The vexed question of ear-splitting pop music in 1970s-style back street boozers once again demands debate

We had a drink first, my good friend J and I, in The Fountain, a refurbished foodie bar in Trinity Street in the centre of Barnstaple.

We've both got a baby son a piece so we're always at the brittle-sighed point of terrible nervous exhaustion whenever we meet for a pint.

You could store bar snacks, cashew nuts perhaps, in the deep folds under our child-ruined eyeballs. You could hang us upside down by our ankles from a tower block, firing bales of flaming straw at us from medieval catapults, and we would take the opportunity to sleep in our stirrups, not soil in our cords, like cowards.

In fact, we're a bit like swimmers, as, I think, a lot of good-hearted pub fanatics are; like North Devon sea-plungers, we need to ease in to the passtime, to let the sheer saltwater move over our heads and wash away the work, the crying, the dancing chariots of gloom, the ever-howling mangy dogs of death, who stalk our every breath...

But so much for the chuckles; we need to let the soothing wooden cradle of the English pub bring us back to the earth frame of our characters - with love, with beauty, with beer. Shame then that the Fountain felt a bit like a three-star hotel lobby.

Yes, the Guinness (which is £3 a pint in most places now, gods help us all), was good enough. Yes, everything was in order. But it was a bar, not a pub, so I shall reserve further comment for our next engagement, which was at the Corner House, a well-known back street boozer in the centre of Barnstaple. The Corner House has pub DNA running through its wood and bricks and glass in genial torrents; it surely grows its customers like a tree makes its limbs.

It was mid-evening on a Saturday and the place was busily turning, but not overcrowded, with people who knew each other, a sure sign of a proper locals alehouse. As we rested our pints of Tribute (good pint, Tribute, and first brewed to celebrate the 1999 solar eclipse) on a lacquered table from the 1970s, I was transported to a semi-mythical era which ended just before I was born. Could I see men with long hair and flared trousers, smoke-billowing faces, chatting up "dolly birds" by the bar? Was that Rod Stewart on the "jukebox"? Were they strike placards by the door?

No. But I could not escape a, possibly delusional on my part, pleasantly anti-fashion Ted Heath-era vibe at the Corner House. Even one of the bar pumps was surely a little plastic block of nostalgia, not a bit of equipment. Full marks to them too for keeping the grand old ceramic urinals in the gents (a sign the pub's history goes beyond the 1970s). You know they don't make wee-holes like that any more, more's the pity. Ahhh, I thought as I relieved myself in the ample porcelain theatre. Ahhh, the nostalgic thought of trips to the outside bogs at the Bridge Inn in Topsham, with the cool night air birds made strange by a bellyful of Devon ale.

The only downer was the absurdly ear-shattering volume of the pop music (Britney Spears anyone?). Pubs are for conversations or solitary contemplation. Extremely loud recorded music is for discotheques, and discotheques are for dancing.

They still have discotheques, right?

The Corner House, Boutport Street, Barnstaple

ADAM'S ALE RATING: 3 out of 5

DRINK THIS: Tribute (4.2%)

Sea swimming and the brewing of a strange and ambitious investigation...

Between breast strokes and the sharp outcrops of Rockham Bay, I watched the sun light up the cliffs and tried to percolate the idea for this new blog about beer and pubs. What was my aim? And why do it all?

Well, for what it’s worth, this is the idea: to visit every pub in North Devon and write about what I find.

Simple, in one sense, and yet daunting; there are a lot of pubs, and

I know I will despise some of them, perhaps beyond reason. Love and her beguiling twin sister, loathing, will do battle. But I think, with a measure of brave tenacity, I will prosper among these terrible ordeals...

My motivation is straightforward: I love pubs and beer and I think writing about these twin gods of England will be fun.

Let me set out the stall. There are few times finer, for me - or clearer with unfiltered pleasure - than those moments spent watching the early evening pollen dance in a dimming bar room light. There is brilliant beauty in beer. I claim no expertise but I have a useful ear and eye for people and places and a taste for ale.

So, we'll hopefully have some entertainment and controversy; my intention is not to write the type of reviews commonly found in newspapers, magazines and websites. The authors of these reviews, which are often crammed with cliche, can seem a bit self-important, which is a lazy tendency I intend to avoid, if only because life is too short to bore yourself, let alone anyone else. I will, of course, fail to live up to this boast, but I will, at least, be alert!

I will be free with opinion but limit guff about hops and gravity. I will not grow a beard, unless things get really out of hand, or start playing role-playing games involving wizards.

And I think these explorations will be timely; real beer is undergoing a resurgence in popularity and, perhaps ironically, the two forces which have done most to bolster the fortunes of ale are arguably the gross might of supermarkets and the ubiquity of chain pubs, and one chain in particular, which doesn't need a plug from me.

The supermarkets now stock a range of decent bottled English beer, not to mention foreign imports, alongside racks of tasteless lager. While the ready availability of good ale should be welcomed, there is a fear that home-drinking is bad news for our public houses. I want to investigate.

The chain pub which takes pains to sell properly cellared and served beer deserves its success. But I do not like the idea of the chain pub, for reasons which will become clearer as we go along, just as I do not like the idea of the chain restaurant, and I often equally dislike the reality. Uniformity often leads inexorably towards blandness. During my adventures I intend to explore this paradox: we probably have the greatest ever number of outlets serving decent beer, including off sales, and yet the pubs I cherish most say they are struggling to survive. Why? And can I do anything to help that doesn't involve collecting pint pots?

This blog is independent; I am not sponsored by anybody and am not a member of the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), although I declare an admiration for that group.

Finally, I will try to visit pubs incognito, although not in disguise...well, maybe a false moustache on holy days.

OK, so that’s the manifesto, but it’s all subject to change as we go along, and dissolve in unexpected directions like all the best barroom stories...we need to start this odyssey as soon as is humanly possible...

There are brisk warnings of catastrophe buzzing from my digital radio and my boy is trying to brutalise the curtains, but, for now at least, a man with hobbies always has somewhere to go.

So let’s go.

Wild swimming website

Information about Rockham Bay