Style: Candid Caller

TOMORROW, in a specially extended episode on Channel 4, last orders will be called on Cheers. This week the Candid Caller asked: 'Is time slowly being called on our pubs, or is the local as good as it ever was?'

Edward Danson of Manchester: 'There are still good pubs about with real characters, but they are in decline: trendy pubs keep popping up in their place designed to make quick bucks for their owners. How can you get regulars in pubs where the music is always blaring and most of the clientele are kids?'

Martin Cliff of Cambridge: 'Pubs in the country are usually much friendlier places than those in cities and large towns. The locals tend to be very pally and the landlords more relaxed about after-hours drinking.'

Mary Norman of Tyneside: 'My husband and I haven't got a local and haven't been out to a pub for a night for about 15 years. I've never been fond of pubs, mostly because they are so smoky.'

Joan Carla of Blackpool: 'I've got a couple of pubs I like going to with friends where the regulars are very nice people: one or two are so entertaining they should have been in Cheers themselves. I'd say the breweries are the people killing off the local - by charging so much that you need a mortgage to buy a round.'

John Rebecca of Glasgow: 'Pubs are what you make of them. I like a good drink and the chance for some real conversation - and I can get both in Glasgow pubs. But they aren't so atmospheric any more.'

Jackie Dyett of Cheers Off-Licence, Clapham, south London: 'I think pubs in Britain are on their way out. Our pubs are too dreary, they need to be updated.'