A Pearl in the Ocean of Piss-Poor Pubs.

What a Relief for Drinkers AND Dogs - a Lava-tree.

My pub - for even if I don't actually own it I have spent enough in there to buy the place five times over - is a brilliant pub! It is what a pub should be.
The secret of its brilliance lies just as much in what it doesn't have as in what it does. For instance, when you walk through the front door, no-one looking like an extra from Rainbow accosts you, grinning inanely, and asks "Have you been to a Harvester before?" There are no plastic plants, no pseudo-trendy, shite prints on the walls, no collections of jumble sale books no-one would ever want to read on the shelves and no rows of hideous ornaments or brass bedpans. No-one behind the bar wears a uniform, is unable to pull a pint properly or insists on asking at the end "Is there anything else I can get for you?" (Yeah, out of my face!)
My pub serves food but there are no 3ft-high boards plastered around the place telling you how to order and then listing exactly what will happen after you have done so - the customers have clambered sufficiently high enough up the evolutionary ladder to understand the complexities of "Can I have some food?", "Yeah, we'll bring it to you." Once you've ordered, you don't have to put a little, numbered model of Lord Mountbatten or the battle of Kursk on your table so the staff will remember what you are waiting for. No-one says "enjoy" or "have a nice day" once the comestibles have been dished out.
There is no 287-yard-long bar staffed by the other kind of barman prevalent in today's suppers - a lone, adenoidal youth who refuses to serve and who spends all his time trying to chat up some hideous, bloated, young, acne-riddled tart squeezed into an outfit too tight for Barbie.
There is also a complete absence of a "ballpool" full of screaming kids, all throwing up over each other and running around with rubber tomohawks.
Finally, it is not called "O'Flaherty's", "The Didgerydoo", "Pseudo Sam's Saloon" or any other such purile fucking name with the brainless theme carried on inside in an effort to make it stand out - from the 23.5 million other brainless "themed" pubs around the country.
What "my" pub does have, however, is great, fucking beer! Guest ales which are changed regularly, a gaffer (No Surrender Gav) who knows how to let the beer settle before serving it up, who knows how to clean the pipes out and then flush them through afterwards and who, together with his lovely missus, Jaki, cooks lovely grub on the premises, spurning the mass-produced, microwaveable, portion-controlled muck available everywhere else and given ridiculous menu write-ups involving words like "lovingly", "piquancy" and "hint".
There are lots of little rooms and snaking passages between them, there is live music at least once a week, a beer garden, a covered, benched area outside for us smokers when the ban comes in and one of the finest jukeboxes in the Western world - the music is piped into just two rooms so that if you are not in the mood you can enjoy a chat or some peace and quiet everywhere else.
You can take your dogs into the covered, smokers' den. Hell, there is even a tree growing out of the middle of the gents' to cater for them! There is certainly no notice on the bog wall proclaiming that "these facilities were last inspected at 12.08pm by Darren" (who did indeed look at them - but couldn't be arsed to clean up the sick, mop up that sea of urine or collect the used johnnies floating in it!)
What is the end result of all this? Loads of people use the pub, people of all ages. There are no scraps, no exhibitions of vomiting - just a great atmosphere provided by great people.
When the four-minute warning sounds you'll find me in there. Grantham can have all the chain boozers. If you find yourself in one of them on that final day though, be warned. It'll take more than three and a half minutes to get past either the "Have you been to a Harvester before?" bollocks or the "Fuck off, I'm talking to my bitch" routine. Not much time for a sup to bid farewell to Thatcher's Britain.