Hamish Champ: What do they mean "Down with pubs"???

It's not often I'll implore you, dear reader, to check out the website of a rival publication. However in this instance I'm making an exception.

As if the pub sector hasn't got enough to contend with, on the Financial Times' German website there is an 'interesting' take on English pubs (not British, but 'English') - don't worry, you won't have to have a degree in that country's fine language to read the article.

Now of course the writer is entitled to their opinion. They're probably just trying to get a rise out people anyway, and OK, with me they've succeeded, dagnammit.

That said, whoever they is and whether they serious or not, they is by and large talking utter tosh.

In a piece entitled 'Down With Pubs' the virtues of English hostelries are said to be "vastly exaggerated by sentiment and nostalgia", with their stupid names, and "blasting out raucous punk-rock classics of the 1980s", while pint glasses are "filled to the exact pint-marking on the glass and not a drop more…an American barman who poured drinks like an English one wouldn't last a day in his job".

Meanwhile American venues are called 'bar', "as simple, unpretentious and effective as the country and western music that tends to be the ambient noise".

Bizarrely, American ice is "better" and isn't rationed "as if it were butter in wartime London". Our pub regulars are labelled "appalling bores… often prone to chippy right wing views", while American bars "are more cosmopolitan places, drawing people from all neighborhoods (sic) and beyond".

After taking a swipe at English female pub-goers - "the bladdered ladette is a nightly hazard" - the correspondent concludes that "two final words celebrate the American bar: no cider".

Like I said, the writer is entitled to his or her views and I'm not about to start slagging off bars on the other side of the Pond.

There are things we could learn from the Americans in terms of customer service, but they could pick up a thing or two from us too.

Why not cut and past the link below into your web browser and see what you make of the article …

http://www.ftd.de/karriere_management/business_english/:Business%20English%20Down/318283.html