How People Relax

Going to pubs is a very popular leisure-time activity in Britain. In a recent survey seven out of ten adults said they went to pubs, one third of them once a week or more often.

Types of pubs vary considerably from quiet, rural establishments with traditional games, such as skittles and dominoes, to city pubs, where different sorts of entertainment, such as drama and live music, can often be found. The opening hours of pubs, which were previously strictly controlled, have been relaxed and many pubs now serve food as well as drink. Some pubs have become more welcoming to families with younger children than in the past, although children under fourteen are still not allowed in the bar.

British drinking habits have changed with lager and continental beers now more popular than traditional forms of British beer. In cities, wine bars have appeared in competition with pubs. Although, in general, people in Britain now drink more than they used to, new types of drink, such as alcohol-free beer and wine, have appeared and there has been a general move about the dangers of drinking too much.

Reading

Despite the increase in TV watching, reading is still an important leisure activity in Britain and there is a very large number of magazines and books published on a wide variety of subjects. The biggest-selling magazines in Britain (after the TV guides, which sell over 3 million copies a week) are women’s and pop music publications.

The best-selling books are not great works of literature, but stories

of mystery and romance, which sell in huge quantities (Agatha Christie’s¹ novels, for example, have sold more than 300 million copies). It has been estimated, that only about 3 per cent of the population read ‘classics’ such as Charles Dickens² or Jane Austen³, whereas the figures for popular books sales can be enormous, particularly if the books are connected with TV shows or dramatizations.

From Britain Explored

by Paul Harvey and Rhodri Jones, 2007

(pages 130-131, 134,136)

Notes:

¹ Agatha Christie (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) – a British crime writer of novels, short stories and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 80 detective novels – especially those featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple – and her successful West End theatre plays.

² Charles Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) – the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and he remains popular, responsible for some of English literature's most iconic characters. His work has been praised for its realism, mastery of prose and unique personalities by writers, such as George Gissing, Leo Tolstoy and G. K. Chesterton.

³ Jane Austen ['O(:)stin] (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) – an English novelist, whose works of romantic fiction set among the landed gentry earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.