The Lemon Fool

GaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

Out last night for a friend's birthday celebration at a local rural gastropub. Another year older and deeper in debt, as they say. Should have been a chance to catch up with friends who I haven't seen for a couple of years.

Well, I saw them all right, but I couldn't hear a bloody word they said. The last time I was in that pub, it was all carpets and curtains and flock wallpaper and big comfy chairs. Now it's bare walls, bare floors, hard chairs and hard surfaces everywhere. Acres of pale grey paint, ever so modern, it is. And christ, the echo!

Seems to be pretty well standard in any eaterie that isn't going bust these days. Oh well, times change. In fact it was almost bearable until the hen party arrived at the next table. Seven of them, 40s to 60s, sharing eight bottles of wine. We should have given up and gone home at that point, but after a while we almost got used to the decibel level, and we thought we could carry on. Then they upped the ante, and the real cackling and yelling started.

It was a small mercy that they didn't actually break out into a cat-call rendition of Mamma Mia, but you get the idea. By the time we'd bailed out, collectively four or five hundred quid worse off, we couldn't remember much of what our friends had said because we hadn't heard most of it while they were sitting at the table just eighteen inches from our noses. If that's the future of pubs, I'm not sure I'm going to be buying any shares in the trade. Harrumph.

BJ

Not just the future of pubs but the future it would seem of most modern restaurants. I can cite a few in Edinburgh where I eat out quite a lot which are like that. The number where we can sit have a nice meal and comfortable conversation are diminishing fast.

Dod

bungeejumper wrote: Seven of them, 40s to 60s, sharing eight bottles of wine
[...]
By the time we'd bailed out, collectively four or five hundred quid worse off,
[...]
If that's the future of pubs, I'm not sure I'm going to be buying any shares in the trade.
BJ

I dunno, they sound quite a revenue stream to me

bungeejumper wrote:GaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

Out last night for a friend's birthday celebration at a local rural gastropub. Another year older and deeper in debt, as they say. Should have been a chance to catch up with friends who I haven't seen for a couple of years.

Well, I saw them all right, but I couldn't hear a bloody word they said. The last time I was in that pub, it was all carpets and curtains and flock wallpaper and big comfy chairs. Now it's bare walls, bare floors, hard chairs and hard surfaces everywhere. Acres of pale grey paint, ever so modern, it is. And christ, the echo!

Seems to be pretty well standard in any eaterie that isn't going bust these days. Oh well, times change. In fact it was almost bearable until the hen party arrived at the next table. Seven of them, 40s to 60s, sharing eight bottles of wine. We should have given up and gone home at that point, but after a while we almost got used to the decibel level, and we thought we could carry on. Then they upped the ante, and the real cackling and yelling started.

It was a small mercy that they didn't actually break out into a cat-call rendition of Mamma Mia, but you get the idea. By the time we'd bailed out, collectively four or five hundred quid worse off, we couldn't remember much of what our friends had said because we hadn't heard most of it while they were sitting at the table just eighteen inches from our noses. If that's the future of pubs, I'm not sure I'm going to be buying any shares in the trade. Harrumph.

BJ

I hear ya brother

viewtopic.php?p=572883#p572883

Yeh, carpets and soft furnishings are a rarity these days. We aim to get to places early, say 6pm rather than 8pm when the noise levels are crazy. I might have been old before my time becuase I never saw the point of Hard Rock Cafe when I was in my twenties, couldn't hear anything then.

Totally agree with all the above. I first noticed this trend to hard floors and other surfaces resulting in a very noisy environment in pubs and restaurants about 20 years ago. Nowadays the tinnitus kicks off very easily once a place fills up and everyone shouts to make themselves heard, so I wear discreet ear protection always, when this begins to happen.

Sitting in a noisy pub unable to hear what people are shouting at each other clearly enough to understand what they are saying is a very isolating experience, ear protection or not. Back in the day when good restaurants had carpets and quality food was prepared, it was a lovely quiet and civilised experience (almost religious!) with everyone able to talk at their tables in normal speaking levels. But not nowadays.

My hearing is pretty good (I think), but in pubs etc I cant hear a bloody thing. So if someones trying to talk to me I either have to try lip read (i.e. not look them in the eye - which can be dodgy if its a female trying to talk) or turn my head so theyre bawling in my ear (spittle risk).

The 3rd option is the Jurassic Park frog DNA approach where I hear the odd word and my brain fills in the blanks to produce the hearing version of a somewhat flawed velociraptor. The key is to laugh when they're laughing.

*Note* This is not a good option if they're a raving Nazi for example and perhaps describing their latest 'hilarious' adventures to you.

There was a very expensive reaturant we used to go to but it was bliss. Carpets, soft furnishings and tables quite some distance apart. Le Gavroche, about to be RIP.

It's kind of a vicious circle.

CliffEdge wrote:It's kind of a vicious circle.

You’re right. Age of itself engenders (neurisoral) discriminatory hearing loss [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK225/], and so does exposure to loud noise (the reason that heavy industry workers/heavy metal concert-goers suffer badly). So, being older and having to have the volume up to be able to “hear” is a double-whammy.

I'd just be really happy if my local would ban groups of women who come in and shriek at each other over a bottle prosecco, to everybody else's detriment, and loner males who come in, buy a pint of Stella then sit watching YouTube videos at loud volume.

Dicky99 wrote:I'd just be really happy if my local would ban groups of women who come in and shriek at each other over a bottle prosecco, to everybody else's detriment, and loner males who come in, buy a pint of Stella then sit watching YouTube videos at loud volume.

Totally agree.

The very best pubs though, are the empty ones where I can sit quietly with a pint of Scruttock's Old Dirigible on the way home by myself with no noise pollution in there from anyone else at all.

Curiously though, this type of pub seems to keep closing. I can't work out why...

bungeejumper wrote:If that's the future of pubs, I'm not sure I'm going to be buying any shares in the trade. Harrumph.

BJ

Its the future of SOME pubs.

Plenty of pubs ablout for decent conversation

Didds

PS which pub/restaurant was it BJ ? wondering if its anywhere I know/already avoid!

Wasn't it always ever thus? When I much younger in the 80s there was a group of about a dozen mates who would go drinking in town at the weekends. 3 of us started to breakaway, would take shifts as designated driver to go and find nice quiet traditional pubs. The high street circuit pubs which we'd endure to be part of the group, we found noisy over crowded and they couldn't keep their ales properly preferring to sling lager quickly.
Though a local rural gastropub isn't where I'd expect to find rowdy hen parties.
I'll admit I have been part of a large noisy group celebrating in what is usually a nice civilised Chinese restaurant in a local town.

kempiejon wrote:Wasn't it always ever thus?

Up to a point.

When I much younger in the 80s

When I too was much younger in the 80s, pubs had smokers in them. Horrible noisy pubs tended to have lots of smokers, so the noise was by comparison an insignificant deterrent to going anywhere near them.

Tedx wrote:My hearing is pretty good (I think), but in pubs etc I cant hear a bloody thing. So if someones trying to talk to me I either have to try lip read (i.e. not look them in the eye - which can be dodgy if its a female trying to talk) or turn my head so theyre bawling in my ear (spittle risk).

The 3rd option is the Jurassic Park frog DNA approach where I hear the odd word and my brain fills in the blanks to produce the hearing version of a somewhat flawed velociraptor. The key is to laugh when they're laughing.

*Note* This is not a good option if they're a raving Nazi for example and perhaps describing their latest 'hilarious' adventures to you.

I've had this problem since I was young. Although hearing tests always showed my hearing to be normal, I've always had great difficulty in understanding somebody if it's noisy. It's definitely me, since others seem to cope perfectly well. I heard it once called 'Cocktail Party ear' but I'm sure there's a more medical term.

These days, I hate noisy venues with a vengeance. About five years ago, we were having lunch at a place in Huntingdon that I've known for ever, and is deliciously quiet. A guy brought a stepladder in and started putting a large TV on the wall. If looks could kill, about twenty people would still be helping police with their enquiries! I don't think the TV has ever been on.

Re. the Hard Rock cafe comment by another poster, there's a Hard Rock cafe in Malta airport that we always visit while waiting for planes. The music there is just perfect! In fact, probably barely audible for the teenagers.

Steve

kempiejon wrote:Though a local rural gastropub isn't where I'd expect to find rowdy hen parties.

maybe outside of towns maybe the local pub (ie the only ione for 5 miles) is also a "gastropub" because they try to be all things to all people in order to actually survive financially.

So whole it IS a gastro-pub, it may also be the only PUB for miles

You can't fight nature.
Natural Selection is at work; the survivors are those who go appreciably deaf - deaf enough not to be disturbed by pub noise - at say 35, but with some marginal ability to lip-read.
Those expunged are the sad isolated teetotal (and probably tea-total) introspects who, for no good reason, stay at home instead of trawling the pubs in search of conversation
Evolution has balanced pickled liver with introversion.

What was that you said?

tee-total at home, you need to visit an offie before Zooming

Others on here will know more about the new tech that I heard mention of recently which combined with ear buds can almost eliminate undesirable sounds while allowing through the desirable ones.

Sounds like a real game changer depending on how versatile it is. I'm wondering if when I go to the local I can chat to my pal while filtering out his annoying wife