Trip to Lostock Hall

(excerpt from "Ale Cry" , Spring 2017

I've Got a Bonneville in Bits, But I'm Gonna Sort It Out

I want Dave the Barman to refer me to the blackboard

My CAMRA membership renewed itself by Direct Debit this week.  After two years, I've progressed far up the hierarchy.  They've finally given me a membership card which you can't scratch the letters off.  Is this official policy?  It seems so.

A lot of my readers here will be asking "Why are you still in the Beard Club? Don't you slag them off and take the piss out of them on a regular basis?"  Well, yes I do.  But I do that with everyone.  Leaving aside the Spoons tokens, the discounts and the magazine, the membership fee is worth the comedy value of What's Brewing alone.  The letters page and Keg Buster are almost Daliesque in their absurdity.

I am however awaiting one thing.  The people that run CAMRA Central Lancs said a while back that they'd be contacting every member in the branch to see if they want to contribute anything  (or as they put it in a somewhat dystopian way, 'activate' them).  I did email them myself in August offering my services  as "Ale Cry" cartoonist, but have yet to be contacted for either of these. I can only assume they've read my unflattering depictions of their views and activities on this blog.

You don't say.  You DON'T say.

One person who defended CAMRA to me last year, when I asked what the point of them was these days, has since cancelled his membership, saying he can't stomach giving money to such a backward and sexist organisation any more.  He even tweeted to me  "You're just a number to them , Mr. 416490".  I wouldn't go that far, and I think it's just about worth what I have to put in as a member.  You'll never see me at the Committee Meeting down at the Stanley Arms on Lancaster Road or going on the minibus with the Branch Social to a pub crawl in Accrington, but being a member does as least say you're interested in half-decent beer.  Not being a stereotypical CAMRA Man helps deflect any of the jokes.  I knew there was something good about being an inappropriate paisley-shirted wanker.

CAMRA isn't perfect.  Nothing is.  Not even 'progressive' Evil Keg brewers.  People should be, in such an essentially trivial thing as beer fandom, able to get what they want out of it and discard the rest.

It's only beer, after all