在英国，很多人下班后都是直奔就近的酒吧，在温暖的灯光下把酒言欢，醉醺醺拂去一天的辛劳，然后再心满意足回家。饭后若闲来无事，又会赶往酒吧。许多人搬家找房子，房子的好坏无所谓，倒要仔细打听附近是否有好酒吧。英国人称酒吧为public house，即“公众之家”。然而，随着经济持续低迷，以及啤酒税、禁烟令、高昂的商业提成等原因，酒吧的生存空间逐步萎缩，酒吧文化岌岌可危。
The church can go, long since the absence of worship; the local shop can go, since the distant supermarket’s cheapness is worth the petrol; but the vanishing of a pub means the loss of the beating heart of a community, in town or countryside.[1] A pub can become a sort of encapsulation of place, containing some small grainy photographs, some dog-eared posters for last year’s celebrations, its snoozing cats, its prettiest girls behind the bar and its strangest characters in front of it.[2]
History before the 20th century is scarcely taught in Britain now, but pubs are meant to preserve it. They hold ghosts, myths, the memory of kings. Their loss is also the disappearance of a kitchen, or a sitting room, or some comfortable dim place where there is warmth and a welcome, where a man exchanged his own hearth for another.[3] He was not, however, alone there. In the pub he met his fellow men and, with them, formed a society of musers[4] and drinkers. He mingled with people he might not otherwise meet, had words with them, was obliged to take stock of their opinions.[5] In a highly stratified[6] society of worker, merchant and lord, the pub was open to everyone.
Most pubs retain a peculiarly English blend of socialising and privacy. Regulars prize maze-like or womb-like pubs,[7] tiny rooms and dark corners; for hearths and fires, no matter what the season; for a sense of history in the layers of paper, clutter and paint. In “trendy” pubs people go to be seen, either for their clothes or the sleek cars they have left in the car park; but pubs, like homes, are not about fashion statements.[8] By the same token[9], the building itself often has no importance. What matters is the atmosphere. “Attempts to modernise a pub always fail.”
This being so, many of the great and good[10] are now striving to save the pubs of Britain. Prince Charles, alongside promoting organic biscuits, is desperately concerned that pubs should survive.[11] The last Labour government briefly appointed a minister for pubs. Somewhere in the back of all their minds is that worrying remark by Hilaire Belloc, a Frenchman: “When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.”[12]
In a newly saved pub in Brighton the landlord wants writers to come in and use his Wi-Fi all day, young mums to sit and drink his Fair Trade coffee at elevenses,[13] neighbours to leave their keys and get parcels delivered. He hopes quiz nights[14], popular everywhere, will bring people together upstairs on sofas, rather than sitting on sofas at home.
Britons are not similarly passionate about restaurants, cafés or shops. But by favourite pubs they measure their own lives, and Britain’s condition. They see reflected there, as in a glass, the present blights of social isolation, forgetfulness of history, cultural confusion.[15] Time slows; company[16] gathers; speech is freed; beer flows, like the very lifeblood of the land. Pubs are needed.
Vocabulary
1. 教堂可以消失，既然我们久已不作礼拜;邻近的小店可以消失，既然远处超市货价低廉，值得烧油驱车;但酒吧若消失，则意味着社区会丧失活力，不论在城里还是乡下。
2. encapsulation: 浓缩，概括;grainy: 粒状的，此处指相片不清晰;dog-eared:(书页)折角的;snooze: 打盹，(尤指)白天小睡。
3. sitting room: 会客室;hearth: 壁炉边(被认为是家庭生活的中心)，家庭生活，此处指人们交流生活感悟。
4. muser: 指沉思默想之人。
5. mingle: 与……交往;take stock of: 对……作出判断。
6. stratified: 分层的，形成阶层的。
7. regular: 老顾客;maze-like or womblike pub: 迷宫或子宫一样的酒吧。
8. “trendy” pub: 时尚酒吧，顾客多为时尚界名流;sleek: 造型优美的，豪华的;fashion statements: 时尚展示。
9. by the same token: 出于同样的原因。
10. the great and good: 杰出人士。
11. 背景：英国王储查尔斯倡导有机农业，并创办了有机农场和食品公司，近年来广受欢迎，其明星产品包括由有机小麦和燕麦制造的饼干。
12. at/in the back of one’s mind: 在某人脑海深处;Hilaire Belloc: 希莱尔•贝洛克(1870—1953)，出生于法国的英国评论家、诗人;drown: 淹死，沉没。
13. Brighton: 布赖顿，位于英国南部的港口城市;landlord:(客栈、酒吧等的)店主;Wi-Fi: 无线网;elevenses:(复数形式)上午11点左右的茶点(通常伴有茶或咖啡或牛奶加饼干)。
14. quiz night: 酒吧游戏之夜。
15. 在酒吧里，就像对着一面镜子，人们看到世事的反射，当下人际隔绝的阴郁境况、对历史的遗忘、对文化的困惑。
16. company: 同伴(们)，朋友(们)。