It’s not often you’ll hear me say this, but there was a good story on Mail Online the other day.

It didn’t concern a celebrity semi-clad in a bikini. Or Piers Morgan spitting out his dummy about some humdrum aspect of modern life and then saying, look at me, I just spat out my dummy, aren’t I the clever irritant.

No, it was a story about a man using a mobile phone in a pub.

Oh, come on, get your story radar fixed, Julian.

Look, that wasn’t just anyone using a mobile phone in a pub. It was Humphrey Smith, the eccentric owner of Sam Smith’s brewery in Tadcaster. That Humphrey Smith. The one who bans mobiles in his pubs. The one who shuts down pubs because he hears someone using the F-word. The one who’s binned credit and debit cards. That Humphrey Smith.

James Tozer’s report features a photograph of the seldom-seen brewer staring at his phone. He is sitting in a Wetherspoons pub in Heywood, near Manchester (boo to Brexit-backing Wetherspoons; boo to hypocritical Humph).

Perhaps he has installed an app to track the use of the F-word. If someone swears in one of his pubs, a bleep alerts him to the profanity. And before the landlord can say mine’s a half, his pub has been shut down, he’s lost his job and his home and giant boulders are blocking the car park.

That bit about the app is playfulness on my part, but the boulders are real enough. One of my commutes goes past two silent Sam Smith’s pubs where boulders are as lively as it gets.

In High Petergate in York, in the shadow of York Minster, you will find the York Arms, a nice old pub in a lovely building. But you won’t get further than the door at present. Humphrey Smith has shut that one too. As well as the Buckles Inn on the A64, and doubtless a few others too, especially if the clientele is prone to profanity.

The pub where someone swore is the Fox and Goose, in Droitwich. Other pubs where cussing occurs may be available; or shut.

All this explains why Humphrey Smith using a mobile phone in a Wetherspoons is a decent story. Humphrey Smith swearing because the wifi is rubbish would be an even better story.

Samuel Smith’s has pubs all over, including many in London. A survey in the Evening Standard last May listed the 15 best Sam Smith’s pubs in the city. In at number one was Ye Old Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street.

We young reporters from Deptford liked to visit, perhaps to smell the ink or something. It was dark and Dickensian and wood-panelled, with sawdust on the floor. Maybe Humphrey has a thing about carpets, too.

The pub’s sign bears the legend “rebuilt in 1667” as the building was erected again after the Great Fire of London, as started by a mobile phone (perhaps Humphrey is right after all).

“It’s a slice of London history and a fantastic place to spend time ­– if you’ve never visited this London drinking institution, you’re really missing out,” says the Standard. Forgetting to add, for “but for f***’s sake don’t swear or whip out your mobile”.

As for working in Fleet Street, the nearest I got was three years’ worth of Saturday shifts on the Observer. In those far-off days the newspaper was in St Andrew’s Hill, near St Paul’s Cathedral. The offices almost sat above a pub whose name escaped me, until Google obliged with The Cockpit (pretty sure that was the one). Went in there a few times, too.

FOOTNOTE: Incidentally, the famously incommunicado Humphrey Smith is high on my list of people to interview. If you’re reading this, Mr Smith, I apologise for all the swearing jokes and would love to hear your side.