Drink 2/5 Decor 2/5 Food n/a Price 5/5 Atmosphere 0/5 Staff 1/5

PACKETS of crisps in pubs are usually a fairly hit-and-miss affair. There are name brands which are overpriced and then the non-name brands which are even more expensive.

It is like in women's hairdressers where so-called salon brands cost a small fortune.

The Baring Hall Hotel reversed the trend when a barmaid sold me the cheapest pack of pub crisps I have had for a long time, if not ever.

Forty-five-pence got me a large size bag of ready salted Walker's Crisps.

I imagine food could have been similarly cheap, if any was sold.

Yes, after my cheap meal success of last week, no food was available.

Maybe I should count myself lucky there was no food because then I would've had to stick around long enough to eat it.

A combination of the people and the thick blanket of smoke, which smothered me as soon as I walked in, make it a not very nice pub.

There was nowhere to sit apart from one vacant table full of dirty glasses near the pool table.

But was I allowed to sit there? In the Baring Hall Hotel it seemed as if everyone had been stuck to their seats for years and those empty chairs probably had an unwritten rule attached to them.

I didn't dare sit down for fear of - at best - getting a lecture about Old Jim who has had the seat since 1962, or being done away with or even worse, becoming one of them.

So, propping up the bar I watched the drudging barmaids pull pints for the mouldering regulars (you must've felt right at home - Ed), and downed my pint of Tetleys so I could get out of there.

I could have left my beer - but would never do such a foolish thing.

Pints should never be abandoned if they are drinkable - the first rule of PubSpy.

The Baring Hall Hotel is a pub which I haven't visited for several years and it will probably be a lot longer before I go back.