Oh, for the love of -!
Oct. 29th, 2009 02:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charameiOkay, Nice Lady In W H Smith's.
I understand that by not using make-up or wearing clothes designed to show off my assets, in conjunction with having clear skin and fairly wide eyes, I open the door to occasionally being taken for a teenager despite being in my early twenties. I do not, therefore, complain too much when I get kicked out of pubs (even though I don't drink) or carded for buying DVDs rated 18 - and even, sometimes, 15. I understand that you have a job to do, that I do not look my age, and that if I was the age I looked, some things would be inappropriate for me (at least, culturally speaking - but that's a whole other rant).
But look, Nice Lady, carding somebody for buying Private Eye is beyond the pale.
It is not a porno mag. It is not glorifying socially unacceptable behaviour (quite the opposite, in fact). The only bad language I have ever seen in it is the substitution of 'Carter-Ruck' for 'Carter-Fuck', which is in my opinion entirely justified. The only thing a teenager is likely to get out of reading it is increased awareness of things that really matter in the world. Increasing social and political awareness is almost the definition of achieving adulthood, is it not?
...Well, it should be, anyway.
More ironic still, did you even look at what else I was buying? Series 1 of Blake's Seven - dystopian, morally ambiguous Blake's Seven - and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, in which I assume at least one beloved Austen character will be gruesomely devoured by the aforementioned sea monsters. Either one of these would be a more appropriate reason to ask me for proof of age. Either one of them will contain, at the very least, murder.
And yet, you dropped both of those into the bag without fuss and then stopped and worried about the Eye. Good grief.
What is the world coming to when people are willing to let teenagers watch/read gory sex and violence, but not show political interest?
P.S. The look on your face when I pulled out my NUS and University cards was priceless. I'm guessing you were one of those people who thought I was under 15.
P.P.S. In an hour I'm going to watch The Sarah Jane Adventures, a children's show, and I'm willing to bet that that will have more gore, violence and terror than Private Eye. Although probably less swearing and definitely less bankers being dickwads with national funds.
Yours,
A concerned, politically-minded twenty-two-year-old.
I understand that by not using make-up or wearing clothes designed to show off my assets, in conjunction with having clear skin and fairly wide eyes, I open the door to occasionally being taken for a teenager despite being in my early twenties. I do not, therefore, complain too much when I get kicked out of pubs (even though I don't drink) or carded for buying DVDs rated 18 - and even, sometimes, 15. I understand that you have a job to do, that I do not look my age, and that if I was the age I looked, some things would be inappropriate for me (at least, culturally speaking - but that's a whole other rant).
But look, Nice Lady, carding somebody for buying Private Eye is beyond the pale.
It is not a porno mag. It is not glorifying socially unacceptable behaviour (quite the opposite, in fact). The only bad language I have ever seen in it is the substitution of 'Carter-Ruck' for 'Carter-Fuck', which is in my opinion entirely justified. The only thing a teenager is likely to get out of reading it is increased awareness of things that really matter in the world. Increasing social and political awareness is almost the definition of achieving adulthood, is it not?
...Well, it should be, anyway.
More ironic still, did you even look at what else I was buying? Series 1 of Blake's Seven - dystopian, morally ambiguous Blake's Seven - and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, in which I assume at least one beloved Austen character will be gruesomely devoured by the aforementioned sea monsters. Either one of these would be a more appropriate reason to ask me for proof of age. Either one of them will contain, at the very least, murder.
And yet, you dropped both of those into the bag without fuss and then stopped and worried about the Eye. Good grief.
What is the world coming to when people are willing to let teenagers watch/read gory sex and violence, but not show political interest?
P.S. The look on your face when I pulled out my NUS and University cards was priceless. I'm guessing you were one of those people who thought I was under 15.
P.P.S. In an hour I'm going to watch The Sarah Jane Adventures, a children's show, and I'm willing to bet that that will have more gore, violence and terror than Private Eye. Although probably less swearing and definitely less bankers being dickwads with national funds.
Yours,
A concerned, politically-minded twenty-two-year-old.
