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It may perplex those that have read this tosh before to find the giddy excitement of pubs reopening. Haven’t I long advocated the prudent fiscal benefits of drinking cheap cans of supermarket lager in one’s own home and then wisely and prudently investing that tuppence saved? The film Mary Poppins may have romanticized using one’s tuppence to feed the birds for tuppence a bag but frankly we all know Mr Dawes of the Fidelity Fiduciary Bankwas correct in regard to the prudent use of one’s tuppence. This type of tuppence based propaganda has long polluted minds and resulted in a high time preference generation of millennials who piss away all their tuppences on iPhone and craft beer related shite and thus never acquire the capital required to become capitalists.


So it was with thoughts of how we halt the decline and decay of western society and return to a low time preference society that values the building of capital goods over consumer goods that I awoke that morning to feel I was missing out on something. I put aside thoughts of writing a children’s book about a heroic young boy called Tim that builds a magical chain of cheap pubs to thoughts of going in to one. Pubs had by all accounts opened from 6am and I could not make it until early afternoon. I confess to rushing my morning tasks. Lockdown groceries were put in my parent’s porch and swift wave given with an alacrity that created the impression of a man on a mission. Trousers were discovered a little too tight after 3 months and thankfully a pair of stretch wranglers were pulled from the back of the cupboard that meant the lockdown trackies would not have to be the uniform of re greeting a post lockdown world.


The fear mongering of those that wish the world would be closed forever were put aside. I knew I had to check out a Wetherspoons. A chain pub that follows a format would give me the first look of how chain identikit pub formats intend to operate in the world of social distance. I also wanted to discover if the #NeverSpoons angry twitter mob of spoons boycotters actually included former Spoons customers. Wetherspoons is regularly boycotted by the woke and worthy who would never step foot in an establishment they see as downmarket anyway. How busy was Spoons? In and around Manchester the Spoons tend to divide into those that are a nice clean pub that seem to operate the format well and then the more sticky tabled, detritus of breakfast still on the floor into the evening, girls arguing outside with bouncers type of establishment. I popped into a sticky tabled Spoons. Of course, I did.



The codger isn't Mudge
Mudge may be a codger but not all codgers are Mudge


I arrived to find myself 3rd in a queue that moved reasonably quickly. A friendly greeter informed me they were cleaning tables and I’d be seated shortly. With minutes I was at a table with barriers separating me from other tables. The pub had been spaced out with fewer tables, barriers and signs. The pub was busy without being rammed. People at tables, couples, groups, lone codgers nursing a pint of bitter. The usual spoons crowd. The predicted bacchanalia of death, if occurring, was not occurring here. Punters were behaving responsibly, giving each other space. Regular working-class people can be trusted, by all accounts, to behave like adults. Now you know. As I app ordered an ultimate burger and pint of Stella a member of staff cleaned the table opposite. I’ve never seen that before. A table being cleaned in Wetherspoons. It took a global pandemic for Timbo to wipe down his tables.


It would be to paraphrase a famous Fosters beer advert to say the pint of Stella was like an Angel crying on my tongue. To take a swig in the steady buzz of overheard conversation is something I had missed. The burger and chips were reasonably decent, but this isn’t a food review and you know what a spoons burger is like. Slightly better than American franchises by means of putting real cheese on them.



Spoons Stella. Nuff Said.


Stella sunk and with Spoons tokens in my pocket I checked out the bar service. There are Perspex barriers and a queuing system with laid out distanced floor markers. The regular Spoons cask beers were on like Abbot, Doom Bar & Ruddles. 2 pale ales were on as guests. I tried both the pales over the course of my stay. Decent, tasty light pale ales of the type that I enjoy but rarely distinguish themselves from each other. Not really worth noting the brewers as the same sort of stuff with different names is a feature of the cask ale market. The price had gone up 11p to £2.10 but a till quirk discounted my beard token pint to £1.49 Neither staff members on either occasion questioned this. I didn’t. So 61p per CAMRA token. Hurrah!




Spoons bitter. Because I am discerning, not because it's half the price of Stella.


One final note. I liked the new format. I preferred it to the old Spoons. Rather than ruin Spoons, personally, this pandemic has in my opinion improved it. I hope it is still unacceptable to the more sanctimonious self-righteous beer warrior though, Spoons ought to remain a refuge from such types. Please, lets keep Spoons a treasured national institution hated by those you never want to meet in a pub anyway.


I wandered off to a Sam Smiths pub and found it closed. This took me past a couple of pubs I rarely go in unless on a pub crawl with others. From my observation they were operating their outside areas safely.


I wanted to check out an independent pub I occasionally frequent. I found them open and not too busy. They had altered the layout of the pub and given it a bit of a spruce up. I had worried a bit that some of my favoured grot holes of old might suffer a deep clean and yes that and a lick of paint. Even a new varnish of the bar tops. The bar staff had returned. The card reader had not turned up, so it was cash only. The wide range of beers had been reduced but enough style wise to suit light or dark beer drinkers. Plenty of foreign muck in the fridges. Plenty of hand sanitiser about. The bar staff using it before and after each transaction and after handling cash. With a more traditional pub layout with few tables to move about bench seating had been marked into distinct sections to allow for patrons to stay distanced. They had managed something I had my doubts over. Maintaining a proper pub atmosphere and a safe environment. A combination of light touch guidance and sensible clientele had maintained a safe pub that retained the atmosphere.



Proper pub pint. In a proper pub.


I got a section of bench next to a mate I know from the CAMRAs and caught up. 3 months is a bit of catching up and a bit of a session ensued. He’d done his research on the pubs of the locale, so I was fully appraised of what is and isn’t opened. Even as the afternoon turned to evening and I and others became more lubricated, distancing was observed. People chatted at a distance. Giving each other space to traverse the pub and go for a slash. I think the staff might have got a few more “and one for yourself” than usual, such was the joy of most patrons to the pub being open. I felt privileged to have joined them and glad I chose there to welcome the pubs reopening.


The last orders bell rang a little early, no one complained. I pottered off leaving my CAMRA buddy and back past the same pubs I’d passed earlier. No drunken problems. Just people sat outside in the drizzle having a fag and holding a pint and chatting at a distance. Bit of a queue outside the Spoons and people wondering whether to bother or try somewhere else.


Super Saturday. Saturday of death. Bacchanalia. It had all gone rather calmly. The newspapers looking for their own narrative would have been disappointed. I hope they picked a different part of the country to find the story they were looking for.



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