Pub
A pub, short for public house, (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Loading...["The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"]) also known as a hostelry, (AUDIO: Return of the Nightmare [+]Loading...["Return of the Nightmare (audio story)"]) boozer, (PROSE: Low/Profile [+]Loading...["Low/Profile (short story)"]) drinking den, (TV: Fragments [+]Loading...["Fragments (TV story)"]) or bar, was a public building where communities would gather for social drinking and conversation. Pubs also served full meals. (PROSE: The Sow in Rut [+]Loading...["The Sow in Rut (short story)"]) The owners of pubs were called landlords. (TV: The Dæmons [+]Loading...["The Dæmons (TV story)"], The Android Invasion [+]Loading...["The Android Invasion (TV story)"]) Their employees, who served food and drinks, were referred to as bartenders or barmaids.
As Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George's attempt to ban alcohol entirely led to the introduction of licensing laws to increase taxes on alcohol and to restrict its sale and the opening hours of public houses. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Loading...["The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"])
At least in 1960s England, one had to be eighteen to gain entrance to a pub. Susan Foreman expressed in her diary that pubs were very strict about this rule when Gillian Roberts tried to convince her to fake her age and enter the Pump. (PROSE: Time and Relative [+]Loading...["Time and Relative (novel)"])
Some of Ace's mum's boyfriends tried currying favour with her by taking care of Ace, which meant that they would take her to a pub while they drunk beer with their mates, giving Ace some fizzy drink. She spent the time playing darts and stealing odd mouthfuls of beer. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Genesys [+]Loading...["Timewyrm: Genesys (novel)"])
Raoul often spent Saturday nights in Peterborough, going into gay clubs and pubs, looking for people who would be willing to be part of the audience for Glamorama. (PROSE: Hospitality [+]Loading...["Hospitality (short story)"])
Meetings at bars or clubs could often end in or lead to sexual encounters. (TV: Day One [+]Loading...["Day One (TV story)"], Out of Time [+]Loading...["Out of Time (TV story)"], Dead Man Walking [+]Loading...["Dead Man Walking (TV story)"]) Owen Harper frequently visited bars for this very purpose, but, after dying and being resuscitated by the Resurrection Gauntlet, found himself unable to generate an erection due to lack of blood flow, and ran away from a woman who was hitting on him. (TV: Dead Man Walking [+]Loading...["Dead Man Walking (TV story)"]) The Sex Gas indeed specifically targeted one such institution immediately after possessing Carys Fletcher, and had sex with Matt Stevens in the club's bathroom, killing him. (TV: Day One [+]Loading...["Day One (TV story)"])
Typical Scottish pubs had a "dour, squat look". (PROSE: The Highlanders [+]Loading...["The Highlanders (novelisation)"]) Pubs and bars were also to be found outside the United Kingdom, such as in the United States of America (TV: Dead of Night [+]Loading...["Dead of Night (TV story)"]) or on various other planets. (TV: The End of Time [+]Loading...["The End of Time (TV story)"], The Pandorica Opens [+]Loading...["The Pandorica Opens (TV story)"]) According to the Eleventh Doctor, English expats would open English pubs in places like Majorca as a way of "recreating a bit of home". (TV: The God Complex [+]Loading...["The God Complex (TV story)"])
Activities in pubs
Often, a fight would break out among the drunks in pubs, (COMIC: Party Animals [+]Loading...["Party Animals (comic story)"], TV: Combat [+]Loading...["Combat (TV story)"]) and the police would intervene. When one such fight broke out, Gwen Cooper and Andy Davidson tried to break it up, Gwen receiving a head injury. (TV: Everything Changes [+]Loading...["Everything Changes (TV story)"])
Sometimes, the members of a pub would join to make a sports team. When Craig Owens revealed to the Eleventh Doctor that he belonged to a pub-league football team, the Doctor thought that he meant a drinking competition. (TV: The Lodger [+]Loading...["The Lodger (TV story)"])
Pubs also hosted games, such as pub quizzes. On 24 April 2010, the guests of the wedding of Bernice Summerfield and Jason Kane played one such pub quiz at the Black Swan. (PROSE: Happy Endings [+]Loading...["Happy Endings (novel)"]) When Martha Jones needed to know who, between, Elvis and the Beatles, won more number one singles in order to save everyone on the SS Pentallian, her mother thought she was participating in a pub quiz. (TV: 42 [+]Loading...["42 (TV story)"])
Naming of individual pubs
The word "fox" was often found in pub names. The Fourth Doctor, Harry Sullivan, Sarah Jane Smith and UNIT used the Fox Inn as a temporary headquarters in Scotland while dealing with the Zygon threat in Loch Ness. (TV: Terror of the Zygons [+]Loading...["Terror of the Zygons (TV story)"]) The Fancy Fox was a pub that Amy Pond, Rory Williams and the Eleventh Doctor used as a kind of base while on an adventure in the town of Foxton. (PROSE: The Way Through the Woods [+]Loading...["The Way Through the Woods (novel)"]) In fact, many pub names seemed to be an adjective followed by an animal name. Other examples of this naming scheme included the Black Swan, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Revelation [+]Loading...["Timewyrm: Revelation (novel)"], Not in My Back Yard [+]Loading...["Not in My Back Yard (short story)"], Happy Endings [+]Loading...["Happy Endings (novel)"]) the Fighting Cocks, (PROSE: The Little Things [+]Loading...["The Little Things (short story)"]) the Golden Gopher (TV: Dead of Night [+]Loading...["Dead of Night (TV story)"]) and the White Rabbit. (AUDIO: The Harvest [+]Loading...["The Harvest (audio story)"], et al.) In the Unbound Universe, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart operated The Little England in Hong Kong. (AUDIO: Sympathy for the Devil [+]Loading...["Sympathy for the Devil (audio story)"])
In popular culture
In the British soap opera EastEnders, one of the characters, Peggy Mitchell, owned a pub. In 2007, when the show took advantage of the ghost phenomenon (when Cybermen were mistaken for ghosts), a storyline featured Peggy being confronted in her pub by Den Watts, who had "come back from the grave". She told him to get out of her pub, joking that the only spirits she served were gin, whisky and vodka. (TV: Army of Ghosts [+]Loading...["Army of Ghosts (TV story)"])
Behind the scenes
Real life pubs have often served as filming locations, such as the Cornwall in Cardiff used in Everything Changes, and the Waterguard Pub, also in Cardiff, used in the Torchwood story, Adam.
