Letter: Spoil us for pub choice

Sir: I do not see how you can "design" a pub ("A renaissance down the boozer", 7 March). Certainly, the "Phil" in Liverpool is a spectacular building, but that has nothing to do with its qualities as a pub. People make a pub what it is.

Some of my favourite pubs have less than perfect beer, no food other than snacks, fake beams, television sets and bright lights, but they are wonderful pubs nevertheless, because of the people who use them.

Even "bores bulging from cheap suits" make a contribution, as the regulars realise with pleasure - or schadenfreude - that an unsuspecting stranger has entered into what is destined to be a very one-sided conversation.

DAVE FOY

St Helens, Merseyside