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Suspiciously cheap pints and other ways Wetherspoons has you by the balls

YOU vowed never to return to one of Tim Martin’s watering holes, but here you are crawling back yet again. This is how Wetherspoons has you in a chokehold.

Suspiciously cheap pints

You’ve been to Wetherspoons loads, but every time the barman charges you little over two quid for a pint of Doom Bar you can’t help but blink in disbelief. You’d be forking out at least twice that amount in a proper pub. It’s almost cheap enough to make you forget how Tim Martin threw his employees under the bus during the pandemic.

Convenient location

You could trek to that lovely independent bar at the edge of town which isn’t owned by a blowhard gammon you swear you despise, but it’s miles away. Wetherspoons, on the other hand, is right next to the bus station, so you’re left with no choice but to go there. What else are you supposed to do, stick to your morals? Not likely.

No bullshit Sam Smith pub rules

Wetherspoons might be a bleak corporate bastardisation of real drinking houses, but at least they don’t forbid you from connecting to the wi-fi or glancing at your phone like in Sam Smith pubs. It’s just as well because nobody should be forced to confront the reality of a Wetherspoons carpet without a screen to distract them. That would go against your human rights.

It hooked you when you were young

Just like cigarettes or a pornography addiction, Wetherspoons got its claws into you when you were an impressionable teen. You may even have developed a Stockholm syndrome-style attachment if you spent every weekend of your A-levels in there drinking pitchers of Blue Lagoon. You know you should go cold turkey, but you’re also worried your body couldn’t cope without steak club Tuesdays.

They’ve killed the competition

Like a ruthless apex predator, Wetherspoons has established dominance by wiping out the competition. You aren’t really its customers, you’re the prey it has allowed to live so it can drain your money and life force like a parasite. And in return it mocks you by giving you a cold beef madras, which you dutifully shovel down because there’s no point in complaining.

Six rooms middle-class people think they need in their houses

MOST people get by with just enough rooms for basic life activities. Not so the British middle class. Here is a list of unnecessary living spaces that are vital to their existence.

Utility room

Middle-class families know they are nothing without a room dedicated to slightly dirty clothing. While most people just let laundry pile up then bung it in the machine, well-heeled families need a room solely devoted to a tumble dryer and big sink. Recently UNICEF warned that a middle-class child growing up without a utility room is technically living in extreme poverty.  

Pantry

The larder’s posher relative, the pantry is a place to store food that simply cannot be stored in the kitchen or it will… we’re not sure. Explode? The pantry is a reflection of middle-class families’ relentless desire to hoard tins of Italian things. And to keep your actual kitchen cupboards useable you need somewhere for foodstuffs that are aspirational but only a masochist would actually eat, eg. bags of red quinoa. Also, Nigella has a pantry. Enough said.

Playroom

If you loved your children and valued the developmental importance of play, you too would have a room dedicated to the joy of childhood. It would also get rid of the endless Hot Wheels paraphernalia and nerf guns clogging up your house. The middle classes are onto something here, but they also don’t realise you can just put the telly on, thus removing the need for play altogether. 

Boot room

Not content to leave their shoes abandoned by the back door for the next person to trip over, like normal families do, middle-class families need a room solely for their shoes. And not even shoes – boots. Either hiking boots for country walks no one really enjoys, or Wellington boots for other wholesome outdoor crap. They particularly love this room because it sounds like the kind of thing they would find at a National Trust property.

Snug

Middle-class families love having living rooms full of books they are yet to read and a piano only dad can play a bit, badly, which means the telly has to go somewhere else, which is the ‘snug’. Aptly rhymed with ‘smug’, this room contains a couple of really comfy modern sofas and an olympic size TV. Obviously you don’t call it the TV room. If you’re going to be that common you may as well replace the labrador with a snarling Staffie and get your baby tattooed.

Garden office

Do you honestly expect them to work from home in a non-work-dedicated workspace? How could they do their admin job of questionable value to society at the kitchen table? It’s literally unthinkable. And without a garden office, where would the man of the house go to sleep when they inevitably have another vicious marital row caused by the stress of paying for all these rooms?

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