The wonderful power of the pint

Recently, the header "Find love with Maxim — it's cheaper than a pint!' in my email inbox got me thinking.

At university the pint played a big part in our social lives.

There were no mobile phones with which to call or text one another and no internet to search for love. The pub was the hub and what good fun it was. It was the place you went to find love (if you were lucky) and I know my friends and I invested quite heavily in the

early '80s!

It's interesting, though, that a men's magazine feels the pint is significant enough for its headline.

The pint, whether in the pursuit of love, or in the bar conversing with your team-mates after a match, was woven into the fabric of society. The pint brought people together and oiled conversation about all sorts of topics, love included. The place for a pint was a pub or club.

Nowadays, kids grow up texting one other (even when at the same ground playing cricket). They simply do not engage in conversation as we did — they might not even visit the bar after the game.

As the industry loses pint sales per day, are we also losing three of the building blocks of British society — the pub/bar, the pint and the resulting conversation?

I remember going to France on holiday and being shocked how different their bar culture was — thimbles full of coffee, Orangina bottles and the odd half pint of beer in a stemmed glass. My French was not very good, but there also appeared to be less conversation.

The good pub that delivers conversation, banter, pub-related activities — sports teams, for example — and a social pint has to be a positive alternative to sitting at home on the internet, or getting square eyes via the 50-inch flat screen and Nintendo Wii, while drinking cans from

the fridge.

The anti-alcohol lobby might well argue that a few pints of beer are not better for the health of young adults than all these modern, insular activities. I would beg to differ as I know plenty of decent folk all over the UK who grew up conversing over a few pints in a British pub.

I cannot comment on whether paying £2.00 for a dating site is a good investment if you are looking for love, but for a little more than they are asking for it's just possible that you might meet Mr or Miss Right over a pint in a pub! You never know, that's the wonder of pints and pubs.