A ladies' hour to beat that indecision

Building a ladies' hour into nights out in Wigan, Lancashire, could halve waiting time at the bar, according to a computational flow dynamics professor.

Tony Callaghan, licensee of Number Fifteen in the town's King Street West, admits he was horrified to discover he was sitting next to the scientist for eight hours on a flight, but found himself engrossed.

They reached the conclusion that scheduling a ladies' hour into the busiest nights of the week was scientifically likely to make a bar busier but more efficient.

"I talk to anybody, but I thought I'd opened my gob once too often when I found that the bloke next to me was not only German, but also a professor of computational flow dynamics - and I only remember that because I wrote it down," said Tony.

"I thought he was something to do with automated ice-cream machines, but he was much more interesting - a real problem-solver."

The scientist explained that encouraging women to come in en masse slightly earlier than men would make a bar run far more smoothly.

Tony added: "It's scientifically proven that more than 80% of ladies haven't decided what to drink by the time bar-staff approach them. This can result in time at the bar being doubled or even trebled while decisions are made."

By contrast more than 80% of men have decided what to drink before they enter pub premises, and have often already decided whose turn it is to buy a round, and what the round will consist of.

Snifter wonders if this figure would actually rise if a ladies' night were introduced - would the men try to spend more time wooing women instead of wasting time with the boys at the bar?