Chris Maclean: Keep me out of the round please

I suspect I won't be popular for saying this - but I don't like buying rounds.

For some who read this their suspicions may be confirmed. It is amazing how some people can be so unpleasant about the subject. The etiquette about what is right, and what is wrong, is far from definite.

I was introduced to the idea of buying rounds when I first started drinking. The model suggested that, upon entering a pub, one of the group would buy "the round". Successively the others would buy their round. Ideally each person would buy a drink and, at the end of the evening, no one would really be out of pocket.

For the licensee I can see several positive things from this.

Inevitably there would be some inequalities in this. Some people would not have the opportunity to buy their round - or worse, avoid it. Some people would be drinking more expensive drinks, others cheaper ones. You always hope that things evened themselves out - they rarely did.

Many years ago I devised another of Maclean's Laws that suggested that a person who bought their round, but was poor company, was acceptable. A person who rarely bought their round, but was good company, was acceptable. A person who was good company, and bought their round, was an ideal drinking mate but the most undesirable person in a pub was the person who was was bad company and rarely bought the drinks. Dreadful people. We all know some of these.

I don't mind buying the "landlord" & "landlady" a drink. However I do expect that they take a drink and that they then stay around and provide company. I deeply resent buying a drink to discover that they do not take it ("I'll just have 50p's worth" or "I'll have it later") or that, if they do, they then disappear to join others. If they are busy that is understandable. If they are not it is offensive.

Fortunately the days of the old landlord pulling the "innkeeper's roll" out of his pocket - a huge wad of notes taken from the till that are meant to impress others (but, usually, seems to predict the downfall of the licensee). Some licensees believe the till is simply an extension of their pocket. Flashy people buying large rounds of drinks I generally find unpleasant or foolish. They often attract a group of parasitic followers and will assume a level of self importance suggesting their trade is crucial. Most of the time it isn't.

My preferred method is the "whip" - a collective pot where each participant throws in an agreed amount, say, a tenner. This is, in my opinion, the fairest system and, at its best, leaves it in the custody of the landlord until they've spent it.

So why am I so aggrieved by the "round" system? Well two incidents. Firstly I am committed to a meeting one evening twice a week for the next month in a nearby village. It finishes at around ten after which we adjourn to the pub. I can only have one beer because I'm driving. We arrive there but, intriguingly, my colleagues all find something to do involving the boot of their car.

Each time I find myself at the bar first. I spend the best part of twenty quid on a round but, as I have to drive and want to have a beer at home, I'm buying a round with absolutely no prospect of getting it returned. None of the others seemed capable of putting their hands in their pockets. Well I'm sorry but that makes no sense. I now go straight home. The group, and the landlord, lose from this.

The second incident happened last week. I visited a pub where another licensee demanded, as I entered, that I buy them a drink. The etiquette on this is unclear. My belief is that when a friend arrives you, being there already, would buy them a drink. But that night I was badgered into buying a round for a group of people who were unlikely to buy one back and, to top it all, to be harangued by one licensee who explained to me why she had voted for the BNP. And I had bought her a drink.

Buying a round can be, in my opinion, fine for groups of people when it works. When it doesn't it is a hideous process that can drive people from pubs. Thats why I'm currently avoiding two; and it isn't the landlord's fault.