I can get the sound on the advert at the start - but not the video.

It is not really surprising that UK pubs are closing - I have not been in a local pub for perhaps a decade, and I was not a frequent visitor then.

The traditional pub visit was usually to meet up with friends and chat, maybe play a few games of darts, skittles or some other pub game - but it became difficult to find a pub where they had not put in all chairs and tables, so there was no room for games, and there was loud music, probably whatever the people behind the bar were into - so the older generations went elsewhere, or stayed at home.

Now that the younger people stock up on drinks from the supermarkets and go out far less frequently - visiting a pub is often perceived as a low status evening out, with either a drunken brawl or half remembered sexual encounter or both before getting home.

Families fragment far earlier, and settle further apart than 30 or 40 years ago, so there is no younger generation taking over the seats of those who are too ill, too poor, or just can't remember where the pub is any more.

Anne the Pleater