Sorry, I missed half of what you wrote. My phone was telling me something...I understand that quite well, pubs are different nowadays - or maybe we have changed and don't enjoy the same things as before anymore - I still like to have a couple of pints and chat with pretty much anyone I come across in a pub, but people are less likely to engage in a chat with someone they don't know (yet) and are too often distracted (not to say enslaved) by their handheld devices - this has changed the whole atmosphere of a pub imo.
