Good Company - Good Beer - Bad Politicians

I went out for a quiet drink on Saturday night (yes, I surely know how to live an exciting life).

Senior management gave me a three hour pass, and off I went down the hill. The badminton crowd were gathering at my local, and as I entered the lounge bar, it looked like they had started early.

It has to be said that my local had, until recently, fallen on hard times. The guy who had ran it for 12 years had retired a year or so ago, and the new owners were useless.  However, they in turn sold up, and for the last few months it has got better under the new lot.

So on entering the pub last Saturday, imagine my delight when there was not just 2 real ales on tap - but 4!

Things went very well, with a good time had by all. A few jokes were told, and then two subjects came up.

The first was the Home Information Packs (HIPS) introduced on 1st August. Apparently, this only applies if your house has 4 bedrooms or more. By the third pint we had all agreed that if you had a 4 bedroom house to sell, it would be marketed as 3 bedrooms plus study - end of problem!

The second topic was about the recent decision by the government whether or not Nortumberland should have one or two councils. Polls showed that two was favourite - rural and urban loosely speaking. The majority of local politicians agreed, and "experts" said it was sensible to have two.

So of course the government announced that it favoured one council for Northumberland! (you knew that was coming, right?).

By now I was finishing my fourth pint, and despite this the mellow mood remained. I suppose we all know that the politicians in Westminster pay lip service only to "power for the people", but isn't this what happened to Rome?

I'll see you next month.