Bitains Pub Culture
I've known for a long time that Britain has a real pub culture, but until yesterday, I'd never really realised what a bad thing it is.
I'd seen some bad things, but they were the kind of thing to shake your head at, and then move on. For example, seeing a mother bring 2 kids (one in a stroller) into a pub in the middle of the day, then sit down with her mates and start smoking and drinking.
But, yesterday, down at the pub here in Leeds, sitting at the table next to us, in the over-eighteen-only section, was a group of people. I vaguely guessed that they were all about 18-20or so, except for one older lady. They were all drinking, and smoking, and talking of random things - as you do at the pub. But, found out that the older lady was the mother of two of them, a girl and a guy. She turned out to be 15, 16 in 2 weeks. Yet, here she was, at the pub, tattoos and all, drinking and smoking. Finding this out, I had a second look around, and realised that quite a few of them were a bit younger than I first thought. And some of those random conversations were not the kind of conversations that a normal person would have around their mother.
I'm worried.