The British government has destroyed this, my last illusion, with its proposal for banning below cost alcohol sales from supermarkets using a formula whereby "cost" is defined as VAT plus duty with no allowance whatsoever for production spend.
How can a ban on below-tax selling be a ban on below-cost selling? Not even the daffiest Communist party ideologues would have taken that one on board.
Of course it's a cop-out, but don't blame the multiples. They are just looking after their legitimate commercial interests. Instead blame supine international brewers that cave in to their demands and a government that appears to be frightened of them.
None of this sits comfortably with the cosy reassurances from Whitehall about the future of the British pub.
There's no point in whinging on about it though, especially when our legions of representative bodies seem incapable of making a common cause.
What we must do is make the reality of the British pub live up to the dream. That dream will be very much about beer as beer is central to the pub concept.
That means craft beer of any style, not the stuff that the late great Michael Jackson called "Ersatzenbrau". There are plenty of pubs already living this dream and doing well despite of everything.
Take the Bell at Alderminster for instance, which made history by winning two categories in this year's Publican Food and Drinks Awards or the Draft House group of pubs where owner, Charlie McVeigh has set out, in his own words "to do for beer what our culture has done for wine and food in the past 20 years".
OK, so two swallows don't make a summer but it shows what our trade can do. So let's forget about playing politics and griping about the take-home lot and instead get on with what we're good at.