Nope, not a music post but more the main problem of being to hear your companion when you go out for a drink.
Bars tend to be more modern and the old fashion boozer is more traditional, a broad generalisation I know but the modern bar/pub has tiled or wooden floors with wallpaper with maybe the odd poster and a lot of space.... Space that loud music and very loud voices bounce around in, making the place lively and busy I guess.
Now, your old fashioned boozer in my experience has carpet, curtains and pictures on the wall, all of which serve to absorb some of the conversation from the next table so I can hear the conversation at mine.
Why with all the money that is spent on expensive refurbs of bars and pubs that no one has bothered to recreate the acoustics so that you can hear folks without having to shout? A lot of bars end up with a group huddled outside and not just the smokers but folk who are trying to have a conversation and a laugh with their mates.
News flash, people love being able to meet up with their mates and catch up, not listen to the folks behind them.
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That's the trouble with all the 'craft beer' bars. It would be nice to have a craft beer pub!
ReplyDeleteThe hubbub of conversation in a busy Wetherspoons can be quite deafening. Sometimes a bit of discreet background music can help neutralise it.
ReplyDeleteThe old designers of pubs knew exactly what they were doing. The fact that pubs are usually more suitable for sociable conversation than soulless, echoing, shiny bars is no accident. I have a book on pub design from the 1970s which makes it clear how much work was put into what we'd probably now call ergonomics and "user friendliness". Most modern bars are designed by trendies who place appearance and "coolness" before any other considerations which they'd dismiss as irrelevant, assuming they are aware of them at all.
ReplyDeleteSadly I think you are right, style over substance.
DeleteI have a book on pub design from the 1970s which makes it clear how much work was put into what we'd probably now call ergonomics and "user friendliness".
DeleteIs that "The Traditional English Pub" by Ben Davis?
Also the way older places are designed to not allow the cold breeze from the doors being opened and shut from freezing the customers. This weekend caught out a few places here, it was freezing with no heating and no insulation!
ReplyDelete@Ed, yes please!
ReplyDeleteWell I'm not deaf and I don't have problems with my hearing but I find busy Wetherspoons especially the bigger echoey ones are impossible. I can't hear people without them shouting and I hate to say it but I think I'm getting too old to bother with it. A seat I can live without but being able to hear I can't.
ReplyDeleteIt depends who you are drinking with. Sometimes it's nice not to hear them.
ReplyDeleteCurmudgeon: yes, that's the one. Interesting, isn' it? I type that knowing I leave myself wide open to a wisecrack from certain quarters.
ReplyDelete@Nev, yes, that book suggests that in the past, at least some pub designers thought seriously about how people behave and interact in pubs. I don't get the feeling that they do that nowadays - so often I go in a refurbished pub and think that something at least is just wrong.
ReplyDelete