Tormenting simpletons for fun and profit.

Put the drink down and back away. It's one of those rants and I'm not paying for any more keyboards.


There was once a rumour that every banknote in circulation carried detectable amounts of cocaine. I have no idea whether it's true but since the illegal drug industry is unlikely to make use of cheques or credit cards, I suspect that most of the folding currency out there passes through their hands at some point. Maybe it is true. Maybe not. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that the story can be made credible.

Nobody is scared by that story, at least, when I was at school (where I first heard it) nobody was scared. It was just an interesting thing. These days you could probably induce spontaneous bowel evacuation in a suitably gullible target just by mentioning it while they have cash in their hands. Worth a try.

Some time back, someone mentioned writing 'Handled by Smokers' on banknotes, and I have been. In the comments, Dick Puddlecote suggested getting a stamp made up. Well, an Email correspondent has now done this, and the results are as shown above.

I think it was a Rockefeller who said something along the lines of 'Give me control of a country's money supply and I care not who makes its laws.' It was some total banker, anyway.

The handwritten notes might be disregarded. An official-looking stamp in red ink looks like a real warning. It's no longer a rumour that the note you hold might be contaminated by an evil druggie. There it is, in red ink, an official stamp warning you that this note, this particular one you're holding, is saturated with third hand smoke and you now have mere hours to live. Oh, and your dog will die too. No need to worry about cats. They hang around my back garden smoking and drinking all night long. Well where did you think they went at night?

We can effectively take control of the money supply. Antismokers and the terrified simpletons won't touch it. Legal tender will be refused all over the place. Smokophobes will discover one of these in their cash and will try desperately to give it to someone else, but the only ones who will touch it will be smokers. Businesses who only employ fundamentalist antismokers will not be able to function.

All the money? Really? Surely only the stamped notes are contaminated? Ah, but what if we only stamp every other note? The stamped notes put the idea into the mass of gullible heads. They don't know which of the unstamped notes we might also have handled. Hey, antismoker. Fancy a game of smoker's roulette? Take a note, any note, might be marked, might not, might be saturated with smoke, might not. Take your chances.

They could be in your wallet right now. Sniff them carefully - oops! If there's smoke on them and you sniff them, it's already too late. Best to just burn the lot but do it outdoors because it's illegal to smoke indoors, you know.

So, are the population at large really stupid enough to fall for this? Yes. They are. At every level. A world of stupid. Give someone a peaked cap and their brain burns out and they believe anything that begins 'Studies have shown...' Actually, most don't even need the peaked cap. If ever there is a need for a brain transplant, we have an entire population of barely-used ones, some still in their wrapping, all ready for donation.

People believe that being fat and inactive will kill them and now they believe that being thin and active will kill them. Look, it's really simple. Are you alive? Yes? Then you're going to die. That's really all there is to it, so stop fretting about it because you will only make it happen sooner.

We live in a country where police feel justified in arresting you in case you do something, even if the thing you plan to do is not illegal. Where the Government actually believe they can measure happiness despite doing their best to reduce it to undetectable levels, and where the Archbeard of Canterbury thinks we're all concerned about some mysterious thing called GDP. Are we? Really? Easter holidays, Royal Wedding and then the May bank holiday mean nobody has done a damn thing for a fortnight, and we're all concerned about 'the economy?' Why would we worry about the economy? We don't have one any more. Labour spent it and Cameron is still giving it away to countries that are richer than us.

While we are at war with Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya, what is our government's great concern? Whether the Tiny Blur and the Brown Gorgon should be allowed to blight the Royal wedding and Cameron's casual remark to some pig-faced bint who thinks it was an insult. She really should get out more.

So, can we convince the entire country that every note they hold has passed through the hands of a smoker? Could we extend it to 'packed by smokers' on egg boxes and frozen pizza and so on? Can we scare seven shades of shit out of every antismoker who spends a twenty and has to accept change?

Frankly, it would be a doddle.

They might arrest us for it but then, think of the publicity that would generate. One arrest on a charge of stamping on a banknote and every Mail reader will react in a way that will create a tsunami at the sewage works.

They can come at 3 am if they like. I'll still be up.