is under lock and key and grizzled vets like myself are banned from the end stools, turning the pages over a pint of porter. Virtual drinks don’t have the visceral tick and bustle of the long-windowed room, the fug and glimmer, the wood tabletop with its scuffs and beer drops, the tapster persona to ponder. These pixel parleys are flat and false and the tech never works as well as it should. And there’s no shared experience, just some slither of a foreign kitchen or second bedroom over the shoulder. It’s a lonely business, wondering how you come over in the low-res LED flicker, serving only to remind me how much I miss those infrequent tramps to my local.
