Tuesday 17 November 2009

An ageing population

Many thanks to Revd David Keen for his post alerting us to Britain's ageing population.  It's all very distressing.  For some.
Here in Husborne Crawley, I'm feeling rather more sanguine.  Firstly because it will improve the behaviour of our community over time.  Young Keith's not going to be half so keen on staggering back from the White Horse planning trouble when he's Middle-aged Keith.  The Fertility Folk will have to put their clothes on and come back into the fold, once they're the "Can only raise the energy once a quarter Folk".  As for the Moon Gibbon people, advancing dementia can hardly make them less coherent than they currently are.  They've now had another split, with one group threatening to leave us and join the Guinea Pig Folk because we have female Archdruids,while the others are threatening to build their own Moot House because we have female Archdruids.  Turns out the two groups hate each other even more than they hate any of us, so any evening these days the sounds of flying plates can be heard under the Gibbon Moon as they settle old scores before they all head off to their new separate lives of purity, obedience and the 19th century.
And also the demographic suits our basic philosophy.  OK, we'll probably have to hold more festivals indoors, showing live video footage of the Moon streamed in from the outside.  And we'll have to install some toilets closer to the Moot House.  But look at this correlation between age and tea-light purchase:

Basically, all Beaker-related purchases show the same pattern.  Albeit the 70 pluses are buying fewer tea lights due to a lesser exposure in their early years (they were probably rationed during the war or something).  The Beaker Shop shows a similar correlation for essential oils and holy pebbles.  And as for doilies... I tell you, the sky's going to be the limit.
Demographic timebomb?  Bring it on, I say.

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