On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:12:27 +0000, Graeme Wall wrote

They should have used the type used in the Nottingham area in the
1970s/80s. These had a half pint glass cylinder with a piston that
moved across when the operating lever was moved. They seemed very
reliable in the pubs around Nottingham.

Pubs around Nottingham generally don't lurch about at 70mph :-)

There's a reason pubs don't use them anymore, they were fiddly to maintain
and expensive to buy.

Banks's pubs used them in the 1970s - you couldn't buy a half-of-shandy as
the minimum they could dispense was a measured half-pint.