Final Tap

‘THE Government is rent asunder by Robin Cook’s diary revelations, David Blunkett is poised to give the go-ahead to a new generation of super-prisons, and the Middle East is a barrel of gunpowder awaiting a spark.

The Rattlebone Inn has excellent childcare facilities

Yet all this is as nothing when set alongside a news item in today’s Times, nestling in the obscurity of Page 6.

“Eton’s Tap to run dry after law change,” announces the paper, above a story that will chill the veins of every red-blooded Englishman.

The Government, in its wisdom, has decided under proposed changes to the licensing laws to ban boarding schools from selling alcohol to pupils.

The paper points out that this spells the end for “clubs” which have “given generations of pupils their first taste of beer and cider under the eye of a teacher”.

It goes on to say that this will be the death knell for the Tap, “Eton’s pub for senior boys, which was a favourite of Prince William”.

The Tap, we are told, is “seen as having a stabilising influence as it discourages pupils from visiting local pubs”.

However, this stabilising influence might not be all it’s cracked up to be.

The paper acknowledges that after one session in the Tap, two pupils did break into Windsor Castle while the Queen was in residence.

We here at Anorak welcome the news that this disreputable institution is to be closed down.

Pupils should be taught to drink in a more secure environment – somewhere like Prince Harry’s favourite, the Rattlebone Inn, where youngsters can be locked in all night and kept heavily sedated with cannabis.’

Posted: 6th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink