Dick Puddlecote has a cracking idea.
A collection of those sayings the smokophobes like to regard as fair and level argument (I'm not going to call them antismokers any more. They are sufficiently deranged to warrant a 'phobe' term. They've invented enough of their own).
Things like 'kill all smokers' and other sayings that can only come from dangerously unbalanced minds. Things that, if applied to any other group at all, would get them arrested.
Such a collection could be published and sent to all those politicians who support the ban, with a note to the effect of 'These are your supporters. This is how they think and you approve of this. Can you explain why, or should we start sewing on the yellow badges now?'
The smokophobes demand that we stop buying from Man with a Van and pay that duty so the NHS won't have to be cut. The NHS already treats smokers like lepers, they have decided that none of their staff will be allowed to smoke even in their own homes and that any staff carrying tobacco will be subject to disciplinary action. Should we smokers pay more to be shat on harder?
The NHS is of no use to me at all now. They will not treat what's really wrong with me, they'll assume that no matter what I present with, from scrofula to rabies, it was caused by smoking. They'll demand that I change my lifestyle to the approved one or I won't get treatment, and I see no point extending my life if it is to be as a drone. 'Live long and stagnate' is the medical mantra now. It's not for me.
They are planning to refuse to treat me at all unless I obey the 'give up' diktat. Don't get smug, smokophobes, especially if you are a little overweight or like a drink, or just don't fit the BMA's British Standard Human. You're on the list too. Obey or die. I don't know about you, but I can only choose 'die'. Obey is simply not an option.
I'm still working on the other reasons why I wouldn't use the NHS even if they'd let me. The free-at-point-of-infection diseases they supply. There's a lot to say but it needs to be carefully worded. I am a microbiologist and that's not the safe occupation it used to be. There was a time when we just worried about infecting ourselves. Now we worry about visiting the woods.
And now, I have to go and do something else. A publisher has just requested a full manuscript of a novel. It's the first time that's happened so I have to reply and celebrate with whisky. It requires concentration because I really have to do those things in the right order. So I'll shut up for the night.
...maybe.
10 comments:
Hope it goes well ... don't forget about the film rights! :)
Good luck with your script.
Most of the way through Tales of the Old and New, a couple of them are very freaky indeed. The story with the chap looking into a mirror in his dreams is particularly disturbing.
I like how much whisky is drunk as well, a time will probably come when your book is redacted for being off-message.
Good luck with the publisher.
Hope a second career free of wood-visiting anxiety, beckons.
Jay
LI,
perhaps you should have a glass of wine with your (near) bus shelter smoke.
El Reg
Just a small point - anyone seeing a GP with a throat/chest condition should say they do smoke, even if they do not, otherwise the GP's Righteous programming will mean some, possibly life-saving, tests will NOT be done. Modern diktats insist that only smokers get lung cancer, etc, etc, so they do not even test non-smokers for it now. Utter bastards!
OK, I've had enough and I'm ranting.
I used to be a regular at a pub in south London a few years ago before and after the smoking ban came into force. More before than after as having to leave my pint at the bar and pick up my wallet, phone, jacket, and so on, rather than leave them at the bar, became a bit of a chore.
The pub was a proper old boozer, sited near a railway station and it attracted not just passing trade but fairly regular drinkers who would stop by for a few pints and a chat with a few of the regulars. The landlady was a formidable Glaswegian lady, all 5' 2” of her, and there was never any trouble. Any newcomers were made to feel welcome but if they caused trouble the regulars would give them an express escort to the pavement.
I can't think of anywhere else where, propping up the bar, you could find a scaffolder, bricklayer, bank account manager, surveyor, motorcycle courier, and fashion buyer for a high street chain all chatting about the state of the nation, who Chelsea might be signing, and so on. This before heading to the back room for a game of darts. Oh, we had a darts team. The smoking ban killed it off. It's hard to keep a darts match flowing when most of the teams are outside having a fag and chatting.
In the course of an evening you could get some sound financial advice, arrange for some building work done at “mates rates,” lend a mate some tools, and lend another a few quid to keep them in beer ahead of payday.
At Christmas the landlady would open the pub and those of us who rejoiced in having Celtic blood would be handed a large glass of decent whisky.
The pub had a beer garden but it couldn't be seen from the street. One of the barmen told me that, post-ban, he'd lost count of the number of regular customers who glanced through the picture windows of the pub, saw no-one at the bar and kept walking, not knowing that there were people in the garden, smokers and non-smokers alike.
When the ban was first proposed we, seasoned pub-goers, listened to the government's explanation that it would lead to MORE people going to the pub and knew that they were talking utter gibberish.
There are two types of drinkers: those who go to the pub and those who don't. There is hardly any in-between. The latter don't go because they don't like being seen drunk in public, don't like being in a room full of drunk people, or don't like the booze on offer. I've been at leaving does in a pub where people who I know are hardened drinkers are on the orange juice.
I moved from the area 3 years ago and wondered how the pub had got on, so I did a quick internet search.
The pub now has its own website.
I mean, a pub that was once packed to the rafters with hard drinking regulars now has to advertise.
Photos of the pub show it's become a cross between the coffee shop in Friends and the Comedy Store. Forthcoming events are invariably “comedy nite,” “Argentine barbecue,” or some sort of “battle of the bands.”
The landlady sold the pub to a guy who promotes the pub as being the home of Irish-style hospitality. No doubt a unique selling point for a pub which used to be referred to locally as “the Scottish House.” I'm Scots-Irish and frankly don't care if the landlord says “bejusus”, “begorrah,” and “in the name of goodness” ever other word or gets out the fiddle and plays “The wind that shakes the barley” note-perfect every time.
I want a pub where I can have a decent drink and a chat in peace. I want a pub where I can have a cigarette whilst chatting to my smoking and non-smoking friends without having to head outside.
I've moved home several times over the years and, every time, it's been my experience in the local boozer that has convinced me to settle in the area and has provided me with a decent social life.
Not anymore. Thanks, you self-righteous bastards.
I'm a non-smoker, just for information, but even I've noticed the change in pubs.
The theme pub has risen up and taken over and so has pub grub, but not necessarily nice pub grub, sometimes it's cheap and nasty, £2.99 jobbie, just to get customers in.
Some of the theme pubs downtown, I don't go in at all now, they've become desperate drinkers pubs where old soaks go, for the cheapest pint, not because they know anyone there, or because they like it and it affects the atmosphere.
The original village pub or town pub as I used to know it has long gone. That said, there are some nice foodie pubs about, but they're outside of town and you have to have transport.
But one thing really irritates me and it's this....
I thought we were fully paid up members of the EU. In which case, how come we are not allowed to have smoking pubs and non-smoking pubs, as they do on the continent?
It smacks of hypocrisy, that's all I'm saying.
It seems our political masters want their cake and eat it (while smoking at Westminster in the Stranger's Bar).
Pah.....!
The out-of-town pubs will be stuffed if the blood-alcohol limit goes down. Nobody will drive out there if they can't even sample one pint and public transport, if it's even available, will stop in the early evening.
It's a systematic destruction of pubs and what are the pubs doing? Blaming the supermarkets. I could always get booze cheaper in supermarkets. I just preferred to drink it in pubs.
What are the government doing? They are doing what they are best at. Making it worse.
What do you mean used to be? Name 1 microbiologist who's died from old age?
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