These are the opposite of churches. People congregate to drink alcohol and get obnoxious enough to say all the things they really think. Being nasty and aggressive can be blamed on the drink and not them. They wake up with a clean slate, as though having attended confession but without having to love their neighbour or perform good turns.

There is always a busty bar maid at the exact height to enable her boobs to rest on the bar. The unwritten rule is that she wears a low cut top and feels positively insulted if she does not generate a certain amount of sexual innuendo amongst the punters.

There are three main categories of public house.

• Large restaurant pubs run by big breweries with indoor play areas full of plastic shiny balls. The food is hot and damp with breadcrumbs and a salad bar consisting of potato salad, rice, tinned sweet corn and urns of creamy dressings. Parents feed their families and get plastered while the kids wee down the slide and chuck the balls at each other.

• Cosy taverns with log fires where people in villages gather to discuss cattle prices and the barn dance. An ancient local character, who has been coming before any of the staff or regulars were born, always arrives at the same time and drinks from a special tankard. When he arrives everyone goes quiet and listens respectfully while he says ‘oooargh’ or ‘urrrrhahagha’ in case they miss some deep wisdom.

• Pubs with wall sized TV screens showing football matches. Nobody can hear anything so ordering is done by mime. Everyone stares towards the screen with glazed eyes until a goal is scored whereby everybody shouts and waves random muscles in the air as the staff duck. Occasionally there are live bands – ranging from spotty teenagers with jean bottoms hanging off their knees, droning about annn-ar-key, to sixty-year-olds in black and white outfits clattering their teeth to Bill Haley songs.