You know what people remember most about you when you leave their presence? They remember most vividly the last thing you said or the last thing you did before you parted company.
That's especially so if the last thing you said or did was particularly brilliant or particularly nasty.
The Brown Gorgon's final act, the one which will be best remembered not only because it was the last thing he did but also because it absolutely defines the man, and his entire movement, was an act of pure, unmitigated spite.
On the quiet, with no public announcement, he cut the Prime Monster's salary by £44,000. He did this when he knew he had lost. It was no great personal sacrifice. It was an act of vicious spite born out of his personal vendetta against the Tories. That is his lasting memory which he leaves to us all. People of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, this is the measure of the man - and the party - you voted for. Long may you revere his disgusting self-interest. Long may you revel in your hatred for all those who are not bound by the 'benefits'. Long may you fail to understand where those benefits come from, and long may you rot in Hell for inflicting this nasty and very small man upon us all.
The Cameroid went ahead with his 5% pay cut for all monsters, including himself, anyway. Moral high ground? He has now taken it, held it and fortified it. Labour now look very cheap and nasty indeed. As errors of judgement go, the Gorgon has excelled even his own record of incredible stupidity. He thinks we will all forget in five years. I will not and I will remind those who do.
Subrosa covers this with measured calm but, I suspect, with gritted teeth.
Obo uses few words but makes the point, but the prize on this story goes to Mr. Eugenides, who sums it up in one.
I wish I could do that.
Okay, deadline time. I'm going to shut up now. I had one more on the Unite boss, Tiny Woodentop, but Mummylonglegs and the Penguin have it covered.
Monday, 7 June 2010
Other people's smoke.
I am not going to bang on about smoking this time. The Fat Bigot has already posted an opinion I agree with absolutely, and Frank Davis reveals another antismoker scam.
Most restaurants were non-smoking or restricted-smoking before the ban and there's a reason for that. Smokers often like a smoke after a meal. We, just like non-smokers, don't generally like smoke billowing around during a meal. So it's no hardship to have a non-smoking restaurant or to have an area smokers can sit in after the meal, away from the still-eating people, for that after-nosh smoke.
Nobody can smoke and eat at the same time anyway. If you can do that, you have too many holes in your face and you'd better start saving for surgery.
Pubs are different. I can't hold chopsticks or a fork in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I don't enjoy a combination of smoke and Hoi Sin. With a good malt whisky in one hand and a cigarette in the other, I am content.
Most restaurants were non-smoking or restricted-smoking before the ban and there's a reason for that. Smokers often like a smoke after a meal. We, just like non-smokers, don't generally like smoke billowing around during a meal. So it's no hardship to have a non-smoking restaurant or to have an area smokers can sit in after the meal, away from the still-eating people, for that after-nosh smoke.
Nobody can smoke and eat at the same time anyway. If you can do that, you have too many holes in your face and you'd better start saving for surgery.
Pubs are different. I can't hold chopsticks or a fork in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I don't enjoy a combination of smoke and Hoi Sin. With a good malt whisky in one hand and a cigarette in the other, I am content.
You have the wrong hands.
Yes, yes, I have a deadline but it's hours away yet which is why I'm still finding other things to do.
Here's a fantastic list of reasons to ban guns. I especially liked reason number 40, which I think sums it all up very nicely.
Here's a fantastic list of reasons to ban guns. I especially liked reason number 40, which I think sums it all up very nicely.
Sunday, 6 June 2010
The Marching Bland.
It was bound to happen.
The Cumbria murder spree is now blamed on movie violence. It seems the killer watched a bad, bad film the night before going mad with a shotgun, therefore the film caused it.
Therefore all such films must be banned.
Professor Kevin Browne, an expert in forensic and child psychology from Nottingham University warned MPs last year that violent action films were fuelling crime.
Really? It's nothing to do with the culture of 'me first and last' fostered under Labour? No connection with the 'no-touch' approach to discipline in schools? Crime isn't rising because criminals know they'll just get an ASBO or a ticking off no matter what they do?
Haven't we been told for years that violent crime declined dramatically under Labour?
So how come violent films, of which there are many more than there were twelve years ago and which are now very cheap on DVD, are causing a rise in violent crime based on this single incident?
Derrick Bird cracked and went insane. That was more likely due to the well-documented pressures in his life than due to watching one film. Would he have done it if he hadn't watched the film? There's no way to know. There's no way to predict when someone will crack under pressure. There are no lessons to be learned from this tragedy because there was no way to predict it and there is no way to predict the next one.
Sometimes, people just flip. Sometimes, terrible things just happen. Sometimes there are no reasons. Sometimes there is nothing that can be done to predict or prevent it. You can spend every waking minute worrying about what might happen and taking every precaution to avoid any risk at all. When you get to the end of that life you'll think 'Was that life? It was pretty dull. I can't see what all the fuss was about.' Actually, you'd more likely die of a stress-related heart attack before you hit fifty. If you're a worrier, worry about whether you worry too much.
There's no need to worry. You are compelled, by law, to look after yourself.
Wearing a seat belt or a motorcycle helmet is law. The only one it protects is you. Fail to comply and you will be prosecuted for failing to look after yourself properly.
Smoking is banned on a spurious 'harm to others' argument while the medical profession insists that we give up smoking for our own good. We can't have a smoker's club because that would mean we'd be harming ourselves and that's illegal. In such a club, the only ones harmed would be smokers. If we tried to set one up, we would be prosecuted for not looking after ourselves properly.
Soon, drinkers are to be punished for not looking after themselves properly. Fat people too. You cannot take risks even where that risk is only to yourself. You might need to use that NHS you've been paying for all these years and that would never do.
Now we have a forensic and child psychologist claiming that merely observing violence makes you violent. I've watched a lot of particularly evil films and read a lot of particularly evil books, and even written some particularly evil stories myself. None of it has made me violent. None of it has made me desire a shotgun and a killing spree. Some real world events have, but no fictional ones.
I know many who enjoy the same kind of stories. None of them are violent either. In fact, the most unreasonably violent people I know don't read books. They don't watch many films of any kind either. They are more likely to have the football on, or car-racing.
We can expect a pressure group to try to get all film violence banned. They have already succeeded in banning smoking in films because as everyone knows, the entire population operates on the principle of 'monkey see, monkey do' and there is nobody out there capable of making their own decisions. If they see a pack of cigarettes they will instantly become smokers. If they see a bottle of whisky they will instantly become alcoholics. If they see a pie they will balloon into Jabba the Hut overnight.
If they watch 'Resident Evil' they will turn into zombies. Okay, some already are but that's beside the point.
None of the people making these tenuous links, the bubble-wrap proposals and the viciously enforced bans are at all interested in protecting us from real criminals. Beaten up by bad guys? That's normal. You have to expect that sort of thing. Don't worry, we'll help that criminal see the light and give him some freebies and we're sure he'll be a good boy in future.
They are only interested in protecting you from you.
You must be controlled for your own good because you can't decide for yourself what is good for you. You must follow these made-up rules which change every few months when we think up better ones. You must not see, hear or smell anything that might offend you. You must not see Bad Things because then you will do Bad Things because you are a dolt.
It is the greatest insult any government can produce. They treat the entire country as if every one of us is a dolt and they are not afraid to say it to our faces and what happens?
People just go 'Oh, all right then' and comply. Dolts.
So. No driving unless you are securely lashed into place and/or armoured. No smoking. No drinking. No eating beyond approved eating substances in approved amounts. No saying naughty words to other people. Do not approach children even if they are crying and bleeding in case you harbour evil thoughts towards them. Do not make jokes with co-workers with different coloured skin even if you have been friends for decades because it might offend someone else. Do not cover your face in public because it scares people. Do not carry a bottle of water in an airport because it scares people. Do not own any weapons of any kind because a burglar might get hurt, and do not carry any form of bladed implement in case you spontaneously turn into Freddy Kruger.
Next, no watching of films in which people get hurt. If you watch them you will become the Terminator or the Joker and hurt people. Incidentally, do you remember the scene in the Dark Knight where the Joker gatecrashes a meeting of mobsters? The most vicious, law-ignoring people in Gotham all gathered in one place. People who would kill you if you took too long at a post office counter. Life means nothing to them. They ignore all laws except one. Nobody lit up. Did you notice?
Try this. Even if you are a vehement antismoker, try it. Get one cigarette and take it to the next meeting you have to attend. Place it on the table and ignore it. Watch the reaction of those around you. They will be terrified. You couldn't instil more terror in them if you placed a thermonuclear device on the table and started the timer. The cigarette is not lit. It doesn't even have to be real. A lifelike plastic one will work.
Someone is going to ask you to put it away. They will ask you in that voice they'd use if you had placed a long curved dagger on the table and toyed with it while baring your teeth at them.
Pick it up and put it in your mouth. Don't light it. At the point of lighting it you are breaking the law and then everyone is comfortable again. They know what to do now. As long as the cigarette remains unlit they have no idea what to do. They will sweat and fidget and they won't know why.
If you want real entertainment, forget the movies. Take one cigarette - no lighter - to a meeting somewhere. Or a restaurant. Or a pub. I'm betting you'll be asked to leave as soon as you produce it in those places. I know someone who was asked to leave a pub because he had rolled a cigarette (with every intention of taking it outside) and was holding it while he spoke to someone else. Unlit. The reason? "You might light it."
That is the attitude today. If you see someone smoking, you might start. If you see someone drinking, you might end up a drunk. If you see someone eating a pie, you might binge until you can't get through doorways. If you watch a film where someone harms someone else, you might go on a killing rampage.
Might. We might get hit by an asteroid one day. So we have to prepare for that. How? Even our most powerful telescopes probably won't see it coming until it's too late. Asteroids are small and dark. Space is huge and dark. It's like hunting for a flea in an unlit coal cellar while looking through a toilet roll tube. If, by chance, the telescope happens to be pointing the right way at the right time, we might spot that asteroid. It's much more likely that we won't. So there really is no point going through life scared of asteroids. The chances are, we'll all be dead and buried before one hits and even if it does hit in our lifetimes, there really is diddly squat we can do about it.
There will be support for a ban on 'violent' films. Of course there will. The supporters won't realise how far it will go. They won't imagine that Peter Pan could be banned because of sword-fighting, or that the Wizard of Oz might be banned because it begins with a flat witch, from whose still-warm corpse Dorothy takes the ruby slippers. Children will see that and go out and drop a house on someone wearing red shoes. You just know it's going to happen, don't you?
We will be left with the mundane, the banal, the safe. Bland people leading bland lives. 'The Sound of Music' on every channel, every day. Laurel and Hardy? Far too violent and they both smoke. The Marx Brothers? With those cigars and with all the hitting? No chance. Watch this documentary on earthworms. It's much safer. Then wrap yourself in bubblewrap and exist. Don't dare live. That's dangerous. Just exist.
The rise in violence has nothing to do with films. It is not a cause. It is an excuse. Van Damme did not make you do it. You did it. You are responsible. No excuses.
The rise in violence has everything to do with 'experts' excusing such behaviour. You can now go out and batter pensioners and say you only did it because you were drunk/drugged or because you watched Death Race 2000 the night before and that excuse will be accepted! They are not valid excuses. Years of Righteous madmen have made them into excuses by claiming that this or that causes such behaviour so it's not really the perpetrator's fault. They make a tidy living at it, too.
Nobody takes responsibility for the harm they inflict on others because nobody is required to any more. The logical extension of that is the point where nobody accepts responsibility for their own lives any more. The State will direct your life for you. Stay in line and follow the directions. No risks. No danger. No excitement. No fun. Work eight hours. Sleep eight hours. Play eight hours. Live long and fester.
These Righteous 'experts' are not interested in your safety. They want control and they want more and more of it until you have to wear a sign reminding you to breathe.
Your government does not care about you either. They think you are all dolts and have to be protected from yourselves.
Think for yourself. Do not follow the herd when they demand bans and controls. They are demanding to be put in chains. They think they are demanding those chains be put on someone else and they don't notice when the chains are around them too. Not until the zero-alcohol driving limit they demand comes into force, and they lose their licence over a spoonful of cough medicine, a splash of perfume, or alcohol-gel hand cleaner. The alcohol in booze is no different to the alcohol in other products. The test can't tell where it came from and if you think you'll be able to get off with an explanation, think again. The ban will be total, the punishment automatic and severe. Just as you demanded.
Commentators often wonder why people so readily accept stricter and stricter controls on every aspect of their lives. It's worse than that. They do not merely accept these controls. They demand them. An 'expert' says this apparently harmless thing is actually linked to that utterly deadly thing and the people rise up and shout 'Ban the harmless thing, then the deadly thing cannot happen'. It never works. Never. And yet the ban always stands, and is always extended. next time something bad happens, they rise up and cry 'Ban the other harmless thing' and that doesn't work either. The bans are never reversed, even when it is clear that it has had no effect, even when it is clear that it has made things worse.
People are not accepting these controls. They are demanding them. They do this because they think the controls will apply to others, not to them. They do it because it's what an 'expert' said. They do it because they cannot face the responsibility of living their own lives. They do it because they are terrified of shadows.
Perhaps the government is right. Perhaps the people of this country are all dolts, after all.
The Cumbria murder spree is now blamed on movie violence. It seems the killer watched a bad, bad film the night before going mad with a shotgun, therefore the film caused it.
Therefore all such films must be banned.
Professor Kevin Browne, an expert in forensic and child psychology from Nottingham University warned MPs last year that violent action films were fuelling crime.
Really? It's nothing to do with the culture of 'me first and last' fostered under Labour? No connection with the 'no-touch' approach to discipline in schools? Crime isn't rising because criminals know they'll just get an ASBO or a ticking off no matter what they do?
Haven't we been told for years that violent crime declined dramatically under Labour?
So how come violent films, of which there are many more than there were twelve years ago and which are now very cheap on DVD, are causing a rise in violent crime based on this single incident?
Derrick Bird cracked and went insane. That was more likely due to the well-documented pressures in his life than due to watching one film. Would he have done it if he hadn't watched the film? There's no way to know. There's no way to predict when someone will crack under pressure. There are no lessons to be learned from this tragedy because there was no way to predict it and there is no way to predict the next one.
Sometimes, people just flip. Sometimes, terrible things just happen. Sometimes there are no reasons. Sometimes there is nothing that can be done to predict or prevent it. You can spend every waking minute worrying about what might happen and taking every precaution to avoid any risk at all. When you get to the end of that life you'll think 'Was that life? It was pretty dull. I can't see what all the fuss was about.' Actually, you'd more likely die of a stress-related heart attack before you hit fifty. If you're a worrier, worry about whether you worry too much.
There's no need to worry. You are compelled, by law, to look after yourself.
Wearing a seat belt or a motorcycle helmet is law. The only one it protects is you. Fail to comply and you will be prosecuted for failing to look after yourself properly.
Smoking is banned on a spurious 'harm to others' argument while the medical profession insists that we give up smoking for our own good. We can't have a smoker's club because that would mean we'd be harming ourselves and that's illegal. In such a club, the only ones harmed would be smokers. If we tried to set one up, we would be prosecuted for not looking after ourselves properly.
Soon, drinkers are to be punished for not looking after themselves properly. Fat people too. You cannot take risks even where that risk is only to yourself. You might need to use that NHS you've been paying for all these years and that would never do.
Now we have a forensic and child psychologist claiming that merely observing violence makes you violent. I've watched a lot of particularly evil films and read a lot of particularly evil books, and even written some particularly evil stories myself. None of it has made me violent. None of it has made me desire a shotgun and a killing spree. Some real world events have, but no fictional ones.
I know many who enjoy the same kind of stories. None of them are violent either. In fact, the most unreasonably violent people I know don't read books. They don't watch many films of any kind either. They are more likely to have the football on, or car-racing.
We can expect a pressure group to try to get all film violence banned. They have already succeeded in banning smoking in films because as everyone knows, the entire population operates on the principle of 'monkey see, monkey do' and there is nobody out there capable of making their own decisions. If they see a pack of cigarettes they will instantly become smokers. If they see a bottle of whisky they will instantly become alcoholics. If they see a pie they will balloon into Jabba the Hut overnight.
If they watch 'Resident Evil' they will turn into zombies. Okay, some already are but that's beside the point.
None of the people making these tenuous links, the bubble-wrap proposals and the viciously enforced bans are at all interested in protecting us from real criminals. Beaten up by bad guys? That's normal. You have to expect that sort of thing. Don't worry, we'll help that criminal see the light and give him some freebies and we're sure he'll be a good boy in future.
They are only interested in protecting you from you.
You must be controlled for your own good because you can't decide for yourself what is good for you. You must follow these made-up rules which change every few months when we think up better ones. You must not see, hear or smell anything that might offend you. You must not see Bad Things because then you will do Bad Things because you are a dolt.
It is the greatest insult any government can produce. They treat the entire country as if every one of us is a dolt and they are not afraid to say it to our faces and what happens?
People just go 'Oh, all right then' and comply. Dolts.
So. No driving unless you are securely lashed into place and/or armoured. No smoking. No drinking. No eating beyond approved eating substances in approved amounts. No saying naughty words to other people. Do not approach children even if they are crying and bleeding in case you harbour evil thoughts towards them. Do not make jokes with co-workers with different coloured skin even if you have been friends for decades because it might offend someone else. Do not cover your face in public because it scares people. Do not carry a bottle of water in an airport because it scares people. Do not own any weapons of any kind because a burglar might get hurt, and do not carry any form of bladed implement in case you spontaneously turn into Freddy Kruger.
Next, no watching of films in which people get hurt. If you watch them you will become the Terminator or the Joker and hurt people. Incidentally, do you remember the scene in the Dark Knight where the Joker gatecrashes a meeting of mobsters? The most vicious, law-ignoring people in Gotham all gathered in one place. People who would kill you if you took too long at a post office counter. Life means nothing to them. They ignore all laws except one. Nobody lit up. Did you notice?
Try this. Even if you are a vehement antismoker, try it. Get one cigarette and take it to the next meeting you have to attend. Place it on the table and ignore it. Watch the reaction of those around you. They will be terrified. You couldn't instil more terror in them if you placed a thermonuclear device on the table and started the timer. The cigarette is not lit. It doesn't even have to be real. A lifelike plastic one will work.
Someone is going to ask you to put it away. They will ask you in that voice they'd use if you had placed a long curved dagger on the table and toyed with it while baring your teeth at them.
Pick it up and put it in your mouth. Don't light it. At the point of lighting it you are breaking the law and then everyone is comfortable again. They know what to do now. As long as the cigarette remains unlit they have no idea what to do. They will sweat and fidget and they won't know why.
If you want real entertainment, forget the movies. Take one cigarette - no lighter - to a meeting somewhere. Or a restaurant. Or a pub. I'm betting you'll be asked to leave as soon as you produce it in those places. I know someone who was asked to leave a pub because he had rolled a cigarette (with every intention of taking it outside) and was holding it while he spoke to someone else. Unlit. The reason? "You might light it."
That is the attitude today. If you see someone smoking, you might start. If you see someone drinking, you might end up a drunk. If you see someone eating a pie, you might binge until you can't get through doorways. If you watch a film where someone harms someone else, you might go on a killing rampage.
Might. We might get hit by an asteroid one day. So we have to prepare for that. How? Even our most powerful telescopes probably won't see it coming until it's too late. Asteroids are small and dark. Space is huge and dark. It's like hunting for a flea in an unlit coal cellar while looking through a toilet roll tube. If, by chance, the telescope happens to be pointing the right way at the right time, we might spot that asteroid. It's much more likely that we won't. So there really is no point going through life scared of asteroids. The chances are, we'll all be dead and buried before one hits and even if it does hit in our lifetimes, there really is diddly squat we can do about it.
There will be support for a ban on 'violent' films. Of course there will. The supporters won't realise how far it will go. They won't imagine that Peter Pan could be banned because of sword-fighting, or that the Wizard of Oz might be banned because it begins with a flat witch, from whose still-warm corpse Dorothy takes the ruby slippers. Children will see that and go out and drop a house on someone wearing red shoes. You just know it's going to happen, don't you?
We will be left with the mundane, the banal, the safe. Bland people leading bland lives. 'The Sound of Music' on every channel, every day. Laurel and Hardy? Far too violent and they both smoke. The Marx Brothers? With those cigars and with all the hitting? No chance. Watch this documentary on earthworms. It's much safer. Then wrap yourself in bubblewrap and exist. Don't dare live. That's dangerous. Just exist.
The rise in violence has nothing to do with films. It is not a cause. It is an excuse. Van Damme did not make you do it. You did it. You are responsible. No excuses.
The rise in violence has everything to do with 'experts' excusing such behaviour. You can now go out and batter pensioners and say you only did it because you were drunk/drugged or because you watched Death Race 2000 the night before and that excuse will be accepted! They are not valid excuses. Years of Righteous madmen have made them into excuses by claiming that this or that causes such behaviour so it's not really the perpetrator's fault. They make a tidy living at it, too.
Nobody takes responsibility for the harm they inflict on others because nobody is required to any more. The logical extension of that is the point where nobody accepts responsibility for their own lives any more. The State will direct your life for you. Stay in line and follow the directions. No risks. No danger. No excitement. No fun. Work eight hours. Sleep eight hours. Play eight hours. Live long and fester.
These Righteous 'experts' are not interested in your safety. They want control and they want more and more of it until you have to wear a sign reminding you to breathe.
Your government does not care about you either. They think you are all dolts and have to be protected from yourselves.
Think for yourself. Do not follow the herd when they demand bans and controls. They are demanding to be put in chains. They think they are demanding those chains be put on someone else and they don't notice when the chains are around them too. Not until the zero-alcohol driving limit they demand comes into force, and they lose their licence over a spoonful of cough medicine, a splash of perfume, or alcohol-gel hand cleaner. The alcohol in booze is no different to the alcohol in other products. The test can't tell where it came from and if you think you'll be able to get off with an explanation, think again. The ban will be total, the punishment automatic and severe. Just as you demanded.
Commentators often wonder why people so readily accept stricter and stricter controls on every aspect of their lives. It's worse than that. They do not merely accept these controls. They demand them. An 'expert' says this apparently harmless thing is actually linked to that utterly deadly thing and the people rise up and shout 'Ban the harmless thing, then the deadly thing cannot happen'. It never works. Never. And yet the ban always stands, and is always extended. next time something bad happens, they rise up and cry 'Ban the other harmless thing' and that doesn't work either. The bans are never reversed, even when it is clear that it has had no effect, even when it is clear that it has made things worse.
People are not accepting these controls. They are demanding them. They do this because they think the controls will apply to others, not to them. They do it because it's what an 'expert' said. They do it because they cannot face the responsibility of living their own lives. They do it because they are terrified of shadows.
Perhaps the government is right. Perhaps the people of this country are all dolts, after all.
Saturday, 5 June 2010
Drinky-drivy. Naughty naughty.
When I was a hideous little child with no manners and not the dook of an idea how to comport myself in public, O my brothers, drinking and driving was naughty but not evil. Crashing into other people was evil no matter what you had in your bloodstream. Managing to get home plastered but undented and with no pedestrian hood ornament was, even so, frowned upon but not actually subject to a mandatory pummelling from the law. Now, it is.
I no longer have a car. I've had several, all battered bangers - and never drove drunk because I knew I was unsafe to drive under the influence. Incidentally, one of my big regrets in life is that my father once had a Ford Cortina Estate Mk II 1600E (Yes, E. Someone out there knows what that means) and he sold it long before I was old enough to drive. It was a beaut, and if I had it now I might even let it out of the garage once in a while. I've seen a MkII Cortina recently, and a Hillman Imp, and even an Austin Seven, all in top condition and they made me wish I'd kept my wedge-shaped Princess and looked after it. It would be too old to pay tax by now (do they still exempt old cars?) and it was repairable without recourse to computers.
Driving while not in proper control of the vehicle is dangerous. Operating any such machinery, cranes, diggers, tractors, etc. while not being properly able to control it is dangerous. That is unchallengeable. This week I was on a bus with a driver who I swear was either a) desperate for a pee, b) desperate for a smoke or c) practicing for the bobsled at the next winter Olympics. I was early at my destination which didn't really help because the bloke I was to meet was still in a meeting. I was, however, glad of the colon-settling properties of The Stuff. She (the driver) was in complete control at all times. Too well in control for those of a nervous disposition, but we were never in any danger. It was as safe as a fairground ride. I don't like those either.
If that driver had been under the influence of any form of reaction-slowing substance, I might have missed Smoky-Drinky and be typing this on my little Linux almost-palmtop from a hospital bed, using my remaining fingers and washing between every keystroke while trying not to inhale. She was not, fortunately.
Nowadays we have an arbitrary number, a one-size-fits-all limit on how much you can drink and still be in control of a vehicle. It is wrong. Not the number, the approach. In law, more than two beers (approximately) and you are subject to the same penalties as someone who has downed a bottle of whisky in one go.
I would not drive after two beers. I could be coherent after a bottle of whisky, but not in one go. However, I would not feel fully in control of the vehicle after two beers. When I had to drive home from somewhere, I drank no alcohol. My personal drink-drive limit is zero. So, why am I not joining the ranks of programmed drones in calling for zero? After all, I don't drive and when I did, I never drank, so why aren't I leading their charge?
It's because their charge is stupid.
The reason I don't drive has little to do with booze. I like drinking, yes, I don't like driving and I don't believe the two things are a good mix for me personally, so obviously I'll ditch the one I don't like. That was just a small part of it. I am not permanently drunk so could make use of a car. I don't like paying tax when I buy the car, I don't like paying duty and VAT on petrol (a tax on the tax), I don't like paying tax on insurance which goes up when someone else crashes, then road tax, MOT plus tax, repairs plus tax, tax tax tax. Tax on every aspect of the driving experience means that it is cheaper for me to use public transport. I only have to pay for it when I use it and when I get where I'm going, I don't have to park it. I am not 'lucky to live where public transport goes where I need to go'. That was by design. I sought a place to live where public transport worked how I wanted it to work. No luck involved.
Plus, if I have a ticket, I have a receipt that can be attributed to business use. I could never prove which parts of car use were business and which were not.
I am happy to pay the petrol costs when friends give me lifts, and I never disparage their choice to own cars. It's their choice. It's different to my choice but that is the nature of choice, and of personal circumstances. They are not the same for everyone.
Just like drinking. I could write a novel while continuously plastered. Others would have trouble finding the keyboard. I would not feel safe driving with any alcohol in me. Others are affected to different extents. Some could be over the 'limit' and safe. Others could be under the 'limit' and deadly. Some should not be driving even if they haven't so much as smelled a beer but that's a different rant.
'In control of the vehicle/machinery' is the critical aspect here. You might be stone cold sober but driving a Porsche Boxster when you've spent your driving career in Fiat Unos. Are you in control? It's perfectly legal. Nobody will raise the slightest objection. As long as you're sober and within the speed limit you can plough into a primary school playground and that's just an accident. Under the law, it's not what you do that counts. It's what condition you were in when you did it. Lose control of a performance car and as long as you're sober, you'll have no trouble.
This Labour idea of cutting the drink-drive limit in half, likely to be embraced by the Illiberal Torycrats aka New New Labour, will do nothing at all to improve road safety. It is not intended to.
Look at the bans so far. Drugs are illegal. Are there no more drugs? Handguns are illegal. Are there no more shootings with handguns? Carrying a knife is illegal. Are there no more stabbings? Why are these things not enforced harder?
Smoking in a public place is illegal and enforced as if it we were building atom bombs in the back rooms of pubs.
It is not complicated. Those who cause accidents while over the 'limit' are not slightly over. They are double, treble, four times over. They are completely gassed. They ignore the limit.
The criminals with guns had them illegally anyway. They did not hand them in. They bought more. Those who set out to stab someone, ignored the law saying they shouldn't carry knives. It was already illegal to stab or shoot someone, you know. So what changed?
All that changed was that the muggers and burglars knew for sure that their targets were not armed. Their confidence soared and they are now far more prepared to use their weapons, knowing that we don't have any. That is what the bans changed.
I've never owned a gun. In the past, anyone breaking into my home didn't know that for sure. Now they do. Has that improved my safety?
Those who drive well over the current limit will still do it over the new limit. So what is the point of this new law? Who is its target?
You.
Have a glass of wine in the evening then set out to pick up your child from his friend's house. You're done. Go to a restaurant and have a meal with wine. You're done. Have a nice day out with a pub lunch somewhere quiet. You're done.
This new law is not intended to make the roads safer nor is it intended to reduce drink-driving. It cannot do that and those who designed it are well aware of this.
This new law is designed to collect revenue from you. Yes, you. Not me. You.
It makes no difference to me what the drink-drive limit is set to. Why would I care?
Well, if you're an antismoker, it is tempting to just sit back and watch you go through the same thing we smokers have experienced. I can't, because this is not revenge, this is progression.
It's a progressive agenda, you see. Smokers were not the end of that agenda. We were just an early item.
You're all on that agenda. Somewhere down the list, you're all there. Every one of you.
So, do you want the smokers to help? Not yet, I suspect. You're not ready. You still think you have nothing to hide and nothing to fear but you'll see. One day you will find the Thought Police have noticed you and you won't know what to do, nor where to hide. Then, perhaps, you will call out for help.
We smokers might still be prepared to listen at that point. Or we might not. It depends on how we're treated in the meantime.
That part is entirely up to you.
I no longer have a car. I've had several, all battered bangers - and never drove drunk because I knew I was unsafe to drive under the influence. Incidentally, one of my big regrets in life is that my father once had a Ford Cortina Estate Mk II 1600E (Yes, E. Someone out there knows what that means) and he sold it long before I was old enough to drive. It was a beaut, and if I had it now I might even let it out of the garage once in a while. I've seen a MkII Cortina recently, and a Hillman Imp, and even an Austin Seven, all in top condition and they made me wish I'd kept my wedge-shaped Princess and looked after it. It would be too old to pay tax by now (do they still exempt old cars?) and it was repairable without recourse to computers.
Driving while not in proper control of the vehicle is dangerous. Operating any such machinery, cranes, diggers, tractors, etc. while not being properly able to control it is dangerous. That is unchallengeable. This week I was on a bus with a driver who I swear was either a) desperate for a pee, b) desperate for a smoke or c) practicing for the bobsled at the next winter Olympics. I was early at my destination which didn't really help because the bloke I was to meet was still in a meeting. I was, however, glad of the colon-settling properties of The Stuff. She (the driver) was in complete control at all times. Too well in control for those of a nervous disposition, but we were never in any danger. It was as safe as a fairground ride. I don't like those either.
If that driver had been under the influence of any form of reaction-slowing substance, I might have missed Smoky-Drinky and be typing this on my little Linux almost-palmtop from a hospital bed, using my remaining fingers and washing between every keystroke while trying not to inhale. She was not, fortunately.
Nowadays we have an arbitrary number, a one-size-fits-all limit on how much you can drink and still be in control of a vehicle. It is wrong. Not the number, the approach. In law, more than two beers (approximately) and you are subject to the same penalties as someone who has downed a bottle of whisky in one go.
I would not drive after two beers. I could be coherent after a bottle of whisky, but not in one go. However, I would not feel fully in control of the vehicle after two beers. When I had to drive home from somewhere, I drank no alcohol. My personal drink-drive limit is zero. So, why am I not joining the ranks of programmed drones in calling for zero? After all, I don't drive and when I did, I never drank, so why aren't I leading their charge?
It's because their charge is stupid.
The reason I don't drive has little to do with booze. I like drinking, yes, I don't like driving and I don't believe the two things are a good mix for me personally, so obviously I'll ditch the one I don't like. That was just a small part of it. I am not permanently drunk so could make use of a car. I don't like paying tax when I buy the car, I don't like paying duty and VAT on petrol (a tax on the tax), I don't like paying tax on insurance which goes up when someone else crashes, then road tax, MOT plus tax, repairs plus tax, tax tax tax. Tax on every aspect of the driving experience means that it is cheaper for me to use public transport. I only have to pay for it when I use it and when I get where I'm going, I don't have to park it. I am not 'lucky to live where public transport goes where I need to go'. That was by design. I sought a place to live where public transport worked how I wanted it to work. No luck involved.
Plus, if I have a ticket, I have a receipt that can be attributed to business use. I could never prove which parts of car use were business and which were not.
I am happy to pay the petrol costs when friends give me lifts, and I never disparage their choice to own cars. It's their choice. It's different to my choice but that is the nature of choice, and of personal circumstances. They are not the same for everyone.
Just like drinking. I could write a novel while continuously plastered. Others would have trouble finding the keyboard. I would not feel safe driving with any alcohol in me. Others are affected to different extents. Some could be over the 'limit' and safe. Others could be under the 'limit' and deadly. Some should not be driving even if they haven't so much as smelled a beer but that's a different rant.
'In control of the vehicle/machinery' is the critical aspect here. You might be stone cold sober but driving a Porsche Boxster when you've spent your driving career in Fiat Unos. Are you in control? It's perfectly legal. Nobody will raise the slightest objection. As long as you're sober and within the speed limit you can plough into a primary school playground and that's just an accident. Under the law, it's not what you do that counts. It's what condition you were in when you did it. Lose control of a performance car and as long as you're sober, you'll have no trouble.
This Labour idea of cutting the drink-drive limit in half, likely to be embraced by the Illiberal Torycrats aka New New Labour, will do nothing at all to improve road safety. It is not intended to.
Look at the bans so far. Drugs are illegal. Are there no more drugs? Handguns are illegal. Are there no more shootings with handguns? Carrying a knife is illegal. Are there no more stabbings? Why are these things not enforced harder?
Smoking in a public place is illegal and enforced as if it we were building atom bombs in the back rooms of pubs.
It is not complicated. Those who cause accidents while over the 'limit' are not slightly over. They are double, treble, four times over. They are completely gassed. They ignore the limit.
The criminals with guns had them illegally anyway. They did not hand them in. They bought more. Those who set out to stab someone, ignored the law saying they shouldn't carry knives. It was already illegal to stab or shoot someone, you know. So what changed?
All that changed was that the muggers and burglars knew for sure that their targets were not armed. Their confidence soared and they are now far more prepared to use their weapons, knowing that we don't have any. That is what the bans changed.
I've never owned a gun. In the past, anyone breaking into my home didn't know that for sure. Now they do. Has that improved my safety?
Those who drive well over the current limit will still do it over the new limit. So what is the point of this new law? Who is its target?
You.
Have a glass of wine in the evening then set out to pick up your child from his friend's house. You're done. Go to a restaurant and have a meal with wine. You're done. Have a nice day out with a pub lunch somewhere quiet. You're done.
This new law is not intended to make the roads safer nor is it intended to reduce drink-driving. It cannot do that and those who designed it are well aware of this.
This new law is designed to collect revenue from you. Yes, you. Not me. You.
It makes no difference to me what the drink-drive limit is set to. Why would I care?
Well, if you're an antismoker, it is tempting to just sit back and watch you go through the same thing we smokers have experienced. I can't, because this is not revenge, this is progression.
It's a progressive agenda, you see. Smokers were not the end of that agenda. We were just an early item.
You're all on that agenda. Somewhere down the list, you're all there. Every one of you.
So, do you want the smokers to help? Not yet, I suspect. You're not ready. You still think you have nothing to hide and nothing to fear but you'll see. One day you will find the Thought Police have noticed you and you won't know what to do, nor where to hide. Then, perhaps, you will call out for help.
We smokers might still be prepared to listen at that point. Or we might not. It depends on how we're treated in the meantime.
That part is entirely up to you.
Friday, 4 June 2010
Smoky-drinky night.
I haven't had time for one for a while.
Back later. Any coherence and logic in subsequent postings will be entirely coincidental.
Back later. Any coherence and logic in subsequent postings will be entirely coincidental.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
So, it wasn't smoking, then?
A load of bullocks, yesterday. Oddly enough, that's all literally true!
The EU are to take more money off us because we didn't do an impossible thing. Again. While the Cameroid and the Clegginator try to keep at least one treasury official in post against the machinations of the newspapers, while they try to reduce expenditure on Labour's nonsensical idea of society, the EU is going to dip its hairy hand in the till and take a wad of the cash they've saved.
Why? Because the air is full of stuff.
The UK has one of the worse rates of air pollution from cars and factories in Europe. Previous research shows air pollution already kills 24,000 people a year and could kill up to 36,000 because of lung complaints.
Lung complaints? How can this be? Smoking is banned everywhere. There can be no more lung complaints. Air quality in every public place must be wonderful by now.
The main problem is exhaust fumes and emissions from power stations or factories around London.
It's really no wonder the Labour government did nothing to solve this. They were listening to the drone of the Dreadful Arnott and her ASH holes who insisted that every case of any kind of lung disease was due to smoking. Those 24,000 deaths were attributed entirely to smoking. No other possible cause could be considered. It all had to be down to smoking. Nothing else.
Well, smoking is banned in all enclosed public places and in many open ones too, and guess what? The deaths due to lung disease are now set to rise from 24,000 to 36,000.
ASH would not allow anyone to consider the effects of a factory's emissions. No, it was all caused by a little bit of dried leaf in a paper tube. They would not permit mention of the fumes from many, many tons of traffic. No, it was all caused by a little bit of dried leaf in a paper tube.
Smoking was banned because the Dreadful Arnott decided to have a crusade against smoking. Her accomplices in the health dictatorship were only too keen to apply harsh controls to people. Her funding Pharmers wanted to sell nicotine in dangerous concentrations in patches and gum, rather than let us get a little bit from tobacco. Their footsoldiers followed in droves chanting 'We don't like the smell. Ban it'.
There was never any health reason. There was never any link between all those lung diseases and a little bit of leaf in a paper tube. That research they all like to point at in the 1950s shows a strong link between rising industrialisation post-war and lung disease. The controls are invalid because the controls smoked too. Almost everyone did.
It is possible that smoking heavily for many years will damage your lungs. Of course it is. If you inhale a lot of any kind of smoke for a long period, it is likely to damage you. But being in the presence of that heavy smoker once in a while does not cause long term damage. There is no second-hand smoke. It's a Pharma phantasm created to sell patches and gum, which don't work and are not meant to. It's justification for 'I don't like the smell' and those who cry those words don't care whether the justification is real. They don't like it, so it must stop. Even in places they never visit.
Here's the Pharma creed: There is no money in a cure. The profits are in the incurable.
The disease with no cure and no actual ill effects is the Holy Grail of Pharma. If they cure you, you stop buying their stuff. If they can convince you that you cannot live without their product, they have a customer for life. Chronic illness is their bread and butter. Believing yourself addicted to something they can sell you in a 'safer' form has whole boardrooms in fits of laughter.
Now the lie must at last break. Even those who really don't like the smell must surely realise that 'the smell' was their one and only motivation. It would be more valid to ban flowers for their proven effects on hay fever sufferers, and equally valid to ban air freshener sprays. Many people don't like smell of them, they stick to your clothes, so surely it is an infringement of their right to live a stench-free life? What's the difference?
There is only one difference. You like the smell of one and not the other. Therefore everyone else must feel the same way and anyone who doesn't is abnormal and subhuman. Right?
That is the consequence of the Righteous programming encouraged by Labour and likely to continue for some time yet. The idea that there is a 'standard human being' of standard height and weight, with standard food requirements and preferences, standard drinking habits and standard preferences for scents. Any deviation from the standard is abnormal and must be corrected.
The Righteous are dangerous, as the article proves. Instead of requiring that factories, motor manufacturers and so on develop and install ways to reduce pollution, they blamed it all on a bit of dried leaf in a paper tube. Instead of requiring town planners to route heavy traffic away from heavy population, they blamed it all on a bit of dried leaf in a paper tube. So nothing has been fixed. Nothing. Lung disease continues to rise even though smoking has been banned, even though pubs continue to close, even though more and more vicious controls on smokers are applied, even though smokers can be legitimately treated as filth by the Pure Ones. None of it has improved anyone's health one jot.
In fact, by ignoring the much more serious problem, they have made it far worse.
There is only one crumb of comfort here and it's only for smokers. When the incidence of lung disease continues to increase, this time they won't be able to blame us for it.
We've already been banned. And unlike any other ban, this one has been rigorously enforced.
Visiting the doctors.
Tomorrow I am visiting the hospital. I won't be staying. They will not be examining me. I know they have a big problem with hospital acquired infections and the only way they'd get me in as a patient is unconscious. I'd only be there until I woke up. There's a big sign at every entrance proudly proclaiming it as a smoke-free zone so you don't have to be scared of maybe, possibly, perhaps getting sick twenty years from now. It is not a C. difficile-free zone so you do have to worry about getting seriously ill tomorrow. That's NHS prioritisation for your health.
I'll be delivering some of the Stuff that fixes all kinds of gut infections. I have a bottle of it at home too. Just in case. Then it's back to the lab for a good scouring with antibacterial soap then home for a shower and to burn the clothes I wore there.
I last went to the doctor before I went to China in 1991. I had to have a whole load of injections, including one (well, two) for rabies which was futile because the only dogs I saw in China were roasted. Yes, I have bitten dog. Before that, I last visited as a patient when I had a boil. This boil burst and brown stuff came out, and it left a half-inch hole. Not having experienced brown stuff coming out of a random orifice before, I phoned the doctor with no real hope of seeing anyone. My last visit had been for a stye on my eyelid, and by the time the appointment came around it had gone away on its own.
Several days later, with the hole gradually filling itself in without medical intervention, the appointment came around. I thought, well, I haven't been in a while, best call in and say hello. So I did.
First question - 'Do you smoke?'
After a long pause and a blank expression, I ventured to enquire whether brown-stuff boils were connected to smoking. Was it tobacco juice that came out? If I had known, I wouldn't have thrown it away.
No, no, the doctor said. It's just that we have to ask.
Do I have to answer? Is it of any relevance to the hole I have here? I wasn't confrontational, just curious. I'd been to many doctors in the past and they had always been concerned only with the actual presented ailment, not with my lifestyle choices.
It seemed that he did expect an answer, so I said yes, I like a smoke. With that done, we got down to the actual boil remnant and no further mention of smoking. Because it was of no relevance.
I had to visit subsequently for the inoculations but I have never been again. Why bother, if they are going to nag me about smoking when I turn up with erysipelas or piles? Might as well wait until it goes away on its own.
In order to encourage people like me, who always present with far-too-advanced illnesses because we don't want to be nagged at by smug gits in suits, the health service has decided to add questions on drinking to the list. So now, those who don't smoke but who like a drink will also avoid visiting the doctor until their symptoms become unbearable. That's a great way to cut waiting times. Put off any sick people from visiting.
So if I ever do have to visit a doctor, I will speak first.
I smoke more than you approve of. I drink more than you approve of. I eat more salt and fat than you approve of. I am aware that the alcohol units limits were made up, and that the five-a-day nonsense was made up. I know how fat is metabolised and I know what salt deprivation does. So if you'd like to tick those boxes now, we can spend the three minutes you have alloted me after my four hour wait actually talking about what's wrong with me.
I suggest that anyone visiting a doctor develop a similar short spiel. That way, you might actually get some medical attention rather than a lecture on how you should be living.
If enough people do it for long enough, a doctor somewhere might eventually get the idea.
If we don't, then you can expect a lecture on global warming every time you take your car for an MOT and a nagging on energy efficiency every time you get your heating system serviced.
These sort of things don't stop on their own.
I'll be delivering some of the Stuff that fixes all kinds of gut infections. I have a bottle of it at home too. Just in case. Then it's back to the lab for a good scouring with antibacterial soap then home for a shower and to burn the clothes I wore there.
I last went to the doctor before I went to China in 1991. I had to have a whole load of injections, including one (well, two) for rabies which was futile because the only dogs I saw in China were roasted. Yes, I have bitten dog. Before that, I last visited as a patient when I had a boil. This boil burst and brown stuff came out, and it left a half-inch hole. Not having experienced brown stuff coming out of a random orifice before, I phoned the doctor with no real hope of seeing anyone. My last visit had been for a stye on my eyelid, and by the time the appointment came around it had gone away on its own.
Several days later, with the hole gradually filling itself in without medical intervention, the appointment came around. I thought, well, I haven't been in a while, best call in and say hello. So I did.
First question - 'Do you smoke?'
After a long pause and a blank expression, I ventured to enquire whether brown-stuff boils were connected to smoking. Was it tobacco juice that came out? If I had known, I wouldn't have thrown it away.
No, no, the doctor said. It's just that we have to ask.
Do I have to answer? Is it of any relevance to the hole I have here? I wasn't confrontational, just curious. I'd been to many doctors in the past and they had always been concerned only with the actual presented ailment, not with my lifestyle choices.
It seemed that he did expect an answer, so I said yes, I like a smoke. With that done, we got down to the actual boil remnant and no further mention of smoking. Because it was of no relevance.
I had to visit subsequently for the inoculations but I have never been again. Why bother, if they are going to nag me about smoking when I turn up with erysipelas or piles? Might as well wait until it goes away on its own.
In order to encourage people like me, who always present with far-too-advanced illnesses because we don't want to be nagged at by smug gits in suits, the health service has decided to add questions on drinking to the list. So now, those who don't smoke but who like a drink will also avoid visiting the doctor until their symptoms become unbearable. That's a great way to cut waiting times. Put off any sick people from visiting.
So if I ever do have to visit a doctor, I will speak first.
I smoke more than you approve of. I drink more than you approve of. I eat more salt and fat than you approve of. I am aware that the alcohol units limits were made up, and that the five-a-day nonsense was made up. I know how fat is metabolised and I know what salt deprivation does. So if you'd like to tick those boxes now, we can spend the three minutes you have alloted me after my four hour wait actually talking about what's wrong with me.
I suggest that anyone visiting a doctor develop a similar short spiel. That way, you might actually get some medical attention rather than a lecture on how you should be living.
If enough people do it for long enough, a doctor somewhere might eventually get the idea.
If we don't, then you can expect a lecture on global warming every time you take your car for an MOT and a nagging on energy efficiency every time you get your heating system serviced.
These sort of things don't stop on their own.
Money.
Nicely warm here and I've been in the garden for most of the evening. I had to fix a rotted part of the back fence. It's vertical boards on two horizontal runners, fixed to posts. All wood and about 15 years old. One of the runners had rotted. I fixed another one beneath it and screwed the boards to the new bit, with long screws through into the posts. I think the whole fence will need to be replaced in the next five years but that temporary fix should hold it for now. That's the trouble with buying a fairly new house. Every garden thing made of wood needs to be replaced at the same time because it's all the same age.
I should replace the shed but it's patched up for now. Spare-money generation this year is for a greenhouse. It has to be spare-money because I don't have a salary, I have a business and income can be very variable. I might bank six grand in one month then bank nothing for two months. So I can't just splurge the six grand because I don't know if there'll be any more next month. Plus I have to set aside the tax demand money.
Here's how I run the money side. One, never go into debt for a job because you can never be certain of getting paid. Two, no work below cost. I can't run loss-leaders. I'm not a supermarket, I can't make profit on pennies per item and use loss-leaders to get customers in. They'd only come for the cheap stuff ( like I do, in Tesco and Morrison's, because they have different loss leaders).
There's income, and part of that has to be set aside for tax and NI. More is set aside for definite costs such as running the lab and my house. I also have to keep a float for emergencies (the shed is not an emergency. An exploded gas boiler would be an emergency) and I have to have media and consumable budgets for future jobs.
The thing is, I don't generally work harder than I really have to. Why thrash myself for more money? I'd only end up paying ever-higher rates of tax. I need - really need - about £10-12 thousand after tax and work expenditure each year. That covers all bills and allows me to buy good whisky while still eating well. Not caviar and T-bone but better than own-brand stuff. Most years I earn well above that but having experienced real pennilessness, I do tend to be cautious these days. I like to have a reserve and it's untouchable. No dipping into the reserve for non-essentials, and a greenhouse is not essential. It will come from spare money set aside specifically for a greenhouse and that will be over and above money set aside for bills, business and taxes.
ID cards are not essential. For the purposes of identifying myself, should it be necessary, I have a driving licence and a passport. Both have my face on them. I had to update the driving licence last year and it now has a picture that resembles the bandaged-head image from Monty Python but without the bandage. It doesn't look like the face on the passport. It looks much more pissed off.
If I had never moved house I would still have my original driving licence with no photo and the whole lot written again in Welsh. And I would not have to pay every ten years to renew it. That goes a long way to explaining the expression in the photo. When they started these licences they never mentioned that they'd be back every ten years for more money.
That would also have been true of ID cards. Move house or age ten years and it'll cost you. It'll cost you even more if you don't update it. Forget to update your driving licence and your ID card while moving house and you have a lot of expense coming your way.
We have driving licences with photos on them. Even those of us who don't drive still have the licence because one day, we might want to use it. ID cards provided us with nothing more than the driving licence. The sole beneficiaries were the government who used the new card to collect ever more detailed information on each and every one of us. The purpose? There wasn't one. It was intimidation for control, that's all. The government never needed the information associated with those cards. they were a pointless expense and they did not come out of spare money because the government has none.
All the money the government has comes from taxes. It generates none by its own endeavors, it is simply a parasitic organism on the working man's back. Like Admin.
We, all of us who pay taxes, are paying the government to do a job. Several jobs - running the infrastructure of the country and looking after those who can't work, for example. The government are effectively a self-employed group who do a specific set of jobs for money. The difference between them and me is that I cannot demand your money. I can't simply come round and threaten to imprison you if you don't pay me to do something I want to do, but you might not want me to do. I have to convince you that it's worth your while paying me to do this work for you.
The government takes tax money by demanding it with menaces. Socialists pretend it's not like that but really, the government might as well be headed by the Kray twins. Refuse to pay the protection money and see what happens.
Government isn't like me. They don't need to set aside a reserve. They don't need to consider value for money. They don't need to check incomings against outgoings and make sure everything is running the right way. If they run short of cash, they send The Boys out to demand more. If they feel like buying a greenhouse, they order the biggest and best and if they don't have the money, another call to The Boys soon sorts that out. I don't have that option because I'm one of those that The Boys extort money from.
So it is good to see the new administration scrapping ID cards as a waste of money. They could, like the last lot, simply spend it anyway and demand we pay for it afterwards, but they didn't. They junked it, along with the database of 'We know where you live' threats. Bravo.
You'd think everyone would be pleased. Even those who shelled out thirty drinking vouchers each for a card that isn't really as worthless as is claimed. It still has their faces on it, it's still an official ID card, it's just that there won't be any more of them. Airlines could still accept it if they so chose. So could anyone else. The best part is, if you have one, you won't now be fined a thousand pounds for forgetting to update it with your new fingerprints and DNA every time you change them. Good news all round, surely?
Not quite. Captain Ranty found one who has wasted her money on an ID card and who believes the waste should continue. Wasting money is a Good Thing, she believes, and she's prepared to waste enormous amounts of public funds in order to get her thirty quid back. What a top-class waster. She could waste for England at the Waster Olympics and win gold, if they hadn't wasted the money for the medals on ID cards for contestants. Still she'd get the top medal, a lid cut from a tuna tin with 'Waster #1' written on it with a marker pen. Feel your body swell with pride. Or maybe rage. Perhaps it's just too much tuna, who can say?
If you spend money on something and then find, later, that you don't really need it (let's be fair here, is there anyone on the planet who hasn't done that? I have, more than once), the sensible approach is to not spend money on the same thing again. The non-sensible approach is to waste even more trying to get your original money back.
Next time, if you have thirty quid to spend, get a really good malt whisky instead of an ID card. Sure, it's no use as ID, nobody will know who you are.
But if you drink it all at one sitting, neither will you. So everyone is equal on that score and everyone is happy.
See? There's always an easy solution. Booze has never been cheaper than bottled water (Tesco own-brand water today, 17p for two litres. Tesco own-brand beer, much the same thing but in a can, couldn't bring myself to look at it but a 500 ml can would have to cost 4-5p to be cheaper than the water). Booze is, however, much cheaper than ID cards.
And in the long run, it damages far fewer people.
I should replace the shed but it's patched up for now. Spare-money generation this year is for a greenhouse. It has to be spare-money because I don't have a salary, I have a business and income can be very variable. I might bank six grand in one month then bank nothing for two months. So I can't just splurge the six grand because I don't know if there'll be any more next month. Plus I have to set aside the tax demand money.
Here's how I run the money side. One, never go into debt for a job because you can never be certain of getting paid. Two, no work below cost. I can't run loss-leaders. I'm not a supermarket, I can't make profit on pennies per item and use loss-leaders to get customers in. They'd only come for the cheap stuff ( like I do, in Tesco and Morrison's, because they have different loss leaders).
There's income, and part of that has to be set aside for tax and NI. More is set aside for definite costs such as running the lab and my house. I also have to keep a float for emergencies (the shed is not an emergency. An exploded gas boiler would be an emergency) and I have to have media and consumable budgets for future jobs.
The thing is, I don't generally work harder than I really have to. Why thrash myself for more money? I'd only end up paying ever-higher rates of tax. I need - really need - about £10-12 thousand after tax and work expenditure each year. That covers all bills and allows me to buy good whisky while still eating well. Not caviar and T-bone but better than own-brand stuff. Most years I earn well above that but having experienced real pennilessness, I do tend to be cautious these days. I like to have a reserve and it's untouchable. No dipping into the reserve for non-essentials, and a greenhouse is not essential. It will come from spare money set aside specifically for a greenhouse and that will be over and above money set aside for bills, business and taxes.
ID cards are not essential. For the purposes of identifying myself, should it be necessary, I have a driving licence and a passport. Both have my face on them. I had to update the driving licence last year and it now has a picture that resembles the bandaged-head image from Monty Python but without the bandage. It doesn't look like the face on the passport. It looks much more pissed off.
If I had never moved house I would still have my original driving licence with no photo and the whole lot written again in Welsh. And I would not have to pay every ten years to renew it. That goes a long way to explaining the expression in the photo. When they started these licences they never mentioned that they'd be back every ten years for more money.
That would also have been true of ID cards. Move house or age ten years and it'll cost you. It'll cost you even more if you don't update it. Forget to update your driving licence and your ID card while moving house and you have a lot of expense coming your way.
We have driving licences with photos on them. Even those of us who don't drive still have the licence because one day, we might want to use it. ID cards provided us with nothing more than the driving licence. The sole beneficiaries were the government who used the new card to collect ever more detailed information on each and every one of us. The purpose? There wasn't one. It was intimidation for control, that's all. The government never needed the information associated with those cards. they were a pointless expense and they did not come out of spare money because the government has none.
All the money the government has comes from taxes. It generates none by its own endeavors, it is simply a parasitic organism on the working man's back. Like Admin.
We, all of us who pay taxes, are paying the government to do a job. Several jobs - running the infrastructure of the country and looking after those who can't work, for example. The government are effectively a self-employed group who do a specific set of jobs for money. The difference between them and me is that I cannot demand your money. I can't simply come round and threaten to imprison you if you don't pay me to do something I want to do, but you might not want me to do. I have to convince you that it's worth your while paying me to do this work for you.
The government takes tax money by demanding it with menaces. Socialists pretend it's not like that but really, the government might as well be headed by the Kray twins. Refuse to pay the protection money and see what happens.
Government isn't like me. They don't need to set aside a reserve. They don't need to consider value for money. They don't need to check incomings against outgoings and make sure everything is running the right way. If they run short of cash, they send The Boys out to demand more. If they feel like buying a greenhouse, they order the biggest and best and if they don't have the money, another call to The Boys soon sorts that out. I don't have that option because I'm one of those that The Boys extort money from.
So it is good to see the new administration scrapping ID cards as a waste of money. They could, like the last lot, simply spend it anyway and demand we pay for it afterwards, but they didn't. They junked it, along with the database of 'We know where you live' threats. Bravo.
You'd think everyone would be pleased. Even those who shelled out thirty drinking vouchers each for a card that isn't really as worthless as is claimed. It still has their faces on it, it's still an official ID card, it's just that there won't be any more of them. Airlines could still accept it if they so chose. So could anyone else. The best part is, if you have one, you won't now be fined a thousand pounds for forgetting to update it with your new fingerprints and DNA every time you change them. Good news all round, surely?
Not quite. Captain Ranty found one who has wasted her money on an ID card and who believes the waste should continue. Wasting money is a Good Thing, she believes, and she's prepared to waste enormous amounts of public funds in order to get her thirty quid back. What a top-class waster. She could waste for England at the Waster Olympics and win gold, if they hadn't wasted the money for the medals on ID cards for contestants. Still she'd get the top medal, a lid cut from a tuna tin with 'Waster #1' written on it with a marker pen. Feel your body swell with pride. Or maybe rage. Perhaps it's just too much tuna, who can say?
If you spend money on something and then find, later, that you don't really need it (let's be fair here, is there anyone on the planet who hasn't done that? I have, more than once), the sensible approach is to not spend money on the same thing again. The non-sensible approach is to waste even more trying to get your original money back.
Next time, if you have thirty quid to spend, get a really good malt whisky instead of an ID card. Sure, it's no use as ID, nobody will know who you are.
But if you drink it all at one sitting, neither will you. So everyone is equal on that score and everyone is happy.
See? There's always an easy solution. Booze has never been cheaper than bottled water (Tesco own-brand water today, 17p for two litres. Tesco own-brand beer, much the same thing but in a can, couldn't bring myself to look at it but a 500 ml can would have to cost 4-5p to be cheaper than the water). Booze is, however, much cheaper than ID cards.
And in the long run, it damages far fewer people.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Choices.
Blogs are dropping away fast lately. Letters from a Tory penned his final missive a few weeks back, Henry North London vanished altogether and others have shut down too. Some left with a goodbye, others simply stopped.
Now, Constantly Furious is calling it a day. His reason is that it's getting too much like work. Unpaid work, at that. As he says, when you find yourself reading the news not for news, but for blog post material, and you feel obliged to do it every day, then it's not fun any more. It's an obsession.
Man Widdicombe has real-life issues that might cause him to leave the blog world. I hope those problems can be resolved but if they are business related, it won't be easy. We're all on a knife-edge now. When it comes to business contacts, we small businessmen are expendable in favour of major clients and service providers. I know, if the companies I work for had to choose, they'd keep their contacts with the big labs and drop me like a shot. I can undercut the big boys because I have no staff and no admin to pay for but even so, they have permanent and large resources.
I am not in a secure position and I know it - so I'm extraordinarily careful not to screw it up. Then again, if the guys up the chain make cuts, I know I'll be high up the list and I can't control that.
So I have another career building. Fiction writing. Lots of short stories out there, a couple of novels ready to sell - but that's not a quick transition. Publishing is not a speedy business. That's why I've already started, long before the transition becomes remotely necessary. But I digress.
Several of those in the sidebar have shut down for personal reasons from time to time. Sometimes to concentrate on just surviving the mess this country is in, sometimes because of real-world issues related to their blogging activities and sometimes because they just don't want to do it any more. Some come back. Others don't. Some come back in a different skin. Some just... stop.
When Labour were busy setting up their 'LabourLast' blogging platform, they did something no blogger ever does. They costed it. They assigned a budget. They demanded to be paid for their blogging time. They did this with other centrally-controlled blogs too.
Blogging costs nothing but a little time, but it's time you aren't paid for. I have enough invoices out at the moment that my tension meter is 'low' but it's not always like that. Sometimes I run my finances very close to the wire, sometimes I'm owed wads of back-invoices and with one company I no longer do business with, I frequently had to threaten to set a rabid lawyer on them in order to get their administration to pass payment on work I'd done months previously.
When I first started I did a little work for a company that never did pay up. The amount wasn't worth chasing, I simply ignored further contact from that company because they asked for more work without mentioning the payment they'd contracted me for. Fool me once, that's the only chance you get. Now I'll do a small job for a new company to test their payment policy. Take the results, ignore me, and that is all you get. For a first time, I write the report when I'm paid. For subsequent times, I send the report with the invoice. Don't like it, find someone else with my prices who is happy to work weekends and into the night if necessary. Good luck with that.
I'm not paid at all for blogging. Not even by the tobacco industry - although if they want to pay me, I'll accept it and put their logos on the blog. It's not going to happen. ASH accuse everyone who opposes the smoking ban of being in the pay of Big Tobacco. If everyone who opposed the ban were in the pay of Big Tobacco, the tobacco companies would have a bank account redder than Labour's. But hey, tobacco companies, I'm open for business. Want a writer? How about a ghostwriter for someone who has no traceable connection to you? ASH don't play fair, I see no need to.
I write all the time. I write reports. I write articles. Just sent one to an online magazine I've been writing for since 2003. I operate two other blogs and moderate on a writer's site. All with different names and personalities. One of those fictional personalities once wrote a non-fiction book for a laugh. Just a little one. I put it on Lulu.com and forgot about it until the first royalties came in. Only five dollars (I'd set it at about 30 cents per book because it was only there for a laugh) but it annoyed the hell out of me. Someone I made up has sold more books than me! Even better, a commenter on that persona's blog mentioned that someone on Ebay was selling pirated copies of the book. I actually had to complain to Ebay - as that fictional character - to stop sales of a pirated non-fiction book written by someone who doesn't exist!
Dammit, I invented someone who's better at writing than I am. And you think your life is weird.
Writing doesn't take much of my time because I've become very fast at it. I don't mind writing taking up time because I enjoy it. I don't like statistics but I have a program that takes care of the hard stuff as long as I get the numbers in the right order, and it's a necessary evil in my work. Once it's done, working out what it all means is great fun. As is doing the experiment in the first place and writing the report afterwards. I'm lucky, I know. I do a job I absolutely love doing. That's because I went self-employed and only do what I want to do. I don't need a Lexus, a mansion or a yacht, just enough to cover the bills (plus, at the moment, some extra cash for a greenhouse) so I'm not driven by money. I doubt anyone in any of the main political parties will ever grasp what that's like. Sometimes, you know, I just stop and watch the world go by. Most of it seems to be in a hell of a hurry but with no specific direction in mind.
Okay, sometimes a lot of deadlines arrive at once and it gets intense (6 am finish on Monday morning - ouch) but it's still fun. When work is slow I can write fiction, and that is a great relaxation from real work because I can just make it all up. I've written imaginary tales of terror that have far more credibility than anything ASH have ever produced. One, called 'Telephone Pest', actually had a lot of complaints from people who were scared to answer the phone in case there was nobody there, and they'd die. I wrote that six months before the big real-life scare in some African country along the same lines. I like to think it was connected. It probably wasn't but I still like to think so.
So I won't be fading away for real life issues or for writing fatigue because writing is what I do. I do it because I like it. Sometimes I won't have time to fill a lot of space here but other times, like tonight when all deadlines are done, I'll write something that you might or might not agree with, might or might not care about, but the truth is, I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for me. I'm doing it to bleed the excess verbiage from my head before it bursts. Blogging, for me, is like leech treatment for high blood pressure. It gets rid of the excess and lets the remainder flow more easily.
I can understand why those whose first passion is not words can get tired, bored, drained by the pressure of entertaining blog readers. I can understand how it can feel like work because it is work. It's not relaxation. That's a chair and table on the patio, a bottle of the Ardbeg and a glass. Guess what I'm doing in my head at that time? I'm making up stories. I'm writing. For me, that's work but not labour. I can make money at it so it's work but it's not something I have to do whether I like it or not so it's not labour. I think D. H. Lawrence wrote a poem about this difference between work and labour. Prescient, it seems. Maybe it was another poet. It was on the back of the Mott the Hoople 'Mott' album cover I think, but I don't have that any more. It had 'Hymn for the Dudes' and 'The Ballad of Mott the Hoople' so I'll have to get a CD.
I can see why real life can get in the way of writing on a blog. For me, real life is writing and even so, sometimes the blog has to take a back seat. For others, real life is something different and keeping up a blog can become a chore. Even an obsession. Constantly Furious wrote of the pressure of setting up automatic blog posts while on holiday. I don't do that. If I'm away and have internet access, I'll use it. If I don't have access, I am mercifully silent. I think you all appreciate those days when you can say 'Oh, thank God, he's shut up for a while'.
For some, writing is, or can become, a chore. Obo enjoys driving. I hate driving. I'd much rather be on a bus, looking out of the side windows at the world, than be in control of a chunk of speeding steel and have to concentrate on the road ahead. It's partly a relative size thing. I feel safe in a ferry but scared in a rowing boat. If I'm halfway down the bus and it hits something, that has to be better than being at the front. Others like football, which I find dull, many enjoy EastEnders and the like, which I find infuriatingly pointless. Some people feel that way about writing - it's something that needs to be done but they don't always feel like doing it. Everyone is different. Try telling the NHS that and see how far you get.
Those bloggers might come back to blogging, they might not. It's an individual thing. Like smoking. Or drinking. Or salt/fat/fast food preferences. Some of us will write until we die, some will take it up and drop it later, some will never bother. We are all different.
And that, at long last, is the point. I am not you and you are not me. There is no standard human, no manual for human life, no standard operating procedure. No targets can be set for the living of a life because every one is different. Every one of us lives as we see fit, or should. Every one of us takes delight in some things and despises other things. We all take up hobbies only to find they aren't that interesting after all, and drop them. Some stick, some fall by the wayside. What I adore, you might hate and vice versa.
So let those bloggers go if that is what their preferences are. If they miss blogging, they'll come back. If they don't, they won't. Should we legislate to force blogging on those who don't want to, or to ban blogging for those who don't like it? We've done it with just about everything else and it hasn't stopped yet. Crossbows and dog ownership are in the sights. Ban them if you want. The pencil is still mightier than the sword and Tesco will sell me 30 for a pound. Banning weapons is irrelevant and doesn't work anyway. Guns and knives are banned, therefore there is no gun and knife crime, right? No heroin or cocaine either. Legislation is of no relevance without proper enforcement.
There is massive enforcement of the smoking ban and no effective enforcement of the gun ban. Children can get guns easier than they can get cigarettes. What does that tell you of our current government and its priorities? But that's a different post.
For now, I ask you to consider not what you have in common with everyone else, but where you differ. Then ask yourself why it matters so much that your neighbor likes beer and you like lager. It doesn't really affect you, does it? It doesn't affect you if your neighbour smokes or drinks or eats lard sandwiches or likes every morsel of food with five morsels of salt. They are different, yes.
So are you.
Blog or don't blog. Smoke or don't smoke. Eat fat or don't. Add salt or don't. Drink or be teatotal.
It's your choice. All of it. Your government want to take all choice from you. Not just the guy next door. You too.
Do you really want this?
Now, Constantly Furious is calling it a day. His reason is that it's getting too much like work. Unpaid work, at that. As he says, when you find yourself reading the news not for news, but for blog post material, and you feel obliged to do it every day, then it's not fun any more. It's an obsession.
Man Widdicombe has real-life issues that might cause him to leave the blog world. I hope those problems can be resolved but if they are business related, it won't be easy. We're all on a knife-edge now. When it comes to business contacts, we small businessmen are expendable in favour of major clients and service providers. I know, if the companies I work for had to choose, they'd keep their contacts with the big labs and drop me like a shot. I can undercut the big boys because I have no staff and no admin to pay for but even so, they have permanent and large resources.
I am not in a secure position and I know it - so I'm extraordinarily careful not to screw it up. Then again, if the guys up the chain make cuts, I know I'll be high up the list and I can't control that.
So I have another career building. Fiction writing. Lots of short stories out there, a couple of novels ready to sell - but that's not a quick transition. Publishing is not a speedy business. That's why I've already started, long before the transition becomes remotely necessary. But I digress.
Several of those in the sidebar have shut down for personal reasons from time to time. Sometimes to concentrate on just surviving the mess this country is in, sometimes because of real-world issues related to their blogging activities and sometimes because they just don't want to do it any more. Some come back. Others don't. Some come back in a different skin. Some just... stop.
When Labour were busy setting up their 'LabourLast' blogging platform, they did something no blogger ever does. They costed it. They assigned a budget. They demanded to be paid for their blogging time. They did this with other centrally-controlled blogs too.
Blogging costs nothing but a little time, but it's time you aren't paid for. I have enough invoices out at the moment that my tension meter is 'low' but it's not always like that. Sometimes I run my finances very close to the wire, sometimes I'm owed wads of back-invoices and with one company I no longer do business with, I frequently had to threaten to set a rabid lawyer on them in order to get their administration to pass payment on work I'd done months previously.
When I first started I did a little work for a company that never did pay up. The amount wasn't worth chasing, I simply ignored further contact from that company because they asked for more work without mentioning the payment they'd contracted me for. Fool me once, that's the only chance you get. Now I'll do a small job for a new company to test their payment policy. Take the results, ignore me, and that is all you get. For a first time, I write the report when I'm paid. For subsequent times, I send the report with the invoice. Don't like it, find someone else with my prices who is happy to work weekends and into the night if necessary. Good luck with that.
I'm not paid at all for blogging. Not even by the tobacco industry - although if they want to pay me, I'll accept it and put their logos on the blog. It's not going to happen. ASH accuse everyone who opposes the smoking ban of being in the pay of Big Tobacco. If everyone who opposed the ban were in the pay of Big Tobacco, the tobacco companies would have a bank account redder than Labour's. But hey, tobacco companies, I'm open for business. Want a writer? How about a ghostwriter for someone who has no traceable connection to you? ASH don't play fair, I see no need to.
I write all the time. I write reports. I write articles. Just sent one to an online magazine I've been writing for since 2003. I operate two other blogs and moderate on a writer's site. All with different names and personalities. One of those fictional personalities once wrote a non-fiction book for a laugh. Just a little one. I put it on Lulu.com and forgot about it until the first royalties came in. Only five dollars (I'd set it at about 30 cents per book because it was only there for a laugh) but it annoyed the hell out of me. Someone I made up has sold more books than me! Even better, a commenter on that persona's blog mentioned that someone on Ebay was selling pirated copies of the book. I actually had to complain to Ebay - as that fictional character - to stop sales of a pirated non-fiction book written by someone who doesn't exist!
Dammit, I invented someone who's better at writing than I am. And you think your life is weird.
Writing doesn't take much of my time because I've become very fast at it. I don't mind writing taking up time because I enjoy it. I don't like statistics but I have a program that takes care of the hard stuff as long as I get the numbers in the right order, and it's a necessary evil in my work. Once it's done, working out what it all means is great fun. As is doing the experiment in the first place and writing the report afterwards. I'm lucky, I know. I do a job I absolutely love doing. That's because I went self-employed and only do what I want to do. I don't need a Lexus, a mansion or a yacht, just enough to cover the bills (plus, at the moment, some extra cash for a greenhouse) so I'm not driven by money. I doubt anyone in any of the main political parties will ever grasp what that's like. Sometimes, you know, I just stop and watch the world go by. Most of it seems to be in a hell of a hurry but with no specific direction in mind.
Okay, sometimes a lot of deadlines arrive at once and it gets intense (6 am finish on Monday morning - ouch) but it's still fun. When work is slow I can write fiction, and that is a great relaxation from real work because I can just make it all up. I've written imaginary tales of terror that have far more credibility than anything ASH have ever produced. One, called 'Telephone Pest', actually had a lot of complaints from people who were scared to answer the phone in case there was nobody there, and they'd die. I wrote that six months before the big real-life scare in some African country along the same lines. I like to think it was connected. It probably wasn't but I still like to think so.
So I won't be fading away for real life issues or for writing fatigue because writing is what I do. I do it because I like it. Sometimes I won't have time to fill a lot of space here but other times, like tonight when all deadlines are done, I'll write something that you might or might not agree with, might or might not care about, but the truth is, I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for me. I'm doing it to bleed the excess verbiage from my head before it bursts. Blogging, for me, is like leech treatment for high blood pressure. It gets rid of the excess and lets the remainder flow more easily.
I can understand why those whose first passion is not words can get tired, bored, drained by the pressure of entertaining blog readers. I can understand how it can feel like work because it is work. It's not relaxation. That's a chair and table on the patio, a bottle of the Ardbeg and a glass. Guess what I'm doing in my head at that time? I'm making up stories. I'm writing. For me, that's work but not labour. I can make money at it so it's work but it's not something I have to do whether I like it or not so it's not labour. I think D. H. Lawrence wrote a poem about this difference between work and labour. Prescient, it seems. Maybe it was another poet. It was on the back of the Mott the Hoople 'Mott' album cover I think, but I don't have that any more. It had 'Hymn for the Dudes' and 'The Ballad of Mott the Hoople' so I'll have to get a CD.
I can see why real life can get in the way of writing on a blog. For me, real life is writing and even so, sometimes the blog has to take a back seat. For others, real life is something different and keeping up a blog can become a chore. Even an obsession. Constantly Furious wrote of the pressure of setting up automatic blog posts while on holiday. I don't do that. If I'm away and have internet access, I'll use it. If I don't have access, I am mercifully silent. I think you all appreciate those days when you can say 'Oh, thank God, he's shut up for a while'.
For some, writing is, or can become, a chore. Obo enjoys driving. I hate driving. I'd much rather be on a bus, looking out of the side windows at the world, than be in control of a chunk of speeding steel and have to concentrate on the road ahead. It's partly a relative size thing. I feel safe in a ferry but scared in a rowing boat. If I'm halfway down the bus and it hits something, that has to be better than being at the front. Others like football, which I find dull, many enjoy EastEnders and the like, which I find infuriatingly pointless. Some people feel that way about writing - it's something that needs to be done but they don't always feel like doing it. Everyone is different. Try telling the NHS that and see how far you get.
Those bloggers might come back to blogging, they might not. It's an individual thing. Like smoking. Or drinking. Or salt/fat/fast food preferences. Some of us will write until we die, some will take it up and drop it later, some will never bother. We are all different.
And that, at long last, is the point. I am not you and you are not me. There is no standard human, no manual for human life, no standard operating procedure. No targets can be set for the living of a life because every one is different. Every one of us lives as we see fit, or should. Every one of us takes delight in some things and despises other things. We all take up hobbies only to find they aren't that interesting after all, and drop them. Some stick, some fall by the wayside. What I adore, you might hate and vice versa.
So let those bloggers go if that is what their preferences are. If they miss blogging, they'll come back. If they don't, they won't. Should we legislate to force blogging on those who don't want to, or to ban blogging for those who don't like it? We've done it with just about everything else and it hasn't stopped yet. Crossbows and dog ownership are in the sights. Ban them if you want. The pencil is still mightier than the sword and Tesco will sell me 30 for a pound. Banning weapons is irrelevant and doesn't work anyway. Guns and knives are banned, therefore there is no gun and knife crime, right? No heroin or cocaine either. Legislation is of no relevance without proper enforcement.
There is massive enforcement of the smoking ban and no effective enforcement of the gun ban. Children can get guns easier than they can get cigarettes. What does that tell you of our current government and its priorities? But that's a different post.
For now, I ask you to consider not what you have in common with everyone else, but where you differ. Then ask yourself why it matters so much that your neighbor likes beer and you like lager. It doesn't really affect you, does it? It doesn't affect you if your neighbour smokes or drinks or eats lard sandwiches or likes every morsel of food with five morsels of salt. They are different, yes.
So are you.
Blog or don't blog. Smoke or don't smoke. Eat fat or don't. Add salt or don't. Drink or be teatotal.
It's your choice. All of it. Your government want to take all choice from you. Not just the guy next door. You too.
Do you really want this?
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