Census and beer
We completed the UK census last week. Online – nice and easy. This once-a-decade occurrence goes back a couple of hundred years, with its roots even further back in the Domesday Book. There are rumblings that it may be the last one, with manual entries by each household giving way to administrative data gathered by the government in other ways. This might make economic sense and be more efficient but I for one like participating in a societal ritual going back that far. It feels very civic rather than invasive, whereas combining and combing my data from different official sources feels less so.
I avoided any temptation to register as Jedi but we are definitely a multinational household. I decided I felt more British than English this time – although I was a little surprised that I had to choose one or the other. My wife is Canadian, and after some debate, we ticked the Welsh box for our baby daughter.
Whether my identifying as British over English reflects my time living abroad, travelling with a British (not English) passport, or the fact that I now live in Wales, I don't know. Being from the country that is the dominant part of the Union might have something to do with it as well. I've never felt that being British means I give up any part of being English... but then I didn't feel that being part of the EU threatened my British identity either!
Anyway, musings on the nature of “self” aside (I'll leave that to Inquiry!), it's time to buy some more #SpacerBeer... although given that <0.5% abv beer is what I mainly drink these days, wouldn't “normal” abv beer be a spacer beer for me now instead?
...brief pause... so, I've ordered from https://drydrinker.com:
- Half a dozen of my staple Thornbridge Zero Five;
- Half a dozen Sam Smith's Brown Ale;
- A 10-pack mini mixed case from Low Tide, consisting of 2 x DIPA Toe In, 2 x Brune-DMC, 2 x Who Let The Bees Stout, 2 x A Pale of Two Cities, 2 x Forgot to Take My Pils. Never tried their stuff but it comes highly recommended from someone I've drunk with for almost a quarter of a century, which is good enough for me!
I normally prefer to order direct from the breweries and cut out the middle man but (i) the shipping on the Sam Smith's beers was too high, (ii) the Low Tide mix pack was too good to pass up, as the honeycomb and chocolate stout is sold out on their own website.
Tasty stuff – should help with further musings on self and other topics!
Entry 70 of my participation in the “100 Days to Offload” challenge – find out more and join in!
2021-03-26 #100DaysToOffload #society #self #SpacerBeer
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