Transcript PUB! A British institution

The PUB!
A British institution
Prof. Chantal Morosso
Università della Valle d’Aosta
IPRA - Châtillon
pub /pʌb/
PUBLIC HOUSE
A building where people go to drink, eat and meet up
Pubs offer a good choice of beers, wines and spirits and serve
traditional British food at reasonable prices
Gastropubs
Gastronomy + pub
since 1991
Top-notch food
Peculiar and refined interiors
Recommended gastropubs in London
http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/pubsandbars/gastro-pubs-in-london-recommended-London75.html
Pubs!
• Licensed drinking
establishment
• Bar
• Alehouse
• Beerhouse
• Inn
• Tavern
• Boozer
• Hotel
• ‘The Local’
• Den…
Golden rules of pubs
•
•
•
•
•
Don’t wait for a waiter:
you could wait for ages because in Britain
you have to go to the bar to get your
drinks.
Don’t all go to the bar:
in a group only one goes to buy a round.
But don’t wait until everybody has
finished their glasses – buy the next
round while they’re still drinking their
pint.
Don’t be impatient:
get the barman to notice you without
shouting “Barman!” – it would be
impolite. Wait for your turn until the
barman nods or beckons towards you.
Don’t ask for a “beer”:
it is nonsense. Lager, stout, bitter…
A pint or a half (but remember, a half
may just bother the barman!)
Keep your eye on the time:
when you hear a barman shout “Last
orders, please!” it is your last chance to
buy a beer before the pub shuts.
Most pubs still close at 11pm.
London’s oldest pub?
•
The debate about London‘s most ancient ‘drinking hole’ is still raging in the
twenty-first century…
http://www.timeout.com/london/bars/features/272.html
http://thespaniardshampstead.co.uk/#
The Tabard Inn
Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (end of XIV century)
It is a collection of stories written in Middle English, mostly in
verse, told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of
pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark
(London) to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury
Cathedral.
The inn is described in the first few lines as the location where the
pilgrims first meet on their journey in the 1380s:
Bifel that in that season on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At nyght was come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye
Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle
In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,
That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde;
The chambres and the stables weren wyde,
And well we weren esed atte beste
[Are you thinking about any similar Italian literary masterpiece?]
Bingo!
Boccaccio, Decameron, 1349-51
John William Waterhouse, A Tale from Decameron, 1916
Pub culture…
Irish Pubs
The Temple Bar
•“Have
good craic!” (Irish for “good time”)
Pogue Mahone’s
Pub restrictions
• It is not allowed to buy and consume alcoholic drinks
under 18
• Teenagers under 18 are usually not even allowed
into a pub
• In Scotland it is quite impossible to get into a pub
(or a restaurant) with a child, especially after 6 pm!
• In Ireland they seem more flexible about it all…
• “Last orders” time is usually around 11 pm!
Glossary
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Chat over a drink
Meet up
Boozing
Pay a round
A pint of the black
Legless, pissed, bombed (extremely drunk)
Pub crawl
Last call
Binge on beer
Binge drinking