Is Television the New Meat?

I've not eaten meat deliberately for around 14 years. (There was that chain of accidental events back in Finikounda, but that's another story...).When I first went veggie, I became used to the curiosity of those around me: "But why not?" "Is is because of the animals?" and the classic "I bet you miss bacon."

I've grown used to all the questions over the years, but people don't seem to interrogate veggies like they used to. Their curiosity is no longer there. Being a vegetarian has become normal in our society. I am officially mainstream.

However, confess to people I don't have a television, and that's a different matter. They are fascinated. Or horrified. "What? Not at all? But how do you know what's going on? What do you do in the evening?" They are taken aback. Declining to watch television is seen as a puritanical self-denial of the most extreme kind.

Television is the new meat.

And what will be the new television? Driving licenses, I reckon.