Save Our Pubs {please}

Book warns of last orders for ornate boozers“, writes Polly Curtis
in the Guardian.

English Heritage document the 250 alehouses still left replete with their original Victoriana glories (inc. London’s Black Friar, the first theme pub, back in 1905).

Bill Bryson’s verdict?

Every old Red Lion pulled apart and plasticised and renamed the Frog and Orange diminishes us.

Not entirely sure about all uncritical narratives of the ‘old pub best’ approach, but Liverpool’s Philharmonic certainly sounds a better option than yet another dreary chain outlet.