate matter’. That’s OK, I can wrap up, but the more existential problem is the local residents’ association. Central London noise complaints mean that we have to keep the chatter below 70 decibels. Any louder and the pub loses its licence. Anyway, people don’t really like music anymore – just podcasts. The Rest is Responsible Drinking plays tinnily around the room.
I go to the gender-neutral loo and on entry am chastised by posters that assume I’m a budding wifebeater. Another poster tells me to consider logging my units for the week so as not to exceed the government-recommended limit of zero. ‘When the fun stops, stop.’ So I stop, and I leave the pub of 2030.
I might be verging on hysterical, but things are already bad. The price of a pint keeps rising and rising. The pub at the end of the road already charges £7.25 for a pint. Why should we expect it to stop? More grating is the obsession of politicians who wish to police what they see as our bad choices. Choosing fun over health is treated like a societal bug that can be eradicated, instead of an aspect of our nature. Human beings like pork scratchings and a fag and a pint, and will do forever.
In any case, the well-meaning forget what a pub is. Perhaps if we tell them that pubs are a ‘vital hub for the community’ they might lay off a bit. But actually, the pub is a place to celebrate human imperfection. It’s the place to be a little less healthy, a little less sensible, and a little less boring.
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