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| The most important issue facing society today |
Do you remember 2010? There was some kind of election if you recall. Now, I do my best to avoid such things as I consider myself depressed enough. But, I was reading about on a Doctor Who forum. As you do.
Now, if you have the misfortune to be a longtime Doctor Who fan, you will have heard of a gentleman by the name of Ian Levine. Mr Levine is the original Superfan. He found a few missing episodes back in the 70s and 80s, but these days he's more regarded as a bizarre aberration and, indeed, an example of the worst of fandom.
Anyway, around the time of the 2010 Election, Levine posted on the Gallifrey Base forum about his voting intentions "Which Party's policies," he wrote "would be best for the continued production of Doctor Who?". We thought he was joking, but then we remembered he'd never betrayed evidence of a sense of humour before.
It's important to realise that, as fans of things, such things are important to us. And that's all OK and good. But there are other things that are more important.
Say you're a pub blogger. Pubs are important to you. In fact, they could even be pretty much your whole world. You may even look up a particular political party's manifesto and see which bit will be good for the pubs you like, regardless of the effects of these policies on health, education, trade and industry etc. (other government departments are available).
Pubs are an important part of British culture. But are they the only part that matters.
It could be argued, though, that a party's policies regarding pubs and alcohol are a good indication of their wider approach in other areas. Obviously anyone who writes about pubs and beer (or any other specialist interest) is going to consider what effect various policies will have on that particular area, but in practice very few people are single-issue voters.
ReplyDeleteIf you are young, just leaving university with debts and seeing house prices at 10x your salary you might think knocking pubs down to increase the supply of flats to be a good thing.
ReplyDeleteYou might think preserving the past and caring what beer pubs sold is all well and good for old beardies that graduated debt free, entered secure employment in an age where a certificate put you into the middle classes, pensions were final salary and houses were 3x salary but why on gods earth is wasting time caring about beer and pubs relevant to anyone now?
"Preserving the past and caring what beer pubs sold is all well and good for old beardies that graduated debt free, entered secure employment in an age where a certificate put you into the middle classes, pensions were final salary and houses were 3x salary".
ReplyDeleteYes, that's me, ho, ho, but I don't, unfortunately, have a final salary pension! I don't have a beard either; but these days beers are for younger people anyway.