I FIND the spat over which is the oldest pub in south Bucks mildly amusing. Indeed I seriously wonder if anyone outside the immediate protagonists actually gives a fig.

The row between the Royal Standard of England at Forty Green and the Red Lion in Penn has been boiling around for months. It even erupted on the internet recently through Wikipedia until the website administrators were forced to take it down last week as the debate became, shall we say, a tad heated.

Frankly I struggle to see what the fuss is all about.

The thing is how far up your criteria is the question how old is the pub' when deciding where to go for a pint? It certainly doesn't even figure on my radar.

A few years ago I lived for a short while in a flat over a pub owned by a mate of mine, Dave Smethwick.

Dave was also the mayor of the small town - Stone in Staffordshire - was a Liverpudlian and had a wonderful sense of humour. For instance Stone Town Council didn't own a mayoral car. So he bought a stretched Ford Granada from a mate of his in Liverpool and then offered to flog it during his speech at the Civic Dinner at the end of his reign'.

Don't misunderstand me. Though he wound up the more staid members of the community who felt he wasn't everything the mayor should be, Dave was actually a very caring bloke who carried out his civic duties with dignity.

He just liked to inject some odd-ball moments into his tenure.

For instance his final civic duty was to officially open the new decking at a mate's pub in the town!

Anyway, I don't think he had a clue how old his pub was and certainly didn't care. He just wanted it to be a great place for people to go to for a pint.

And he certainly achieved that.

It was always full, was a centre of wide ranging debates, had many moments of hilarious laughter and he served a cracking pint. That is a pub.

I haven't been to the Royal Standard or the Red Lion and they may well be good pubs, but I certainly won't be going to either of them because they claim to be the oldest pub in Bucks.