Negative? Well, maybe the reason why is that I have some friends who lost their life savings, and probably also their marriage, in pursuit of a similar dream - not as publicans, but small scale farmers. Sorry, dunc_30, if you feel I should lighten up, but there is a time for sprinkling a little cold water.

As for a pint - those who know me know that mine is a half - or preferably a cappuccino. I've even been known to buy a round where others are drinking pints, so pm if you want to meet up, to your advantage

Cheeky - 'undermining the profitability of professionally run pubs'. Ask yourself if, as a pub landlord, whether you would welcome having a competitor nearby. A good landlord might welcome having another good pub around, which would lift the area, but he/she might also fear a poorly run pub with the opposite effect, or even if it was good, that it would drive down margins. The argument for keeping pubs open depends on there being enough professional landlords to run them satisfactorily. On Forums such as this it's natural for posters to insist that there are, and to celebrate them when found, but I don't think it gives an accurate picture of the real world.

You suggest all you need is "a bit of common sense, a bit of style know how, a bit of money and not afraid of a bit of hard work", and these are all things we'd like to think of ourselves as having, but, apart from money, they are all things we are quite likely to kid ourselves about.

This post was last modified: 27-09-2013 12:09 PM by Tim Lund.