lifestyle leader

Last year I reported on the state of pub culture in Britain, and then later on Ireland. Here is the latest news on that front, from an article in this week's Economist:

39 public houses a week are closing... as recession and cut-price beer in supermarkets thin their business. It is not just tenanted pubs that are vanishing: more than half of the pubs boarded up in the first half of 2008 were owned by their managers. Some flourish: JD Wetherspoon, for example, a company that runs about 700 of its own managed pubs, continues to open new ones—35 are planned this year. But Wetherspoon is exceptional.... The pubcos Punch Taverns and Enterprise Inns are having to sell pubs, partly to service huge piles of debt.

The decline of the pub is causing concern in more quarters than corporate suites, however, for public houses have long been part of the fabric of the community. Their position should be shored up, says a new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research, a think-tank, through planning policy, lower business rates, grants and perhaps letting them double up as general stores and post offices.

Interesting idea- but the line-ups (sorry, queues!) at British post offices are horrid at the best of times; do we really want to add beer into the mix?