[HN Gopher] Find a pub that needs you
___________________________________________________________________
Find a pub that needs you
Author : thinkingemote
Score : 166 points
Date : 2026-01-14 15:44 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ismypubfucked.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ismypubfucked.com)
| fourside wrote:
| For anyone else who entered a US zip code and was confused by the
| 'invalid zip code' error: this is UK only.
| imzadi wrote:
| Yeah, they could reduce confusion by changing "the government"
| to "the UK government."
| Tom1380 wrote:
| If Americans did the same it would be great
| RIMR wrote:
| Good luck. Americans won't even differentiate Washington
| State and Washington D.C. Even the AP guidelines say that
| "Washington" is ubiquitous shorthand for "Washington D.C."
| and recommends against shortening it to "D.C."
| deelayman wrote:
| This is also a problem that exists within countries. My RSS
| feed is littered with Canadian independent (national) news
| agencies not defining what municipality article headlines
| relate to. E.g. "Mayor pushes back against province on xyz
| issue". Okay, that might be huge news for Timmins Ontario ,
| but maybe BAU for Toronto. Even skimming the lead paragraph
| doesn't define the city often.
|
| *Editting with a point: Perhaps everyone assumes a local
| audience.
| pierrec wrote:
| _Americans_ , hm? I see what you did there.
| notatoad wrote:
| your first clue might have been that it does not say "zip code"
| in either the field label or the error message, it says
| "postcode".
| MisterTea wrote:
| I doubt most people would bother to think about that detail.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| Australia and NZ have postcodes, too.
|
| If they had made this a .co.uk rather than a .com, there
| would be no confusion.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Or the term "pub." In the US it's much more usual to say
| "bar." Maybe "tavern" but that sounds rather dated to my ear.
| Thews wrote:
| When I lived in the PNW people used the word pub more than
| bar.
| selectodude wrote:
| That's because everybody up there thinks that liking
| soccer makes them English.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| My sense is that it is an affectation meant to indicate
| an aspiration to something more than a bar (and its
| coarse patrons).
| tshaddox wrote:
| "Bar" is certainly the catch-all term in the U.S., but
| "pub" is also very widely understood to refer to a specific
| type of bar, especially (but not limited to) bars
| deliberately styled as Irish or British pubs.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Along a similar note, I hate when a Bar is labelled as a
| "Pub" and doesn't serve food. IMO, in the US, if it's
| labelled a "pub" it should serve food.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Come to Virginia, where it's outright illegal for any
| establishment serving alcohol to not also serve food (and
| not only must food be served, it must account for at
| least 45% of revenue).
| tracker1 wrote:
| I'm nut sure I'd go that far... it's just I expect a
| "Pub" to include pub food.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| Do they make you order food with every round of drinks? I
| remember hearing about places like that from my dad, and
| it seems it would have worked better in the era of cheap
| drinks/low built-in alcohol taxes.
| dustincoates wrote:
| I went to college in a county that only allowed alcohol
| sales with food for clubs (think: country clubs). So, of
| course, the restaurant that I worked for created its own
| club. You simply filled out your name (and maybe phone
| number, I don't remember) on a piece of paper when you
| ordered your drink.
| dylan604 wrote:
| every now and then you'll find a public house or
| similarly named
| 9rx wrote:
| "Pub" is a fairly common term throughout the world. But
| "pub _that needs you_ " made it pretty obvious that it was
| about pubs in England.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Did it? I put my postcode in and got nothing. It took
| browsing the map to discover it had no results for
| Scotland at all.
| 9rx wrote:
| Yes. Being on the other side of the world, I've only ever
| heard of efforts to save English pubs. Thus, without more
| details, one knows that is what is being referred to.
| Perhaps Scotland has the same kind of movement happening
| at the local level, but something on a global website
| implies global context.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| The website is for England and Wales.
| fourside wrote:
| The site has since changed the content from when I made the
| comment. It used to say zip code in the label and error.
| jtbaker wrote:
| I think of postal code as a generic, international form of
| the concept, not tied to a location.
| xrownow wrote:
| Any plans to release the code? Would be nice to allow others to
| do something similar for their local pubs.
| amouat wrote:
| Seems to be England only. No results for Edinburgh.
| eterm wrote:
| Business rates are a devolved matter, Scotland set their own
| rates.
| iso1631 wrote:
| I see results on both sides of the border here, Wales and
| England.
| rcbdev wrote:
| Silly me, I entered an Austrian zip code out of principle. Did
| not expect it to work, though, of course.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| I like how the status values could be used as labels of economic
| wellbeing for people, too: Somehow Fine
| Feeling It Struggling Fucked Absolutely Fucked
| stonegray wrote:
| Stealing this for error logging levels
| jihadjihad wrote:
| s/Somehow/Possibly/g haha but I like that idea!
| cyberpunk wrote:
| The bristol stool scale also works well. Although that's
| better for sprint planning maybe..
| dylan604 wrote:
| so...you got me. thinking it might have something to do
| with out worn the stools in your pub are. nope it's just,
| you know, stool.
| grumblepeet wrote:
| I live in south Bristol where the "Bristol stool scale" and
| the "pubs that need your help" overlap distressingly.
| rconti wrote:
| Interest in context on "government pub rates". New tax scheme?
| cjs_ac wrote:
| Changes to property taxes on business premises.
| amiga386 wrote:
| Existing tax. Proposed new calculation for the "value" of
| business property, disproportionately affecting pubs.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8e57dexly1o
|
| > In her November Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves scaled back
| business rate discounts that have been in force since the
| pandemic from 75% to 40% - and announced that there would be no
| discount at all from April. That, combined with big upward
| adjustments to rateable values of pub premises, left landlords
| with the prospect of much higher rates bills.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_rates_in_England
|
| > Properties are assessed in a rating list with a rateable
| value, a valuation of their annual rental value on a fixed
| valuation date using assumptions fixed by statute. Rating lists
| are created and maintained by the Valuation Office Agency, a UK
| government executive agency.
| rconti wrote:
| Ah, interesting. So it sounds like the tax roughly scales
| with property value (or size). And pubs are probably a "poor
| use of land" because the revenue per square foot is not
| particularly high?
| amiga386 wrote:
| Yes. It scales with a government agency's estimate of the
| property's annual rent (even if you own it), based on
| market rates in the area over the past two years, which
| they then scale up/down based on floorspace and how
| dilapidated the building is.
|
| You pay a percentage of the hypothetical rent as tax. There
| is a lower rate if you're a small business, and there are
| also tax reliefs for various reasons (charity, partial
| building occupation, etc.)
|
| But pubs have been in trouble for quite some time: https://
| www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2025/05/27/numbe...
|
| Pubs have high costs, small margins and customers are
| extremely price-sensitive. What pubs are generally asking
| for is more types of relief, because what we tend to see is
| pubs close, people in the area become more isolated, and
| the building remains empty for years thereafter. [ _] Pubs
| appreciated the post-COVID relief, but tax rates are about
| to shoot up.
|
| [_] fun fact: if the building is vacant, its landlord must
| pay rates as if it's 100% occupied. Hence this brazen
| scheme where a man puts a snail farm in every room so you
| can pay the rates of an agricultural enterprise:
| https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-
| interactive/2025/dec/04/...
| RobinL wrote:
| > In her November Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves scaled back
| business rate discounts that have been in force since the
| pandemic from 75% to 40% - and announced that there would be no
| discount at all from April.
|
| That, combined with big upward adjustments to rateable values
| of pub premises, left landlords with the prospect of much
| higher rates bills.
| flir wrote:
| Pubs are dying. Have been for years.
|
| Many deaths were postponed because their taxes were reduced due
| to Covid. Those taxes are now returning to normal levels. This
| will result in a glut of deaths, as pubs that were just hanging
| on go under.
|
| The policy question is, basically, do we want to subsidize pubs
| because they're part of our national culture, even though we
| don't use them nearly as much as we used to?
| kristianc wrote:
| "Does Britain really need?" has been responsible for the
| gutting of so much of what used to make Britain a nice place
| to live over the last 20 years. You can say she same about
| public libraries, local bus routes, civic architecture, arts
| funding, youth services, maintenance budgets. The damage has
| been incalculable.
| flir wrote:
| You won't find any argument from me on all those other
| things.
|
| But pubs are a weird place to draw the line.
| kristianc wrote:
| Every one of them individually seems like a weird place
| to draw the line. Social fabric and the ties that bond
| matter.
| jaccola wrote:
| The government has decided that they know what's good for you
| better for you than you do. So they tax alcohol at incredibly
| high rates.
|
| Without this more pubs could exist. So I don't think it's a
| case of subsidising as much as removing the disincentive.
| yunohn wrote:
| I'm not familiar with the UK, but is the tax on alcohol at
| pubs higher than at a store? My general understanding was
| that people have just shopped visiting pubs for other
| reasons - like diluted drinks, crappy food, loud music,
| etc.
| t-3 wrote:
| Bars and pubs aren't really competing against the store
| or restaurants, they're competing against you drinking
| alone or with only close friends. If stepping in to have
| a beer and shoot the shit would cost a significant chunk
| of a day's wages, you just won't do it, but if I can buy
| more beer with an hours wages than I can drink in an
| hour, it's not a bad time.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Weatherspoons charge under PS3 for a pint in town. That's
| 15 minutes at minimum wage.
|
| Beer was far more expensive 25 years ago - PS1.60 in 2000
| in the student pub when I first started buying my own
| beer, that was about half an hour at minimum wage.
|
| On the cost side: Wages are higher, energy costs more,
| rent is higher (because if the pub can't operate the
| owner can get planning permission to convert it to a
| private dwelling and sell it for PS600k rather than
| making PS12k a year in rent)
|
| On the demand side: People are healthier and drink less.
| It's nowhere near as acceptable to go out for a few pints
| at lunch time. People can't drive to a rural pub.
| messe wrote:
| > Weatherspoons charge under PS3 for a pint in town.
| That's 15 minutes at minimum wage.
|
| Yeah but then you've to drink at spoons.
| bodge5000 wrote:
| That is spoons though, most pubs are 3-4x that
| christkv wrote:
| Lower taxes is not subsidising a business.
| hermanzegerman wrote:
| It is, when it gets a favourable treatment over other
| businesses
| fauria wrote:
| Find an _English_ pub that needs you.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| Yeah, I have NO clue what this site is even about.
| 9JollyOtter wrote:
| It is a "use it or lose it" style campaign by the looks of
| it.
|
| Lots of Pubs in the UK are closing down in recent years. Pubs
| have traditionally been a big part of socialising in the UK.
| I don't drink anymore so I don't bother unless I am having a
| pub lunch on a Friday.
| graemep wrote:
| Not true, it also covers pubs in Wales
| sefrost wrote:
| Wow a fantastic independent pub near where I used to live in
| London is seeing its rateable value go up 480%! This website
| really puts the headlines in to a nice local perspective.
|
| It seems like the taxes only go up while the services get worse
| in the UK, although I've been away for 5 years now so maybe
| things improved.
| moop_moop wrote:
| The services have certainly not got better in the last 5 years.
| This Government is fiscally illiterate and has hit the top of
| the Laffer curve and is now trying to go down the other side.
| fakedang wrote:
| Unfortunately, if an election were to be held today, the
| morons at Reform would have the greatest chance of winning,
| thanks to Starmer's ostrich syndrome, Corbyn dividing the
| Labour vote and the Tories being absolutely irrelevant after
| 15 years of continuous rule.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| "This" ...?
|
| You jest.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Meet the new government, same as the old government.
| iNerdier wrote:
| Amateurs. One close to me is at an +821% increase in its tax
| bill and rateable value at 613%.
| brightbeige wrote:
| Here's the Lamb and Flag in Oxford
|
| https://www.ismypubfucked.com/pub/11447801200
|
| > the Inklings, a literary group including J. R. R. Tolkien and
| C. S. Lewis, started meeting at The Lamb and Flag.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_%26_Flag,_Oxford
| tialaramex wrote:
| > seeing its rateable value go up 480%!
|
| Rateable value is based on what the market prices would be to
| rent that space. So, somebody is doing nicely apparently.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| This might be the single most British website on the internet.
|
| I wonder if there's an equivalent use case in the US.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| brilliant website which manages to convey classic British humour
| on a classically British topic. Also shines much needed light on
| the very serious challenges independent British Pubs are
| undergoing - these are essential social institutions, social
| coherence is damaged every time one of these shut down.
| ajb wrote:
| Just getting a totally black map with anonymous coloured dots on
| both chrome and Firefox. The pub may or may not be fucked, but
| the website is.
|
| (Yes I tried disabling all the dark settings, no difference)
| edent wrote:
| The one near me which is absolutely fucked, as far as I'm
| concerned, deserves it.
|
| Fighty customers, crap beer, odd opening hours, and half their
| food menu is off ("sorry mate, we've got no cheese"). Oh, and now
| their credit card terminal prompts customers for a tip!
|
| I love a good pub, but most are crap.
| twic wrote:
| Near me, the (nice but always too busy) Old Dairy is getting a
| cut, and the (mediocre Arsenal fan packed) Bank of Friendship
| and Arsenal Tavern are getting obliterated. God exists, and he
| supports Spurs!
| wat10000 wrote:
| People really struggle when given a link to a web site that isn't
| for them, huh.
| crazygringo wrote:
| No. It's when the web site doesn't say _who_ it 's for _at all_
| , that's when everybody struggles. And understandably so.
| wat10000 wrote:
| People only struggle because of a self-centered view that
| everything is supposed to be for them, and things that aren't
| for them are a weird exception. A reasonable person will
| realize that the fact that they don't understand any of what
| it's talking about means they're not the target audience, and
| move on (or poke around out of curiosity).
| ikr678 wrote:
| Except that as a english speaking non american, this happens
| literally all the time with ecommerce?
|
| It's not until I get to checkout I realise they do not ship
| to my country or want to deal with me.
| quitit wrote:
| https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBRtbdVquWF/
|
| Neither American nor from the UK, but I knew what this was
| about because it's possible to go online and seek out
| information. Neat.
|
| What I didn't do was become some entitled see you next tuesday
| and complain that a .com should be reserved for the american
| audience and the site should use a .co.uk - As if american
| businesses don't utilise foreign TLDs to create cutesy URLs.
| Maybe now is a good time to note that the fashionable .AI TLD
| belongs to Anguilla, a British territory.
| dgxyz wrote:
| Having watched two alcoholic family members die horribly, spurred
| on by functioning alcoholic friends whos only social interaction
| is at the pub through habit only, fuck 'em. Let them die.
|
| We need better social spaces which do not have the token cost of
| drinks to use.
| antihero wrote:
| Ok so because your family were alcoholics nobody should have a
| space to drink? What an absurd thing to say.
| dgxyz wrote:
| No I'm saying we have a social problem with alcohol in this
| country and brush it under the table as a cultural identity
| thing.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Its extremely hard to cope with how bleak life is in the UK
| without frequent intoxication (source: abandoned the uk, no
| longer drink at all)
| dgxyz wrote:
| Fair. That's what they invented planes for :)
| anfractuosity wrote:
| Great idea!
|
| https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/personal-finance/finance-expe...
| shows how little pubs make per pint, very sad.
|
| If anyone's curious about cask beer
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ud_eTwY4nc&list=PLyDTS7ZG3z...
| is a very interesting youtube video series by The Craft Beer
| Channel.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| My grandparents were publicans 70+ years ago. Even they they
| made very little on beer. All the profit was spirits and
| software drinks. Probably food as well now.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| 15 quid for a 25ml of whisky is ridiculous however.
| 9rx wrote:
| _> All the profit was spirits and software drinks._
|
| What are the margins on a Codeacola?
| RobotToaster wrote:
| > software drinks
|
| I knew java was good for something
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Must have been muscle memory.
| BolsunBacset wrote:
| The UK government hates its populace, particularly its natives.
| Downvote all you want.
| tmp10423288442 wrote:
| Broken - getting `ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR` when trying to open it
| in Chrome
| sobiolite wrote:
| The nearest "absolutely fucked" pub to me hasn't existed since
| 2008. I'd say they have bigger problems than a rates increase.
| bspammer wrote:
| They do acknowledge this on the site
|
| > Based on VOA data (Nov 2025) which is often inaccurate. Many
| pubs have also closed since then.
| numbers wrote:
| what is a "rateable value" here?
| adw wrote:
| Property tax valuation.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Would be much more helpful if it indicated literally _anywhere_
| on the homepage that this was specific to the UK.
|
| Being a .com as opposed to a .co.uk, you can't even tell from the
| domain.
| sva_ wrote:
| Like the big red letters in the title that say "IN BRITAIN"?
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't see that. Ctrl+F and zero "Britain" anywhere on the
| page. Or even in the HTML source.
|
| The only big red letters are "THAT NEEDS YOU".
| bodge5000 wrote:
| There are plenty of US sites that make no mention of being US
| specific, I feel like this is well deserved
| skinnymuch wrote:
| The US is the center of the world though. There are
| privileges to that like assuming the world revolves around
| you.
| tracker1 wrote:
| While this is cool to see, would be nice to see some indication
| of the nation specific context for those outside that nation...
| especially since it's the more generic .com tld instead of say
| .uk ...
|
| Maybe even a Union Jack in the corner as a background image, or
| something.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Nearest pub
|
| 2023 Rateable Value PS13,800
|
| 2026 Rateable Value PS12,250
|
| Change -PS3,300(-23.9%)
|
| I guess "no" would be the answer then.
|
| Nearest town has 3 pubs where rates are going down significantly
| and 4 where they're going up. I wonder why, is it that the
| previous setup was unfair to those who are seeing their rates
| going down?
|
| The pub I do go to each week is seeing rates going up +PS3,300.
| That's not as big an impact from yet another inflation busting
| minimum wage increase.
|
| However the much bigger concern is that people will be scared to
| drive there. Currently you can drive there, have a pint, and then
| go home, and be confident you're not triggering the limit.
| They're reducing this limit, which means no more trip to the pub.
|
| I'm sure it's fine in big cities where people live in walking
| distance.
| jdlyga wrote:
| UK only
| leapingdog wrote:
| England & Wales only. The website is a response to new business
| rates (taxes) arriving this year.
|
| Scotland, Northern Ireland & the rest of the world play by
| different rules.
| lacoolj wrote:
| Am I the only one that has no idea what this is talking about?
| Even the "About" section just dumps a ton of jargon about
| something being a problem for "pubs" - which, very unclear from
| the homepage, is actually talking about bars/places to drink
| beer/etc in the UK.
|
| But again, now I know it's talking about _that kind of pub_ ,
| what is the actual issue? Some sort of rate being added to
| something? What rate? Is this related to a rating system? Taxes?
| Is it affecting the consumer? The owner?
|
| So confused.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Nope, I have utterly no idea what "rate increases" are being
| referred to. Doesn't seem to have a single explanation or link
| anywhere that I can find.
| rzzzt wrote:
| A form of property tax it looks like, charged on businesses:
| https://www.gov.uk/introduction-to-business-rates
| alexfoo wrote:
| To be fair, I'd say that most people in the UK who would be
| interested in the contents of this site are aware of the
| context and know what phrases like "rates increases" actually
| mean.
|
| It's been in the news quite a bit over the years since the
| pandemic.
|
| Not every site has to provide an ELI5.
| crazygringo wrote:
| The homepage doesn't even say it's about the UK.
|
| For a generic ".com" domain that isn't American, it's
| generally a good idea to yes, have a kind of minimal hint
| that tells you at least which country it's about, and at
| least a single link you can follow to get the broader
| context.
|
| I'm following a link to it on HN. When I get there, I have
| zero context. Visitors to your site can come from anywhere,
| so it's generally considered a good idea to provide basic
| context.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Man, it's weird being an American sometimes.
|
| I do not drink. I am half Irish and half German.
|
| Drinking is a _very_ weird cultural artifact from our past. It
| doesn't improve your life, it has been scientifically proven to
| not 'help you relax', and there may in fact be no safe amount of
| alcohol to drink; all the pop-sci headlines that say 'one glass
| of wine a week may improve your health' are really about studies
| that put the safe max at one glass per week.
|
| From what I can tell, the UK is no longer subsidizing what is
| effectively a criminal enterprise that is centuries old.
| danielfoster wrote:
| With all due respect this opinion verges on neo prohibitionist
| alarmism. The social benefits of alcohol have been widely
| acknowledged and at a time when we are all spending too much
| time at home on our phones (arguably worse for health than a
| pint), communities need more social spaces. That place may not
| necessarily be a bar and it's perfectly fine if you don't wish
| to drink, but it's a bit much to refer to a cultural product as
| a criminal enterprise.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Many people have written what you have written, trying to
| justify their life choices to strangers on the internet.
|
| None of them have ever explained why alcohol, or any drug
| use, needs to be part of third spaces.
|
| Society is losing third spaces, largely due to unchecked
| capitalism eroding the society it serves... but 'pubs' are
| just another form of rent-seeking by landlords. It has been
| proven without a doubt that third spaces as a commercial
| venture is ultimately non-functional, yet that is what pubs
| and bars have always been, and now they are dying out.
| danielfoster wrote:
| Again, with all due respect, I'm not seeing how my comment
| is pushing a "life choice" on anyone, and the movement to
| restrict alcohol consumption equally qualifies as pushing a
| life choice on someone.
|
| Commercial pubs have existed for hundreds of year. But
| drinking doesn't have to be commercial. In Berlin where I
| live there's a non-profit hacker space that has a bar with
| at-cost drinks. It's also perfectly legal to buy a beer and
| sit in the park. And of course, nothing is better than
| having friends over for a wine tasting.
| 9rx wrote:
| _> None of them have ever explained why alcohol, or any
| drug use, needs to be part of third spaces._
|
| Third places need to have some kind of draw, else nobody
| will show up. "If you build it, they will come" is for the
| movies. In the real world you need to have a compelling
| reason to have others come in your door. Space alone is not
| sufficient to establish a third space.
|
| That draw doesn't necessarily have to be alcohol (or
| another drug), but it was the thing that many people used
| to want. Threatening use of a third space by fear of the
| wrath of a mighty deity only buys you one day out of the
| week, I'm afraid.
|
| You're quite right that people no longer want alcohol like
| they used to. Why nurse a hangover when you can get the
| same dopamine rush scrolling through TikTok at home from
| the comfort of your couch? This means that many third
| spaces of yesteryear no longer serve a purpose, and as you
| call out, have closed as a result.
|
| Which is all well and good, I guess, but some segment of
| the population still wish that there were third spaces for
| them to exist in. Trouble is that they've never been able
| to find anything as compelling as alcohol used to be across
| large swaths of the population, making a different kind of
| third space of the same scale a complete no-go. Trying to
| salvage the remaining alcohol-centric third places is the
| only path they can see to try and relive that glory.
|
| Of course there are plenty of alcohol-free (or at least not
| alcohol focused) third spaces that revolve around niche
| interests, but these are generally not seen as a good fit
| for those who don't have that particular niche interest.
| Alcohol was historically so successful as the foundation
| for a third space because, once upon a time, nearly
| everyone was interested in it, bringing everyone in the
| door.
| volkl48 wrote:
| The book "Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our
| Way to Civilization" would be a good read for you, should
| you wish to consider alternative viewpoints.
|
| --------
|
| Distilling what I remember about an entire book I read a
| couple years ago into a HN comment is difficult, but one of
| the more salient notes from it is this: Adult humans are
| naturally suspicious of others and slow to trust,
| particularly those they have no existing points of
| connection to. In contrast - children have much lower
| inhibitions in this sense and are much better at this.
|
| Alcohol, in moderation, is one of the most effective tools
| in humanity's arsenal to more easily socialize with and
| create trust with total strangers.
|
| The "reduction of inhibitions" we are all aware of in terms
| of being a risk of making negative choices, also serves to
| greatly reduce inhibition of the average adult to new
| interactions and experiences.
|
| It is difficult to achieve this result in adults otherwise,
| especially in terms of a single activity with low
| investment required in time, money, facilities, and
| commitment.
|
| --------
|
| It is likely that as we transitioned from a society where
| adult encounters with total strangers were rare
| (tribal/village) to common (urban) that alcohol played a
| pretty significant role in creating the social cohesion for
| it.
|
| It is not at all clear that we have found some successful
| alternative to this, and we may well find that even with
| all the documented downsides of it, we're worse off as a
| society for moving away from it.
|
| -----
|
| Again, this is my recollection of a book I read a couple
| years back - don't take this word for word. I will also
| note that it's not all rosy and has some thoughts on the
| types of consumption we should probably discourage as well
| and the general risk/reward of alcohol in society.
| xhevahir wrote:
| What's especially American about this remark isn't the
| experience of consuming alcohol in public. What is
| characteristically American, I think, is the assumption that we
| can pronounce a thing good or bad merely on the basis of its
| effect on the individual, with no regard for one's
| relationships with other people. Drinking in a pub is a social
| activity, and the alcohol is a lubricant for that activity.
| Yes, doing too much of it can cause great harm; doing _any_
| amount of it could cause _some_ harm; it does not follow that
| the thing is a net detriment to society, and that it should be
| banned.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Maybe it is that way for people in the UK, or maybe people of
| a certain age group.
|
| However, I am, as I said, an American, but also a Millennial.
| For many Millennials, drinking _isn 't_ a social activity, it
| is a form of quiet shame. We saw our parents and aunts and
| uncles and grandparents destroy their lives because of
| alcoholism, we lost friends and family because of being
| victims of drunk drivers, we saw people die of complications
| of a lifetime of drinking.
|
| A lot of us simply chose not to repeat those mistakes as
| those mistakes effect the people around us in grave ways.
|
| If anything, drinking is an anti-social activity, even if you
| do it entirely socially.
|
| I just don't see the point in keeping it around.
| ivvve wrote:
| It sounds like you don't understand what a pub is like.
|
| Whilst this is definitely not what's it's like, this quaint
| video is all about the lineage of the pub in the UK, and
| explains the third-spaceness of them, which I'd argue still
| exists[1].
|
| Pubs are so important for our communities in the UK, whether
| that's watching the game, seeing a friend's band, celebrating a
| birthday or just catching up after work.
|
| Many of the parts of my life have been lived in a pub. If it's
| criminal, I'd happily be locked up. Or maybe lock me in, a
| sadly rarer occurrence these days.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/_GCcoaSq3x4?si=QunsiKqk4D4IRV0M
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Exactly, designing a 'third place' that isn't alcohol focused
| seems to be a tough nut to crack. Alcohol greases the wheels
| for socialization and is a highly profitable item for a place
| to sell that keeps the lights on (people may have several
| drinks an hour, drinking leads to more drinking both in the
| long and shot terms, etc). Meanwhile a typical coffeeshop
| here in seattle is, aside from the espresso machines, is a
| near silent library-like space. Many people heads down in a
| book or a laptop. Instead of having a few drinks per hour you
| instead may have a single coffee and maybe a pastry or
| sandwich.
|
| If someone opened a social space with maybe a kitchen that
| let you pay by the hour to hang out, credit for kitchen
| orders. All the other bar/pub accoutrements gaming (darts,
| pool, shuffleboard, pinball, whatnot), sports on the tv,
| whatever .. I still don't think people will go for it.
|
| I think the only non-boozy option that comes to mind is the
| small town diner but those are thin on the ground.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Here is what I will say. Drinking certainly is not a healthy
| choice. However hanging out with your peers for a few hours a
| night in public certainly is.
|
| Unfortunately I haven't found any place that cracks that
| problem in america, especially into the later hours. There
| isn't really a place for people to hang out and socialize
| without it being a boozy bar. As someone who doesn't really
| enjoy drinking I don't even really want to go to
| boardgame/chess/trivia nights at bars because I feel like I'm
| freeloading. ( I imagine any given bar patron is having 1-3
| drinks per hour and potentially ordering some food if that is
| an option. I might order some food and have a soda...)
|
| I assume part of the problem being that alcohol has the helpful
| side effect of greasing the wheels socially. Coffee houses that
| are open late are generally library like affairs, a lot of
| people sitting around on laptops or with books, any attempt to
| start a more social night is, in my experience, refused because
| of this.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| Kinda wish there was some way to quickly scroll through the
| pages... Also data seems to be different when ordered by
| different values?
|
| When ordered by RVPS there are 43703 entries with data. Most
| negative RVPS change is -PS137,500 for 33 Main Road
|
| When ordered by RV% there are 43303 entries with data. Most
| negative RV% change is -87.0% for PAVILLION HOTEL
| sleepybrett wrote:
| For a dumb american, what is a 'pub rate'?
| leapingdog wrote:
| A tax based on property value.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgjwgzwe2eyo
| bodge5000 wrote:
| somehow my local, which is pretty dodgy, is doing fine. I need to
| driving distance to find one thats fucked, and Im not even in a
| well funded area
| philo23 wrote:
| Kinda meta, but this is the first time in a long time where I've
| put only the first half of my postcode in expecting it not to
| work and been surprised. Most of these "find your nearest XYZ"
| site require the full postcode which is just unnecessary unless
| you're looking for a fairly precise location. A full postcode can
| narrow your location down to an individual street, so its nice
| not to give too much away if you can.
|
| For anyone not in the know, UK postcodes are made up of two
| parts: a general area (the outward code) and then a more specific
| one (the inward code.) Generally speaking a postcode + house
| number will be good enough to get a letter delivered to the right
| place, though the sorting office might not be too happy with
| you...
|
| The format [0] is roughly: AB12 3CD, though the number of
| letters/numbers on the left side can vary a bit. As far as I know
| the second set of numbers is always 1 digit though, so that's how
| you can easily split the two sides of it to format it nicely.
| There's a couple of special ones that break the rules though.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdo...
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