Smoky drinky, non-anecdotal for the CAMRA linker.

There was a referral from CAMRA's discussion board in the stats. I went over for a look but didn't sign up. Smokers aren't welcome in CAMRA's pubs, not even by CAMRA members who smoke.

One put up the breathtakingly arrogant view that his tobacco was 'quality' tobacco and he didn't want to have to endure other forms of tobacco that he doesn't like. So he supported the smoking ban because it keeps the plebs out. It keeps him out too but he didn't mention that.

We all have preferences. Some prefer a pipe, some readymades, some rollups, some cigars. I once brought back a supply of seriously cheap cigarettes from Yugoslavia which I'd grown used to while over there. They made other smokers recoil here. Some kinds of readymades have a smoke that I find a little harsh, but then others might find my rollups not to their liking. To state that only the one you like is good and that all others are harmful is, frankly, bizarre.

Another of his comments was the astoundingly dim observation 'You do realise the difference between active and passive smoking?' Which suggests he believes that his 'quality' tobacco is okay, but catching a whiff of someone else's is dangerous. I really can't think down to the level required to deal with that.

The link I followed referred to one of my posts on the smoky-drinky places. True, my own experiences are anecdotal and so are easily dismissed by the chronically self-important. Even the similar anecdotes posted by commenters can be waved away.

So, should the linker find his way back here, I have a little present he/she might want to drop in Mr. I'mthebest's lap. Courtesy of Leafar at F2C forums, here's something a little stronger than a mere anecdote:

London's official smoky-drinky place organising website.

Pubs are back, but not in Weatherspoon's, and not under CAMRA's dictatorial control. Pubs are back where they started, in private homes. Until the Dreadful Arnott comes shrieking through the front door with her stub-it-out stormtroopers and the rest of her useful idiots, that's where they'll live. When she bans smoking in private homes, we'll clear out our sheds. If it comes to it, we'll dig an underground bunker.

I like real ale. I much prefer to drink it in a pub than at home. Whisky is good at home but beer just never tastes quite right out of a bottle. The snow that arrived before Christmas has only just melted so I have hardly visited a pub in three months. If there were smoking and non-smoking pubs, or smoking rooms within pubs, or even heated, covered smoking areas outside, they'd get a lot more business from me - but pubs aren't allowed those things.

Even a covered area is no use in the wind because they must be less than 50% enclosed. Even though the only people in there are smokers and therefore pose no imaginary threat to non-smokers (or 'better quality' smokers) at all.

If pubs could choose, some would allow smoking and I'd go there in winter. They cannot choose. Shrieking banshee Arnott won't let them. CAMRA seem fine with that, it keeps the plebs out. This winter, two more pubs closed here. Nothing to do with the smoking ban? One of those pubs was always stuffed with the benefits brigade to whom the recession is an irrelevance, but smoking is not. So what closed that pub? Three months of sub-zero temperatures and a largely smoking clientele.

Perhaps CAMRA would like to do a bit more of the Dreadful Arnott's work for her by pretending it was something else? Quick now, before the Shenkerites declare you a subversive right-wing drink-promoting group and ban you. You might not like smokers (inferior ones, anyway) but what you do like is also on the non-approved list.

The war isn't against smokers. That was just the first battle. The war is against pubs. If you refuse to see that then you're not going to be any help at all.