That was the question I asked on Twitter on Saturday afternoon.  

Some people thought I was angry, that I’d been pushed over the edge by one too many pedants at GBBF last week.  Not at all.  I was hacking away at the garden, feeling a bit bored and a little mischievous, and thought it might be a bit of harmless fun – remember that?

I think it’s safe to say the replies address the whole spectrum of beer blogging.  Some are very similar and I’ve grouped those together.  Some are funnier than others, though this may depend on who you are, so I’ve featured the whole lot below – about half are my own, half other people’s.  I’ve structured some as conversations because they work better that way.

So, how many beer bloggers does it take to change a lightbulb?

“That’s not the question. The question is, what is the true definition of a lightbulb?”

“12 – One to change it & 11 to sit around talking about how much they preferred to old one!”

“4 – 1 to rate it on http://ratebulb.com . 1 to video it. 1 to retweet it. 1 to Google an electrician.”

“Don’t we all just sit in the dark?”

“None. They just stumble around in the dark and end up
peeing in the airing cupboard.”

“We don’t change the lightbulb, we just sit in the dark
arguing about cask vs keg.”

“It depends. If the lightbulb’s in the cellar and there’s
no beer, then one and all.”

“Why oh why do so many people persist in repeating the
unfounded myth that the lightbulb needs to change?”

“A dozen take turns at it whilst pronouncing the old bulb
‘boring’ & the new one ‘awesome’. But nothing actually gets changed.”

“None – as you’re not going to actually find a blogger who
can do the thing they want to moan about.”

“They go on at great length about the importance of an
‘authentic’ light bulb but somehow nobody gets round to it.”

“It all depends who made the lightbulb. If it was mass-produced it was probably shit at giving out light anyway.”

 “I prefer these
local, artisanally produced lightbulbs instead of those cheap macroluminiscent
excuses for illumination.”

“Is it an artisan produced bulb, or mass produced yellow
fizz of light?”

“But how is the electricity made ? I’ll sit in the dark if
it’s not wind power.”

-> “I’m a CAMRA member. I won’t
conform to this new ‘energy saving’ rubbish.”

“One to form a bunch of committees. Then another 140,000 to
sit around reminiscing about the old days before electricity.”

-> “Tallow, it’s the future.”

“I actually preferred the Mk2 lightbulb, which they made for
6 months before they were closed by Mazda.”

“To be real thing, the gas should be vented before turning
on the bulb, although obviously it won’t last as long, about 3ms.”

“I change my lightbulbs every two minutes. That way I know
they aren’t sell-outs.”

“No matter how many try, they’ll never do it as well as
Michael Jackson did.” 

“Why did the proverbial lightbulb die in the first place?”

“Those Americans are doing things with lightbulbs that we
Brits can’t even begin to imagine.”

“Your old lightbulb was shit. The lightbulb revolution
starts here.”

“I think you’ll find that there is no direct proof the
lightbulb was ever invented.”

“That has nowhere near enough wattage to be classed as a lightbulb.”

-> “It’s not the quality of the
light, but the provenance of the inert gas within the bulb.”

“WTF? Lightbulbs!? Why aren’t you guys talking about halogen
striplights?! FFS”

-> “I cannot BELIEVE you people are
still talking about ‘strip’ lights. The correct term is TRACKLIGHTS. JESUS.”

-> “I just bought some AWESOME
tracklights!!!! Over a hundred units of brightness. Awesome!!!”

-> “I think you’ll find they’re
called lumens, not units of brightness.”