BRITISH INNS 6: THE OUT OF AFRICA WINE BAR

THE BRITISH PUB

For centuries the great British Pub has been the traditional centre of social life in most communities. It has been a place to relax, take your ease and enjoy good conversation with friends. These pubs welcomed anybody - old or young, male or female, smoker or non-smoker - to sit and enjoy the simple activities and facilities. In recent years these traditional values have been eroded or changed beyond recognition - many have become little more than glorified eateries, hideous themed bars or [worse] deafeningly loud ‘vertical drinking’ corrals void of anybody over thirty years old. The nationwide smoking ban has just about finished off the normal pub camaraderie. These pieces were written as a tribute to a disappearing tradition, and supported some fictitious Inn Sign designs I made which can be seen on my flickr site. http://www.flickr.com/photos/7911705@N07

This is one of those Inns

OUT OF AFRICA WINE & PIANO BAR

Theme bars have erupted like rampant acne in most UK city centres. They usually offer ‘related’ music of some sort.

'Out of Africa' is close to the cultural heart of Manchester, just round the corner from the Exchange Theatre. Indeed it is the trendy after-theatre watering-hole. The décor is unbearably kitsch - a disgusting mix of tribal art and posters of 'Casablanca' [thus the piano] featuring life-size pictures of Bogart and Bergman. I don't object to the latter because Ingrid has the sexiest lips in the history of film.

The customers are uniformly loud, pretentious and unbearably opinionated. They drink 'designer' drinks - outré cocktails and lagers brewed in obscure countries with stomach-churning additional ingredients. Food is always some species of vaguely appropriate mezze or tapas [though never quite authentic]. 'Out of Africa' serves, for example, Mombasa crab patties and zebra nuggets - with an assurance that the zebra in question absolutely certainly died of old-age – definitely no hunting involved.

I doubt that you'd enjoy the taste and I know you wouldn't enjoy the price.

If you want to spend an evening spouting utter tripe and being listened to with awe, or if you want to pull a brainless but highly decorative bimbo with very little effort, this is the place for you. It is the ego-boost palace par excellence.

Mercifully there are no residential facilities.

Well, who'd stay??