In the guts of it, being British has something to do with romanticising the unromantic. I just did it; some big part of Britishness is loving things that are a little bit crap – not in spite of the crapness, but because of it. This may account for all the wet-eyed prose that lionises stale beer and carpets still caught in the limp, stinking fists of cigarette smoke. Pubs full of sullen old men with skin like fallen apples eulogised as the great social equalisers, as though their very brick and mortar were levelling the playing field. It is not true; neither is it true they’re saviours for the lonely, the disposed, the lost. The pub is not a church. Pubs are better than that. They don’t come with the expectations reserved for restaurants, or the steep bills of a bar. A lot of life happens in them; the wind down after work, the best Friday lunches, the long Saturday afternoons, the lazy Sunday recovery. Pubs hold memories; they’re where we make them. They are not mausoleums but museums, always collecting – or prompting – stories, always there as backdrops for our nights out. Sometimes we make new friends in them; usually we’re…