Real Ale, Real Music

As the pubs hit the fortnight mark since they were allowed to re-open, there are signs that amidst the check-ins, the one-way systems, and the plastic screens, some things are returning to a kind of normal.... "Quiet".That has been pretty much the universal answer from each establishment I have visited over the past week or two when I have asked how busy they have been. The odd one may have added a comment like "Saturday was steady away" or "Monday was actually pretty good for a Monday" but the consensus seems to be that it has been pretty quiet for most pubs since  le grand réouverture , with many customers having not yet ventured back. And that view was backed up by a report in the Morning Advertiser which suggested that business was down by 40% in the first week back compared to the same week last year. I can't say I have visited too many different places but they do seem to be each slipping into their own rhythm, and I haven't found any ...

The pubs - or at least some of them - opened up again last weekend. So face mask appropriately donned and hands sanitised, your intrepid blogger caught the bus into town to check out the situation.... Halifax was busier than it had been on the few previous Saturdays when I had been there during lockdown. It had had a weird atmosphere in those early days, a few people trying to cling to the last vestiges of life before the curtain came down, as the few shops remaining open tried to get their heads around the new-fangled concepts of organising queuing and social distancing. Familiar, favourite, places were closed, with no indication of when they would open their doors again, if ever. The town was enveloped in a post-apocalyptic gloom, which a few years ago would have been how the less charitable may have said it presented itself to anyone casually visiting the place. But in 2020? Halifax, revitalised by the Piece Hall, a new breed of bars and small businesses, a touchstone of town ce...