Reluctant Scooper regrets that...

Reluctant Scooper regrets that it is impossible for him to:

- read your blog just because you tweeted me to do so in BLOCK CAPITALS

- write 500 words for free in the next two hours for your magazine because the writer you usually pay to do it has got delayed at an airport with no wifi / is face-down in a vat of custard / has caught VD

- recycle your press release into an "innovative yet commanding" blogpost

- do any kind of RT / Like / +1. Even if you say 'please'. Even if you didn't ask in Comic Sans. Because you asked for it

- attend your bar opening which is three hundred miles away. On a Tuesday night. With 24 hours notice. Because all the proper beer journos have got gastroenteritis. Or a better offer.

-  accept your offer of free glassware / beer bottles / weekends away / 'guaranteed prizes' if by return I have to sell my soul and be part of some social media payola

- contribute to your 'edgy and exciting open source multi media beer experience' (translated: poorly coded WordPress page that no-one reads)

- supply an opinion on Italian restaurants / cocktail bars / marzipan. I have opinions on them all. But not on a beer blog



I actually do have stuff I really want to write about. Stuff that matters to me. Stuff that excites me. Stuff about beery times with good friends, about great beery trips, about interesting beery books.

I don't do this for the money (what money?) I don't do it for the 'exposure'. I don't do it for the 'opportunity'. I do this for the fun of it.

The fun of it.

Isn't that why bloggers blog?

If it isn't for shits & giggles, what to we do it for?

This is my truth. Tell me yours...



today's inspiration: a scribbled note to remind me of this card which Edmund Wilson sent in response to all enquiries:



5 comments:

  1. I set out a similar set of thoughts this week after learning that I had deeply disappointed strangers and realizing I did not care whatsoever.

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  2. I do it for the bitches.

    That's a lie. There are none.

    I do it because I love beer, music and food. It's as simple as that. The fact that I'm getting my name known is a weird by-product. I don't care.

    I think writing is awesomes.

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  3. Alan, I get the feeling that everyone turns up to the table with a heap on their shoulders. Although I can shrug the brewer discontent off quite lightly - mainly because I'm able to sit down and have a beer with the brewers I want to question. It's a luxury of geography.

    And Stan... there are times I hope for more. But I have to be honest. Not being on a leash allows a writer to fuck around. I like being off the leash.

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  4. "Dear Sinister Link Exchanger/Link Seeder/Guest Post Merchant -- we have no trouble coming up with content and our blog is perfectly visible in searches. Get bent. Love, Boak and Bailey."

    ReplyDelete