Lockdown Easing

Lockdown Easing

by | May 16, 2021 | Lockdown, Pub

Pub BarI do not know about you but personally I’m still finding this easing of lockdown still a bit hard to take.

I have tried a few times to sit down outside of a pub and have a drink as according to Boris Johnson we are all allowed to do now.
The trouble is its in the middle of May and to be frank the weather is absolutely appalling almost every day that I am not working and sitting in the pouring rain drinking a beer that is slowly being diluted with rainwater is not my idea of fun. On a lovely sunny day, it would be a different kettle of fish.

Also have you tried booking a table with a restricted number of tables outside at the few places that actually have an outside area or beer garden, to have any chance you have to book at least four to five days in advance, and even then, you are restricted to one and a half hours in which to order your beer drink up and leave. When I am in a large crowd of six or more, we could be there for at least three hours.

Tomorrow is May 17th and we should all be allowed back inside the pubs, but even this comes with problems. Still the obligatory table service must be adhered to, whereby you either give your order to a waiter or waitress and they bring your order to the table, or you order and pay with an app.

Either way an extra 12.5% is added to the bill to pay for the table service. Now I do not have a problem with this in the current climate as the pubs are being forced to work this way and so Someone has to pay for the waitering staff. This is a cost that the pubs can not afford to absorb as they have lost so much trade over the last year, that many are struggling to stay afloat at the moment, and I dare say that many will go under in the next month or two.

12.5% may not sound much but when you are already paying the extortionate London prices, the 12.5% can certainly be felt in the pocket on a good night out.

Good news for street food fans.

Good news for street food fans.

by | Apr 1, 2021 | Lockdown, Street Food

Good news for street food fans.

Good news! As of today, 1st April the Food stalls at Greenwich market are back trading again. Unfortunately, we will have to wait till 12th April at least till the stalls selling non-essential items are back in the main market area.

Gradually life is getting back to normal. Although it may not be a requirement when using the market, it may be a good idea to wear a mask in order to help make sure the advances we have made against this pandemic are not all undone by complacency. It will be inevitable that when the market is back open it will be impossible to adhere to the social distancing rules due to the popularity of this market.

Will we ever learn?

Will we ever learn?

by | Feb 18, 2021 | Corona Virus, Lockdown

Do we ever learn from our mistakes?

Just over a hundred years ago, the world went through another pandemic, the ‘Spanish flu’ when between February 1918 and April 1920 about 500 million people were infected and between a conservative estimate 20 million up to 100 million people died and was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.
Just as in 1918 in the United States where the pandemic originated as patient zero was trace to a poultry farm worker in the US. The President at the time just like Trump did over 100 years later, played down the seriousness of the disease, and The Prime minister at the time just like Boris Johnson followed with the same rhetoric.

At the start of the Spanish flu, counties like Australia and New Zealand closed their borders and enforced a strict level of quarantining and so they got the infection under control and so got back to normality far quicker and with far fewer deaths than the rest of the world.
100 years later the same counties who in 1918 buried their heads in the sand and told their populations that the pandemic is a hoax or is nothing serious are the same counties who are still in denial about the present Covid-19 pandemic and are suffering a horrific level of death and suffering. Australia and New Zealand who once again took precaution immediately have relatively minor levels of death.
Nothing has been learned by Europe, and the US, or most of the South American countries. A thing to note is that most of the countries that are suffering due to denial of the seriousness of the pandemic are lead by right-wing populist leaders, like Trump, Johnson, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Lopez Obrador in Mexico.
Like all populist leaders they come to power promising the earth, knowing full well they can’t deliver on their promises and just tell the crowds what they want to hear regardless of the facts. They are in reality only in it for power, prestige, and money. The trait of a genuine and true leader is what they do in a crisis, and boy is the pandemic a crisis.

Not one of these so-called populist leaders has acted like a true leader, and given priority to their nation’s health over the wealth of their nations. If they had all acted swiftly and with decisive authority right at the beginning and closed the borders and introduced strict quarantining and lockdown, instead of half-hearted token gestures and making dubious on the fly laws that they do not strictly enforce, we would not be in the complete mess we are still in at the moment.

Many people in Australia and New Zealand are perplexed at the British government is only now strictly enforcing quarantine restrictions and still not even partially closed the countries borders a whole year after this mess started. Did we not go through the fiasco that was Brexit to get back control of our borders (something we had all along in the first place) just so we can leave ours open for everyone to just wander in without any sort of testing and the French, an EU country, closed their borders just as they were always entitled to.

Thankfully, although the borders are still open for all, some countries have now been placed on a restrictive red entry list and anyone coming in from these countries must be proven to Covid-19 free and go into forced hotel quarantine for 14 days in an approved hotel at their own expense.
This new enforcement has I’m afraid, come far, far too late in the day. Kind of bolting the stable door after the horse has already bolted. None of this would be needed if we had done this in the beginning.

I need a drink with friends.

I need a drink with friends.

by | Feb 18, 2021 | Lockdown, Pub

The vaccine rollout according to the government is going at full pace and we should all have our first dose by June and our second dose by August. Does that mean life will be back to normal. I doubt it.
Like many of you I cannot wait to walk into a restaurant or a pub without a reservation and sit around a table with as many family and friends as I choose.

The couch potato know it all.
I would like to meet up with bunch of mates for a few pints and just sit and discuss how to put the world to rights. I want to tell them all how every useless politician, football referee, government expert, and professional expert from any sphere of life got it all wrong and how I would do it and sort everything right.

I would actually be talking complete  cobblers while under the influence of the alcohol, and all my friends would know that, and I in turn would have to listen to their alcohol induced bullshit. Oh happy times.

The pub with no beer.
There are rumours that the restaurants will open first and then the pubs, probably with the number of guests restricted to groups who are in the same household bubble, so still no meet up with friends then.
Another rumour going around and one that I find hard to believe is that they will allow the pubs to open but they will not be allowed to serve alcohol. What the point, seriously, what’s the point.
If this rumour is true then then only explanation that I can deduct from this farce is it was dreamt up by some self-righteous politician, who believes the great unwashed cannot be trusted not to start kissing and hugging everyone in sight when they have had a pint or two.
I was wondering. Over the last few decades, the pub industry has been decimated by corporate brewery greed and extortionate excise tax on alcohol products sold on their premises. It’s about time the corporate bully boys and the tax man gave the pubs financial assistance to get back up on their feet after the lockdown has ended. I won’t be holding my breath on that one.

The way forward.
The make up of the great British pub has been changing over the last decade with the introduction on the high street of the Micro pub phenomena.
Around the Welling and Bexley heath area they are springing up everywhere but sadly I think we need a few more in the Borough of Greenwich. We have the fantastic River Ale House in East Greenwich, and The Long Pond and The Rusty Bucket in Eltham and the Plum Tree Beer Shop in Plumstead.
The difference between a micro pub and a brewery tied pub is the variation and quality of the drinks that they offer. In a brewery tied pub you will get the same corporate brewery beer and lager in every freehold or one of their tied pubs.

The small independent micro pubs on the other hand will have frequently rotating variations of beers most of which you will have never heard of, and the excitement is in the test and tasting of a product that is new and not the same as every other beer.
I do not know how these micro pubs will fair once the pandemic is ended, will they still be around? Many were struggling with the restriction already in place before the third lockdown started.
Most during the last set of restrictions were trying to scrape a living by having a take away service but even that option was closed to them at the start of the current lockdown. Some like the Rusty Bucket and the Plum Tree Beer Shop are still doing a delivery service for bottled or canned drinks, but others like the River ale House are not set up for this option so have had to close operations completely.
I cannot see in all fairness how I can walk into a supermarket and buy a crate of beer and go home and drink it, but it’s now against the law to do the very same thing if I buy it from a pub. I personally would have beer being bought from the pub being the only legal option. According to the statistics the nations beer consumption has increased greatly during the lockdowns and the only businesses able to benefit from this situation are the already fabulously wealthy supermarket chains and not the struggling independent pubs. Seems very unjust and unfair to me.

As a paid-up member of CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale), I for one will champion the entrepreneurship of the small independent pubs to the hilt. Cheap prices, fantastic beer and ales, with depth and flavour throughout and with an ever-changing variety that means different beers each week. You can’t get better than that.

Delivered to your door.
One benefit, I think that this could have for the small independent breweries is that as some of the small independent and micro pubs are branching out into the delivery business it is opening up a market outlet for the smaller breweries and giving them a profitable way to get into the home beer delivery market in order to distribute their products and helping the independent pubs at the same time.
One European wide home beer delivery website that I use quite a bit is beerishere.org which gives links to local beer delivery outlets and local brewery direct sales within a specified area around your home postcode, therefore helping to support your local pub and drinks industry.

As soon as the pubs are allowed I will one of the first ones banging at the door to be let in.