frank kogan needs to know the diff between a pub and a bar

Naw, Gabor's wasn't pub-like and wasn't a sports bar, just had the game on. "Fuck and Run" was on the jukebox.

You lucky, lucky circle.

Unemployed NYCILXCHIXOR! Let's open this!

[From Television Theme Song]

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot
Wouldn't you like to get away

All those night when you've got no lights
The check is in the mail
And your little angel
Hung the cat up by it's tail
And your third fiance didn't show

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You want to be where you can see
Our troubles are all the same
You want to be where everybody knows your name

Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee's dead
The morning's looking bright
And your shrink ran off to Europe
And didn't even write
And your husband wants to be a girl

Be glad there's one place in the world
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You want to go where people know
People are all the same
You want to go where everybody knows your name

Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came

The first step? Take a flight at Heathrow and flip through the CD racks at the Air Mall. You'll find funny names, lots of cover versions, and more compilations than you can shake an ambassador at. The most famous comp is Now That's What I Call Music! and England's already up to Now 53 in the series. (That's right, we stole the idea.) If you think it's just kids buying sugary kid stuff, go hit a pub anywhere in England. The social space is the blueprint for the product—pubs themselves are compilations. Unlike those American bars that nurture misanthropy by keeping everyone drunk in near darkness, English pubs are often light and spacious. Some even have gardens out back, and many do plenty of business during daylight hours. Families have dinner, students meet for drinks, kids run around the pool table, and gnarled football nuts plunk down an empty glass, walk over to the jukebox and put on Kylie or Robbie at all times of day and night. Yeah, mate, dance pop. Nice beat, I can sing along, the missus enjoys it. Wot are you looking at?

Pubs with "family rooms" classic or dud?

still, good to know that the words to the verses we never hear are so awful

Family room != nursery - as many families seem to think.

like, early in the night, you want PUB. it should be local, it should have old people in, you should ddrink beer, the carpet should be stained and dirty. there should be geezers. there should be plenty seating room to spread out in.

There are no old geezers in the Foundry. There never are. This precludes it from being a pub. There's no carpet either, but this isn't a prerequisite.

Guess I ain't been to a pub. Why would you carpet anyplace where the liklihood of spills is so high as to be mathematically inevitable?

a bar is just one main 'bar' room, or a stupid trendy name that toffs use to call any place where people sit and drink ale.

carpets and geezers are not an issue.

no mention of uncarpeted bars in my post, are you talking to me ?

anyway you misread my post completely if you are. where did i say that no drinking took place in the other section?

The Foundry has plenty seating room to spread out in?

As I said to Matt last night, no old geezers, no pub.

What I think of as the classic model is:

1. an uncarpeted saloon (or public) bar with few tables, often high standy-uppy ones. This is where the serious drinking is done, and where the Real Men are.

2. a carpeted lounge bar where the ladies can sip their gin and tonics accompanied by the unreal men, where you watch your language and sit down at a table and maybe get a bite to eat.

3. possibly some snugs which in my experience are rarely carpeted, poss due to virtual impossibility of getting a vacuum cleaner in and around them.

I suspect the phenomenon of completely carpeted pubs is a fairly recent thing, likely dating somewhere between the 50s and the 70s, when lots of pubs were trying to move upmarket and effectively re-fitted both bars as lounge bars. This may also correspond to larger-scale industrial production of cheaper and more resilient carpets made of modern materials but I know nothing of the history of carpet making and therefore have made this factor up.

I grew up just down the road from Axminster, I've no excuse.

rubbish, there are plenty of places that people class as 'bars' around our way with an abundent amount of old geezers hogging the corners of the bars.

obv brown carpet is the way to go.

Well yeah. The whole idea of wall-to-wall carpet dates from the 50's the the 70's, much less in pubs. That don't make it a good idea. From the 50's to the 70's, wall-to-wall carpet was sometimes even seen in bathrooms. People went goddamn carpet crazy.

Pubs smell romantic and sickly. And sick-y. And like being 17. And like home.

I can't argue with something smelling like home. You love what you love. But my home smells a little less like vomit than yours does, I would guess.

r you might like to say, as Matt and Steve like to, that a pub is a traditional drinking establishment with wood and tables and hand pumps and carpet and (in extreme cases) horse brasses, while a bar is something which looks different and modern.

Or you can say that a pub is an establishment which sets out to accommodate a broad range of its local community while a bar tends to be more demographically focussed. Perhaps that would be better said as "a bar knows the word demogrpahic, a pub won't understand why it's relevant".