Real life | 23 March 2017

‘Mesdames et messieurs, allow me to introduce you to your meals,’ said the waiter.

Oh lordy, I thought. Here we go. We were in a country pub near my parents’ home that used to be a little local place where you could get a Sunday roast for reasonable money. But it has been taken over by a gastro-preneur, whose party trick is to buy a small venue in a Midlands high street where people were perfectly happy being served normal food for modest prices and gastro-pub-ise it until no one local can afford to go there.

Which is not very nice. But given the decline of the pub industry, one excuse you might make for it is that perhaps world-class food will bring inward investment to the area, an influx of bored young executives from West Bromwich, perhaps.

What’s more, we locals can always save up our pennies and every now and then treat ourselves to some haute cuisine to warm our Brexit cockles as we watch the value being wiped off our homes by HS2 carving up the landscape.