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

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I suspect the phenomenon of completely carpeted pubs is a fairly recent thing, likely dating somewhere between the 50s and the 70s

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.

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Thursday, 15 December 2005 10:58 (twenty years ago)

It doesn't seem to me that there's a clear distinction between pub and bar, it's (guess what?) an continuum. There's one model which says a pub is a public house, i.e. it's an entire building which has the drinking area in one bit and a staff liivng area in another, while a bar is a retail premises.

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".

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 15 December 2005 10:59 (twenty years ago)

Ste, old geezers will go to bars but the point is, if there's not a regular contingent of old geezers in an establishment on a day to day basis, it bain't be no pub.

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:00 (twenty years ago)

Tim do you know any trad. pubs with what could be described as 'modern art' in them?

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:02 (twenty years ago)

Not only does a lovely bit of carpeting make you feel more at home, it cuts down on noise and it also (I suspect) makes you less likely to stub your cigarette out on the floor, thus adding a bit of class to the place.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:02 (twenty years ago)

You only suspect that.

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:06 (twenty years ago)

Steve, The White Horse on Peckham Rye has a series of lovely prints from Tom Phillips's "A Humument" around the walls of the wood panelled back room. Is that the kind of thing you meant?

The Rosemary Branch in De Beauvoir Town used to have lots of wacky sculpture and painting and that but that seems to have calmed down a lot since it's been operated by the same people as the Swimmer and The Approach.

The Approach has an real actual contemporary art gallery upstairs where you can see proper contemporary art, some of which is really good.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:07 (twenty years ago)

Interesting ta.

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:10 (twenty years ago)

"who's turn is it to go to the bar?"
"what? we're already IN the bar, what on earth do you mean?"

pub explodes

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:10 (twenty years ago)

There are a lot of people here who would commit seppuku rather than be considered musical rockists but who are proud to wear their pub rockism on their sleeve.

― Markelby (Mark C), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:15 (twenty years ago)

trish, some pubs have carpet but a disturbing absence of ashtrays. I stomp my cigs out on the carpet.

― Falling down the stairs again (noodle vague), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:16 (twenty years ago)

Oooh, that's a good one.

I had no idea the Rosemary Branch had art, although I did win the pub quiz in their once. I gained an odd reputation amongst the collegues I was drinking with as being some kind of pub quiz genius, but I was just luck y with the questions.

― Anna (Anna), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:18 (twenty years ago)

Perhaps that would be better said as "a bar knows the word demogrpahic, a pub won't understand why it's relevant".

So Wetherspoon'ses would be bars, then?

― RickyT (RickyT), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:23 (twenty years ago)

Yes. As in "dive bar".

― Falling down the stairs again (noodle vague), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:25 (twenty years ago)

Oh damn. Good point Ricky.

― Anna (Anna), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:25 (twenty years ago)

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.

ale is not (cf. v seldom) sold in bars!

haha this could go on for some time.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:28 (twenty years ago)

More arguments for the foundary's pubpshness.

Just because gezzers are shaved bald and rather gay looking does not detract from their geezerishness.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:36 (twenty years ago)

ale is most certainly sold in the 'bars' i've been in

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:39 (twenty years ago)

Ed, the Foundary totally has a demographic, it's always full of arty hippies and the bar staff fit neatly into the same catagory.

― Anna (Anna), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:40 (twenty years ago)

RT the point is that it's a continuum and by some measures Wetherspoon'ses are bars (retail premises for one). I generally do think of Wetherspoon'ses as bars, albeit ones which are done out to look like a version of an old fashioned pub.

The feeling The Foundry gives me is that it's aimed quite squarely at a Trendy Hoxton demographic. Edgy, y'know.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:41 (twenty years ago)

and the geezers are not old enough!

Ste: but how many types? one's not enough

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:41 (twenty years ago)

Steve your ale measure is complete madness, by the way.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:43 (twenty years ago)

Wetherspoons totally do tend to to accommodate a broad range of its local community though.

the thing is that all the factors (architecture/design, 'content'/decor, clientele, range of products on offer, entertainment facilities, general atmos, historical significance etc.) do not stand up on their own as signifiers, but you have to be able to tick enough boxes for a place to be a proper Pub imo.

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:45 (twenty years ago)

That's what I was trying to get at, yes.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:47 (twenty years ago)

(Or, y'know, a proper bar. There's nothing wrong with bars, I don't want to give the impression that I think that if booze vendors do things properly they'll end up being a pub but if they fail then they fall into the category 'bar'. They do different things.)

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:49 (twenty years ago)

gah ilx ate my great post which settled the argument once and for all. Now you will never know the truth.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:50 (twenty years ago)

You couldn't handle the truth.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:52 (twenty years ago)

I agree, but there seems to be a sense out there that a 'good ol' British boozer' is superior to the 'modern bar aimed squarely at young adults' stereotype. And I think people end up defensive and vehement about their ideas of what makes a pub a pub and a bar a bar, though they may well stem from this conditioned and perpetuated notion that the former model is generally 'better'.

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:53 (twenty years ago)

Pubs totally have demographics! Exhibit A = THE INTREPID FOX!

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:53 (twenty years ago)

In the same way that ale is considered better than lager perhaps. (xpost)

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:54 (twenty years ago)

But the Intrepid Fox presumably didn't have that same demographic thirty years ago (assuming it did exist then!)

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:55 (twenty years ago)

OK it probably did

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:56 (twenty years ago)

if it looks like a home from the outside = pub.

there, that's my personal opinion.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:56 (twenty years ago)

bars are just cleaner versions of pubs, that serve fancy cocktails. other places are probably pubs.

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:58 (twenty years ago)

PUB IN A SHED!

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 15 December 2005 11:59 (twenty years ago)

Foundry doesn't do cocktails, is quite dirty, but nor does it look like a home from the outside. Well done to them for fucking around with the parameters anyway!

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Thursday, 15 December 2005 12:00 (twenty years ago)

and pubs generally have more tables, and less sofas

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 15 December 2005 12:01 (twenty years ago)

where is foundry? i don't think i've ever been there.

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 15 December 2005 12:02 (twenty years ago)

it's at the top of Great Eastern St., quite near Old Street tube.

this argument is a lot like the 'what makes a big club?' argument.

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Thursday, 15 December 2005 12:04 (twenty years ago)

big clubs = clubs that are bigger than small clubs.

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 15 December 2005 12:06 (twenty years ago)

how long is a thread?

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Thursday, 15 December 2005 12:22 (twenty years ago)

I am delighted that we have had more Hopkins posts on this thread than in the last year of ILE. I am disappointed that we have got this far in such a precise debate without anyone offering a graph.

Key difference for me is defined by their answer to this question: "Can I have a pint of bitter please?"

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 15 December 2005 13:24 (twenty years ago)

70 posts xpost

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 15 December 2005 13:30 (twenty years ago)

wrong

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Thursday, 15 December 2005 13:37 (twenty years ago)

oh steve i see what you meant now re: big clubs. i thought (i think partly due to the drinking establishment context of this thread) you meant clubs as in nightclubs, dancing places. as opposed to football clubs.

former can be defined by capacity i guess.

latter by spending potential, i suppose.

you can put a number to both, as your definition, and those near the threshold number are medium sized, which are neither big or small, and then the further from that number the bigger or smaller a club they are.

you can do that to define whether a piece of string is long or short, too. using some form of average (e.g. median) value of all pieces of strings in the world.

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 15 December 2005 13:39 (twenty years ago)

three months pass...

this might settle the whole foundry pub/bar thing:

http://www.fancyapint.com/main_site/thepubs/pub2178.html

― toby (tsg20), Monday, 20 March 2006 13:09 (twenty years ago)

If you like the studied junkyard look

Errrrmmm... *studied*? I don't think so.

― Hello Cthulhu (kate), Monday, 20 March 2006 13:11 (twenty years ago)

the FAP site reviewers sound just as much wankers as the people they're deriding on this and many other occasions.

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Monday, 20 March 2006 13:15 (twenty years ago)

i like the picture they have it.

i dont often think about the outside. in that photo, it looks like birmingham 1975

― charltonlido (gareth), Monday, 20 March 2006 13:23 (twenty years ago)

the description from that page sounds fitting for a bar.

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 20 March 2006 13:27 (twenty years ago)

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