MISSING your local bar during lockdown? Here are five ways to recreate the uniquely unpleasant atmosphere of your beloved watering hole at home.
Paint the ceiling a horrible yellow colour
Despite the fact that no one has been allowed to smoke in them for years, many pub ceilings still bear the nicotine stains of several decades of happy smokers. Recreate this at home by dissolving several chicken Oxo cubes in a tin of white emulsion and slapping it on.
Make the carpet sticky
The sticky trudge across the carpet for another pint is an integral part of the British pub experience. If you have young children, your floor coverings are likely heading towards total adhesion already. Allow them to make their own peanut butter and jam sandwiches for optimum stickiness.
Create a naggingly unpleasant smell
Struggling to remember the aroma of your favourite local? It smells of old, lingering farts, like all pubs have since the smoking ban. To recreate this at home, have a pot of cabbage on a continuous rolling boil whilst occasionally wafting a jar of pickled eggs around.
Never clean your toilet
No pub experience is complete without an unpleasant trip to the toilet. Make your bathroom into a nasty hell hole by pissing copiously all over the floor and scrawling obscene graffiti on the walls, then add one small urinal cake to the loo in a very token effort at hygiene.
Become a pub bore
Every pub has some tedious old duffer perpetually sat at the end of the bar who loves droning on about things like Brexit and potholes. As the pub’s sole customer, this is your role now. Luckily you are also the landlord, so you can kick yourself out when you get too pissed and start shouting about immigrants.