在英國，很多人下班后都是直奔就近的酒吧，在溫暖的燈光下把酒言歡，醉醺醺拂去一天的辛勞，然后再心滿意足回家。飯后若閑來無事，又會趕往酒吧。許多人搬家找房子，房子的好壞無所謂，倒要仔細打聽附近是否有好酒吧。英國人稱酒吧為public house，即“公眾之家”。然而，隨著經濟持續低迷，以及啤酒稅、禁煙令、高昂的商業提成等原因，酒吧的生存空間逐步萎縮，酒吧文化岌岌可危。

By Walter Benjamin

叢遙 選注

The church can go, long since the absence of worship; the local shop can go, since the distant supermarket’s cheapness is worth the petrol; but the vanishing of a pub means the loss of the beating heart of a community, in town or countryside.[1] A pub can become a sort of encapsulation of place, containing some small grainy photographs, some dog-eared posters for last year’s celebrations, its snoozing cats, its prettiest girls behind the bar and its strangest characters in front of it.[2]

History before the 20th century is scarcely taught in Britain now, but pubs are meant to preserve it. They hold ghosts, myths, the memory of kings. Their loss is also the disappearance of a kitchen, or a sitting room, or some comfortable dim place where there is warmth and a welcome, where a man exchanged his own hearth for another.[3] He was not, however, alone there. In the pub he met his fellow men and, with them, formed a society of musers[4] and drinkers. He mingled with people he might not otherwise meet, had words with them, was obliged to take stock of their opinions.[5] In a highly stratified[6] society of worker, merchant and lord, the pub was open to everyone.

Most pubs retain a peculiarly English blend of socialising and privacy. Regulars prize maze-like or womb-like pubs,[7] tiny rooms and dark corners; for hearths and fires, no matter what the season; for a sense of history in the layers of paper, clutter and paint. In “trendy” pubs people go to be seen, either for their clothes or the sleek cars they have left in the car park; but pubs, like homes, are not about fashion statements.[8] By the same token[9], the building itself often has no importance. What matters is the atmosphere. “Attempts to modernise a pub always fail.”

This being so, many of the great and good[10] are now striving to save the pubs of Britain. Prince Charles, alongside promoting organic biscuits, is desperately concerned that pubs should survive.[11] The last Labour government briefly appointed a minister for pubs. Somewhere in the back of all their minds is that worrying remark by Hilaire Belloc, a Frenchman: “When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.”[12]

In a newly saved pub in Brighton the landlord wants writers to come in and use his Wi-Fi all day, young mums to sit and drink his Fair Trade coffee at elevenses,[13] neighbours to leave their keys and get parcels delivered. He hopes quiz nights[14], popular everywhere, will bring people together upstairs on sofas, rather than sitting on sofas at home.

Britons are not similarly passionate about restaurants, cafés or shops. But by favourite pubs they measure their own lives, and Britain’s condition. They see reflected there, as in a glass, the present blights of social isolation, forgetfulness of history, cultural confusion.[15] Time slows; company[16] gathers; speech is freed; beer flows, like the very lifeblood of the land. Pubs are needed.

Vocabulary

1. 教堂可以消失，既然我們久已不作禮拜；鄰近的小店可以消失，既然遠處超市貨價低廉，值得燒油驅車；但酒吧若消失，則意味著社區會喪失活力，不論在城里還是鄉下。

2. encapsulation: 濃縮，概括；grainy: 粒狀的，此處指相片不清晰；dog-eared:（書頁）折角的；snooze: 打盹，（尤指）白天小睡。

3. sitting room: 會客室；hearth: 壁爐邊（被認為是家庭生活的中心），家庭生活，此處指人們交流生活感悟。

4. muser: 指沉思默想之人。

5. mingle: 與……交往；take stock of: 對……作出判斷。

6. stratified: 分層的，形成階層的。

7. regular: 老顧客；maze-like or womblike pub: 迷宮或子宮一樣的酒吧。

8. “trendy” pub: 時尚酒吧，顧客多為時尚界名流；sleek: 造型優美的，豪華的；fashion statements: 時尚展示。

9. by the same token: 出于同樣的原因。

10. the great and good: 杰出人士。

11. 背景：英國王儲查爾斯倡導有機農業，并創辦了有機農場和食品公司，近年來廣受歡迎，其明星產品包括由有機小麥和燕麥制造的餅干。

12. at/in the back of one’s mind: 在某人腦海深處；Hilaire Belloc: 希萊爾?貝洛克（1870—1953），出生于法國的英國評論家、詩人；drown: 淹死，沉沒。

13. Brighton: 布賴頓，位于英國南部的港口城市；landlord:（客棧、酒吧等的）店主；Wi-Fi: 無線網；elevenses:（復數形式）上午11點左右的茶點（通常伴有茶或咖啡或牛奶加餅干）。

14. quiz night: 酒吧游戲之夜。

15. 在酒吧里，就像對著一面鏡子，人們看到世事的反射，當下人際隔絕的陰郁境況、對歷史的遺忘、對文化的困惑。

16. company: 同伴（們），朋友（們）。

（來源：英語學習雜志）