Coaster Evolution - A Lateralist Plea

A couple of weeks ago, I enjoyed a beer with a friend of mine at what is effectively my local pub. I don't really go there often enough for it to qualify as a local, but there isn't a pub I frequent more often than this one, so it's a good a venue as any to apply such a familiar epithet.

It's an older suburban pub, with a relaxed vibe. It's not the kind of venue one would generally consider pretentious. So, it was with some degree of surprise that when it was my turn to purchase the pints, that I observed something strange going on with the coasters.

It has become the norm for a coaster to be provided with one's beverage. I'm not really sure why. Perhaps bar surfaces are becoming more delicate, and that there is a malt-based form of erosion to which jarrah and/or polished concrete are particularly susceptible. And I'm yet to work out which is the preferred of the two possible results, whereby the coaster either remains inert on the bar once you remove your drink, or it affixes itself to your beverage and follows you back to your table, albiet usually only for about two-thirds of the journey.

Given than I don't think anyone knows which of these two rather feeble and pointless options is the preferred, it seems that someone has decided to iniate an alternative arrangement. It's lateral in intent, if not inspiration; the coaster is merely leant against one's glass, rather than placed under it. The mind boggles.

I mean, this certainly circumvents the problem of the coaster detaching itself from your drink on route back to your table. It also prevents it from being any use whatsoever. An item that previously served no useful purpose has incredibly become less useful. Extraordinary.

To that end, it is hereby proposed that coasters be abolished. They are landfill before their time.

If this idea seems a little churlish, or insufficiently lateral, then try this one instead. I'd like to see coasters stuffed inside one's glass, if they must exist at all. With any luck, the degree of perplexed fury experienced by beer-drinkers nati0n wide - and their subsequent retaliations - will soon enable proposition B to segue nicely into proposition A. And that will be the end of the coaster.

Personally, I can't wait.