I N T E R V I E W

I think the image of Britain as a beer-drinking country is out of date. Britain now is drinking wine at an ever-increasing rate, at the expense of beer and of hard spirits.

What can you attribute this change to? Are they becoming, are British people becoming more cosmopolitan?

Yes, they’re becoming more sophisticated; they travel far more, this generation, than their parents or their grandparents. Also people drink at home far more; they entertain at home. I think a lot of the interest in wine is in parallel with the interest in cooking, because British people are far more interested in what they eat and drink than they were 30, 40 years ago.

Yet the pub seems to have stayed and probably will stay the centre of a community, centre of, of different neighbouhoods, and a place where people meet. Or do you think that the current wine-bar trend is going to overtake the local pub?

Well, wine bars and pubs are different places. You go to them for different reasons. The pub, I think, is a wonderful institution, and every time I go to Europe I think it is wonderful to be in Europe, but it is a pity there are no pubs. Because pubs are good places where you can eat or drink totally casually; everybody uses them. As you say, they have a strong neighbourhood content. Wine bars are more for eating, more for younger people; women go to wine bars far more freely and readily than they go to pubs. So there’s still a certain amount of masculinity about a pub.

I believe there’s a new law that’s going to come into effect in the summertime, when pubs will be able to stay open all day long. Do you think this is a good thing?

There’s (sic) two schools of thought about this. Some people think it will spoil the atmosphere of the pub. But I think it’s a good thing, because it will accentuate, increase a trend towards pubs being more cosmopolitan. Pubs are increasingly serving non-alcoholic drinks and food, because it’s belatedly been realised that you can’t drink and drive. The British have been rather slow to catch on to the fact that you’ll crash your car if you drink too much. But in the last year or 18 months, we’ve found more pubs serving non-alcoholic drinks, and it is all of a sudden now possible to drink a non-alcoholic drink without being seen as somebody with a medical problem or somebody who has strange tastes.

But on the other hand, I’ve read that in this trend towards becoming more continental, more sophisticated, many of the old-fashioned pubs are being redecorated. They’re getting a new look, the sort of trendy, Yuppie kind of look. Do you think that’s going to change the attitude towards pubs?

Well, this has been going on for 20 or 30 years, ‘cause the brewers love spending money on their pubs, to try to make them more fashionable. But the British public, I think, apart from a few youngsters, stubbornly stick to the old-fashioned kind of pub. And it’s noticeable in London that the chain of pubs which is extremely simple and has bare floorboards and has real ale, is the most successful chain of all, and you can hardly get through the door in the evenings.

(from English Super Plus 2, by H.Sommers, V.Vermes. Unit 2A)

UNIT 5

Lesson B

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