LONDON – The phone rings and the voice on the other side gets straight to the point: "Fancy a pint?" The response, equally pointed: "God, yeah." That brief conversation, or some minor variation of it, is going to take place up and down the U.K.
on the day the pubs eventually open their doors again to thirsty regulars. They've been missed badly during the country's coronavirus lockdown.
In fact, the country's pubs, which number around 47,000 according to the British Beer and Pub Association, were told to close their doors on March 20, three days before Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the full lockdown. “We’re taking away the ancient, inalienable right of free-born people of the United Kingdom to go the pub and I can understand how