What’s on your 2010 Pub wish list?

As a pub fanatic there are a few things I would love the many pubs I visit on my travels to do. Yes business is tough... VAT's going up... there may be more upheaval within the industry, then there's the ongoing smoking ban... oh and the price of widgets in Bolivia is going up..... Yet I still see some great pubs that seem to get a lot of the basics right and are doing very nicely despite the difficulties. So here's my wish list as a humble punter for 2010;

1- Could pubs deliver whatever the outside messages say? So if there is a board promoting food then there's food actually available or to say that the pub is open and actually its shut then that would be lovely. I visited 2 pubs in a village close to Cambridge with attractive boards promoting food only once inside to be told they were not serving food today (1 did not have a chef on and the other was short of stock, surprising but these things can happen, just don’t put the food boards out so I don’t have to waste my time)

2- Good to see the continued growth of real ales. Yet I still have to suffer so many poorly kept ones or just have the same old 'IPA' available rather than seeing many changes. Even tied pubs have a decent access to ales and more customers will welcome well kept new ones.

3- If a pub welcomes children then my wish for 2010 is that children's menus move on from burger and chips, fish and chips and something else fried and chips. I was in a pub today that had roasted butternut squash and baked fishcakes on its children's menu and it was not at all a posh pub.

4- Yet in spite of number 3 I am happy at the increasing trend of 'no children' pubs we're seeing. I love taking my 3 year old out on our travels to sample different pubs yet in the evening I'm very happy to be away from the little 'darlings'. But my 2010 wish is that pubs make it clearer before you go in where they stand. We got into a pub in Dorset last week, found a table got little one settled down to be told they do not have children in there pub. That's fine; just make it clearer up front.

5- I'd like 2010 to be the white light amnesty for pubs... I've no concern about day times but in the evenings surely most pubs should be at least a little darker than a fluorescent supermarket. Just a little thought and seeing things from the guest perspective so we don't get blinded by white spot lights would be great. What about just keeping several lights switched off and see what it does to the atmosphere (and the fuel bill?)