My post on Rutland Weekend Television sent Trooper Thompson scouring YouTube for others.
He has exacted a terrible revenge by posting part one of 'Dead of Night'. The swine ensnared me good and proper. I've just watched the whole thing again.
It is a good film though.
UPDATE: Watch the film. Everyone smokes. Everyone. Nobody coughs. Nobody runs away screaming. Those who die, don't die of smoking. Interesting, eh?
Monday, 14 June 2010
New Smoky Blogs.
I haven't been on the Freedom2Choose forums for ages. Real life takes up too much time. I must get back in there and see what's been happening.
In the meantime, here are two new smoky blogs. Nothing2Declare keeps us up to date with what you can and cannot bring in from the EU and should be required reading for HMRC because they obviously have no idea, even though it's their job to know.
Stand FAST is a well written smoky blog, worth a visit. This article is especially interesting. Apparently, all those small-shop owners are upset because we smokers buy our stuff from Man with a Van at cut-price, instead of paying tax in their shops. The small shop owners' solution? Get the government to force Man with a Van to stop selling to us, and fine us if we buy from him.
Okay. Most publicans were happy to have us leave their premises and are now bleating that we don't support their pubs. Small shop owners, who will soon be forced to hide the cigarettes behind expensive screens so we smokers won't realise they sell any, are likewise not going to support us.
So where are all the antismokers who can now rush to the small shops without fear of being tempted by shiny packets that exude fiftieth hand smoke? Where are they? I've no idea. They're not in the pub, that's for sure.
Pubs depended for a lot of their income on smokers. Small shops depend for a lot of their income on smokers. Small shops are going to go the same way as pubs and like pubs, they will blame the smokers because we aren't going there any more. That's right, they will accept the antismoker rules as inevitable and then blame the people they have excluded from their business for not spending money in their business.
Smokers are not closing pubs. We'd love to go back but we are not welcome. In any pub, anywhere. if anyone tries to make us welcome, the Smokefinder General will bankrupt them. We are not doing that to the pubs. We cannot stop it. Publicans, if they united, could. There is nothing smokers can do to save the pubs because we are not allowed inside.
Smokers will not close down the small shops. It's great to be able to buy your tobacco along with a newspaper, crisps, chocolate, bottle of fizzy pop and sometimes even whisky without having to go to separate counters for it all. Yes, it costs a bit more in there but it's convenient. You don't have to trek all the way across town to the supermarket. Yet now that their income from smokers is threatened,. what do they do? Do they say 'No, you must not boost the tax because the smokers won't pay any more'?
No, they say 'Fine the smokers who buy from Man with a Van, and then arrest Man with a Van. Smokers must be forced to pay the huge tax because we need the income to keep our shops alive. Customers must have no choice.'
Well thanks for your support, small shop people. You can count on exactly the same amount of support from me in future.
The government needs the billions it takes from smokers in tax. Pubs need smokers' business. Small shops need smokers' business. And yet they are all happy to spit on us and kick us around.
Man with a Van is our friend. Organised crime? It's the only bloody thing that is organised in this country. I don't care if Man with a Van is pure-blood Mafioso and has a sub-machine gun where other people keep a spare wheel. As far as I am concerned, he sells tobacco at reasonable prices and does not sneer at his customers while selling it. So the pubs close, the small shops close, and the government loses revenue. I can't really bring myself to care about any of them.
None of them show any sign of caring about me.
In the meantime, here are two new smoky blogs. Nothing2Declare keeps us up to date with what you can and cannot bring in from the EU and should be required reading for HMRC because they obviously have no idea, even though it's their job to know.
Stand FAST is a well written smoky blog, worth a visit. This article is especially interesting. Apparently, all those small-shop owners are upset because we smokers buy our stuff from Man with a Van at cut-price, instead of paying tax in their shops. The small shop owners' solution? Get the government to force Man with a Van to stop selling to us, and fine us if we buy from him.
Okay. Most publicans were happy to have us leave their premises and are now bleating that we don't support their pubs. Small shop owners, who will soon be forced to hide the cigarettes behind expensive screens so we smokers won't realise they sell any, are likewise not going to support us.
So where are all the antismokers who can now rush to the small shops without fear of being tempted by shiny packets that exude fiftieth hand smoke? Where are they? I've no idea. They're not in the pub, that's for sure.
Pubs depended for a lot of their income on smokers. Small shops depend for a lot of their income on smokers. Small shops are going to go the same way as pubs and like pubs, they will blame the smokers because we aren't going there any more. That's right, they will accept the antismoker rules as inevitable and then blame the people they have excluded from their business for not spending money in their business.
Smokers are not closing pubs. We'd love to go back but we are not welcome. In any pub, anywhere. if anyone tries to make us welcome, the Smokefinder General will bankrupt them. We are not doing that to the pubs. We cannot stop it. Publicans, if they united, could. There is nothing smokers can do to save the pubs because we are not allowed inside.
Smokers will not close down the small shops. It's great to be able to buy your tobacco along with a newspaper, crisps, chocolate, bottle of fizzy pop and sometimes even whisky without having to go to separate counters for it all. Yes, it costs a bit more in there but it's convenient. You don't have to trek all the way across town to the supermarket. Yet now that their income from smokers is threatened,. what do they do? Do they say 'No, you must not boost the tax because the smokers won't pay any more'?
No, they say 'Fine the smokers who buy from Man with a Van, and then arrest Man with a Van. Smokers must be forced to pay the huge tax because we need the income to keep our shops alive. Customers must have no choice.'
Well thanks for your support, small shop people. You can count on exactly the same amount of support from me in future.
The government needs the billions it takes from smokers in tax. Pubs need smokers' business. Small shops need smokers' business. And yet they are all happy to spit on us and kick us around.
Man with a Van is our friend. Organised crime? It's the only bloody thing that is organised in this country. I don't care if Man with a Van is pure-blood Mafioso and has a sub-machine gun where other people keep a spare wheel. As far as I am concerned, he sells tobacco at reasonable prices and does not sneer at his customers while selling it. So the pubs close, the small shops close, and the government loses revenue. I can't really bring myself to care about any of them.
None of them show any sign of caring about me.
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Creating the master race.
I might be quiet for a while.
Someone sent me the Airfix kit of 'Daleks in Manhattan' as a late 50th birthday present. It has Dalek Sec and Dalek Caan and a background. Sec is opened-up just before he sucks in the human victim. Oddly, the background includes a dial-laden panel high on the wall, reached by a ladder. I can only assume it was installed by Dalek Twat, or perhaps by Dalek Harman for the sake of inclusivity. Maybe Dalek Anonymous from Skaro borough council.
Much fun, much detail, and Airfix hasn't changed, it's still 'assisted scratchbuilding'.
Here's a chunk of plastic and a picture that looks somewhat like what you're supposed to make out of it. Oh, and the instructions might be lying here and there (they are).
With trimming, filler and swearing, it might turn out pretty good. Did you know that every Dalek has 56 of those half-globes around their casing? I had never counted until Airfix gave me 112 of the bastard things to fix into place.
The Daleks talk, too.
One thing - the friend who sent it to me said that 'Daleks in Manhattan' made him think they'd have top hats and canes. It can be arranged...
There'll be photos when it's done. With top hats and canes.
Someone sent me the Airfix kit of 'Daleks in Manhattan' as a late 50th birthday present. It has Dalek Sec and Dalek Caan and a background. Sec is opened-up just before he sucks in the human victim. Oddly, the background includes a dial-laden panel high on the wall, reached by a ladder. I can only assume it was installed by Dalek Twat, or perhaps by Dalek Harman for the sake of inclusivity. Maybe Dalek Anonymous from Skaro borough council.
Much fun, much detail, and Airfix hasn't changed, it's still 'assisted scratchbuilding'.
Here's a chunk of plastic and a picture that looks somewhat like what you're supposed to make out of it. Oh, and the instructions might be lying here and there (they are).
With trimming, filler and swearing, it might turn out pretty good. Did you know that every Dalek has 56 of those half-globes around their casing? I had never counted until Airfix gave me 112 of the bastard things to fix into place.
The Daleks talk, too.
One thing - the friend who sent it to me said that 'Daleks in Manhattan' made him think they'd have top hats and canes. It can be arranged...
There'll be photos when it's done. With top hats and canes.
Tax vs. health.
The Righteous insist they want us to stop smoking and drinking and driving and eating and sleeping and breathing... did I miss something?
The Taxman does not want us to stop, or even reduce, our use of petrol, baccy and booze. In fact it would do the Treasury good if we all doubled our consumption of those things. I'm going to buy some petrol this week, in fact. My lawnmower runs on it. One gallon lasts a couple of years so it'll be a lot more expensive this time than last time. Hopefully, by next time I'll have perfected my plan for a solar-powered hover-mower that follows a path around the grass whenever the sun comes out. I have a £30 Tesco mower in the garage awaiting a suitable replacement motor and enough solar cells. It's not as easy as it sounds, balancing the weight with the power requirements. But then, as every woman knows, the reason men invent things like this is that we are basically lazy and want a machine to do it instead. Preferably automatically and unattended.
I'm sure there are those out there who still believe that the government really wants us to live healthy, pollution-free lives but the truth is, if we did that, the Treasury would collapse. Witness 'Chopper' Osbourne's latest idea to increase his tax take. He plans to increase the price of booze. Again.
Some will say that this is to 'reduce consumption'. No it isn't. It's to increase the tax take. A reduction in consumption is the last thing the Treasury wants to see.
There's no mention of tobacco but that increase goes without saying. Again, it's not to 'reduce consumption', it's to increase the tax take. I now source my tobacco from friends who take *cough* frequent foreign holidays. When they tell Customs it's for their own use, they are not lying. They plan to use it to sell to me, and others. You know, many such suppliers are non-smokers. We're not as isolated as we are led to believe.
Soon they'll be bringing in whisky too. They already bring beer but I drink so little of that it's not worth the saving.
What never seems to filter into the dense heads of the Righteous is that it's only worth smuggling something when the profit is high. It's a risky business and you have to be selling below local rates or you won't sell at all. So you are dependent on a big price differential between your source and your market.
Two ounces of tobacco comes in at around a tenner in the supermarket. The 'foreign holiday' guys can sell it at six quid a pack and make a profit. If it cost seven quid in the supermarket, the difference wouldn't attract all that many people and the smugglers would give up. Then the Treasury would get more tax because fewer people will buy the imports.
Instead of seeing this, our government (of whatever colour) will continue to increase the tax and thereby drive more and more to the little guy with the van in the back-alley. His range of goods will increase too.
As for booze, well that is very easy to make and there is no way to stop it happening. I haven't built a still because it's not yet worth it. Besides, the stuff I like has to be aged for an absolute minimum of eight years in oak barrels and I've never been known for my patience. Good quality tobacco also takes years. However, the price will eventually reach a point where it's worth starting. I can sell the raw hooch to fund my booze and tobacco intake while I wait for the good stuff to be ready and by the time I retire I'll have an independent supply of both. Free, apart from a little effort.
Tobacco - you're taxing something that grows on its own.
Booze - you're taxing something that anyone can make. No training necessary. If you want to distil then you do need to know what you're doing but beer? Easy. You can make a strong beer at home for pennies per pint in a matter of weeks. Wine? Almost effortless and can be made with fruit grown in your garden or collected from the wild - and yes, if it grows on public property, it's wild. If it grows in someone's garden and overhangs the fence, you can't have it but if it's rooted beside a public path, fill your bag.
An aside - someone told me of a case of two neighbours who hated each other. One had an apple tree that overhung the neighbour's garden. The neighbour cut off the overhang and dropped it back over the fence. He had eaten all the apples but left the cores attached to the tree. Yes, he had munched around them without picking them.
The owner of the apple tree went to his lawyer but the lawyer said nothing could be done. It is legal to cut off an overhang as long as you return it, which the neighbour did. It is not legal to pick the fruit from an overhang, but he didn't, by strict interpretation of the law, pick any. He had left the apples attached to the branch, even though he had eaten them. So that's not illegal but it's pretty spiteful.
Aside over.
Basically, you can make all the booze you want at home and even if they made homebrew illegal, there's no real way to police it. So they don't sell brewer's yeast. They'll still sell baker's yeast and it's the same species. It won't make good beer straight away but if you re-use it on successive batches, it'll get better. Alternatively, buy a bottle of beer with the yeast still in it and use that. You want hops and barley? Visit a farmer. Malting isn't hard, it just takes a little effort. If you can't get hops, use nettles, but use the very young shoots that haven't developed stings yet or you'll lose all feeling in your tongue. All you need is a little practice.
I'm out of practice. I think I might go shopping for demijohns and buckets. As for yeast, well, that's not likely to be an issue.
The Taxman does not want us to stop, or even reduce, our use of petrol, baccy and booze. In fact it would do the Treasury good if we all doubled our consumption of those things. I'm going to buy some petrol this week, in fact. My lawnmower runs on it. One gallon lasts a couple of years so it'll be a lot more expensive this time than last time. Hopefully, by next time I'll have perfected my plan for a solar-powered hover-mower that follows a path around the grass whenever the sun comes out. I have a £30 Tesco mower in the garage awaiting a suitable replacement motor and enough solar cells. It's not as easy as it sounds, balancing the weight with the power requirements. But then, as every woman knows, the reason men invent things like this is that we are basically lazy and want a machine to do it instead. Preferably automatically and unattended.
I'm sure there are those out there who still believe that the government really wants us to live healthy, pollution-free lives but the truth is, if we did that, the Treasury would collapse. Witness 'Chopper' Osbourne's latest idea to increase his tax take. He plans to increase the price of booze. Again.
Some will say that this is to 'reduce consumption'. No it isn't. It's to increase the tax take. A reduction in consumption is the last thing the Treasury wants to see.
There's no mention of tobacco but that increase goes without saying. Again, it's not to 'reduce consumption', it's to increase the tax take. I now source my tobacco from friends who take *cough* frequent foreign holidays. When they tell Customs it's for their own use, they are not lying. They plan to use it to sell to me, and others. You know, many such suppliers are non-smokers. We're not as isolated as we are led to believe.
Soon they'll be bringing in whisky too. They already bring beer but I drink so little of that it's not worth the saving.
What never seems to filter into the dense heads of the Righteous is that it's only worth smuggling something when the profit is high. It's a risky business and you have to be selling below local rates or you won't sell at all. So you are dependent on a big price differential between your source and your market.
Two ounces of tobacco comes in at around a tenner in the supermarket. The 'foreign holiday' guys can sell it at six quid a pack and make a profit. If it cost seven quid in the supermarket, the difference wouldn't attract all that many people and the smugglers would give up. Then the Treasury would get more tax because fewer people will buy the imports.
Instead of seeing this, our government (of whatever colour) will continue to increase the tax and thereby drive more and more to the little guy with the van in the back-alley. His range of goods will increase too.
As for booze, well that is very easy to make and there is no way to stop it happening. I haven't built a still because it's not yet worth it. Besides, the stuff I like has to be aged for an absolute minimum of eight years in oak barrels and I've never been known for my patience. Good quality tobacco also takes years. However, the price will eventually reach a point where it's worth starting. I can sell the raw hooch to fund my booze and tobacco intake while I wait for the good stuff to be ready and by the time I retire I'll have an independent supply of both. Free, apart from a little effort.
Tobacco - you're taxing something that grows on its own.
Booze - you're taxing something that anyone can make. No training necessary. If you want to distil then you do need to know what you're doing but beer? Easy. You can make a strong beer at home for pennies per pint in a matter of weeks. Wine? Almost effortless and can be made with fruit grown in your garden or collected from the wild - and yes, if it grows on public property, it's wild. If it grows in someone's garden and overhangs the fence, you can't have it but if it's rooted beside a public path, fill your bag.
An aside - someone told me of a case of two neighbours who hated each other. One had an apple tree that overhung the neighbour's garden. The neighbour cut off the overhang and dropped it back over the fence. He had eaten all the apples but left the cores attached to the tree. Yes, he had munched around them without picking them.
The owner of the apple tree went to his lawyer but the lawyer said nothing could be done. It is legal to cut off an overhang as long as you return it, which the neighbour did. It is not legal to pick the fruit from an overhang, but he didn't, by strict interpretation of the law, pick any. He had left the apples attached to the branch, even though he had eaten them. So that's not illegal but it's pretty spiteful.
Aside over.
Basically, you can make all the booze you want at home and even if they made homebrew illegal, there's no real way to police it. So they don't sell brewer's yeast. They'll still sell baker's yeast and it's the same species. It won't make good beer straight away but if you re-use it on successive batches, it'll get better. Alternatively, buy a bottle of beer with the yeast still in it and use that. You want hops and barley? Visit a farmer. Malting isn't hard, it just takes a little effort. If you can't get hops, use nettles, but use the very young shoots that haven't developed stings yet or you'll lose all feeling in your tongue. All you need is a little practice.
I'm out of practice. I think I might go shopping for demijohns and buckets. As for yeast, well, that's not likely to be an issue.
Apology demand.
Standard Righteous tactic - demand an apology. Force your opponent into a submissive stance.
I had thought Eyebrows McDarling a cut above the standard New Labour pompous, arrogant, self-important arse but it seems not. He has demanded an apology from the Cameroid in the event that the economy turns out not to be as totally devastated as New Labour tried, quite deliberately, to leave it.
Not just an apology. A very big apology. I have yet to hear Labour's apology for this and I won't be holding my breath.
Look, Al, get those eyebrows trimmed and maybe you can see it. Your party has put the country so deep in debt that it no longer matters what the actual figure is. So it's a few million less bad. So what? We still haven't got the money to pay it. You, personally, as Chancellor under the Brown Gorgon are responsible for the penniless state of the nation now. Where's your apology for that? Where's your apology to all those people you employed in non-jobs, all those database-fillers and DNA-analysers and HIPS-creators? You knew they'd be first to go when the money ran out and they'd be going if you were still running the show because even a socialist can't spend it when there's no more coming in.
New Labour have a hell of a lot to apologise for and I haven't heard even a murmur of regret from them. How dare you, ex-Chancellor, ask for an apology?
You are an apology. And you supported a bigger one.
I had thought Eyebrows McDarling a cut above the standard New Labour pompous, arrogant, self-important arse but it seems not. He has demanded an apology from the Cameroid in the event that the economy turns out not to be as totally devastated as New Labour tried, quite deliberately, to leave it.
Not just an apology. A very big apology. I have yet to hear Labour's apology for this and I won't be holding my breath.
Look, Al, get those eyebrows trimmed and maybe you can see it. Your party has put the country so deep in debt that it no longer matters what the actual figure is. So it's a few million less bad. So what? We still haven't got the money to pay it. You, personally, as Chancellor under the Brown Gorgon are responsible for the penniless state of the nation now. Where's your apology for that? Where's your apology to all those people you employed in non-jobs, all those database-fillers and DNA-analysers and HIPS-creators? You knew they'd be first to go when the money ran out and they'd be going if you were still running the show because even a socialist can't spend it when there's no more coming in.
New Labour have a hell of a lot to apologise for and I haven't heard even a murmur of regret from them. How dare you, ex-Chancellor, ask for an apology?
You are an apology. And you supported a bigger one.
Friday, 11 June 2010
Just sayings...
There used to be commonly-known sayings. There used to be an awful lot of them. Somewhere along the line they have dropped out of use and the world has become a greyer place for their loss.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me.
When we were small we would shout that at anyone who called us names. Being called names didn't matter to us as children. At least, we would never let the name-caller see that their words had any effect. Offence is never given. It cannot be given. It can only be taken. I cannot offend you with words unless you decide to take offence. You cannot offend me unless I accept the offense. If I call you names and you brush them aside, then my insult is powerless. If you take offense, my insult has hurt you and I have won. See how it works?
If you know me, if you know my past in detail, you might be able to find something to say that would cut me deeply. You might want to use that to upset me. Your words can only affect me if I let them. If I show no reaction, you have lost. Sticks and stones...
Now, of course, there's profit in being offended. You can make the insulter pay, but you can only do that by taking offense. Forget the sticks and stones - one word out of place can now damage your wealth and even cost you your freedom. In order to make this work, people have become feeble. They are looking for offense. They can no longer hold their head up and shrug off a word or two. They call the police and say 'Please sir, he called me a bad name'.
At school, we had a word for people like that.
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Remember that one? The Dreadful Arnott and her like don't remember it. To them, it is perfectly fine to tell you lies about five-a-day, to make up alcohol limits and demand you stick to them, to tell you you must believe the world is warming even though this week is the chilliest June week I've experienced for some years, and to pretend that smoking harms others when all the data shows that it doesn't.
They don't like the same methods used on them. They will howl and stamp their feet if we use the same data to claim that smoking doesn't do any of the things it's claimed to do. Well, Righteous, I for one plan to use exactly your methods against you. If you don't like me doing it, the only way to stop me is to stop using those methods yourself. You can't. It's all you have.
My personal favourite, one that might not be so commonly known:
Fine words butter no parsnips.
I imagine Labour deliberately silenced that one. It means that no matter how eloquently you present a case, if you don't actually do what you say then your words are pointless. Labour have demonstrated that manifesto promises can be out-and-out lies and there is nothing we can do about it. A court case has set the precedent for all parties. Not one of the promises made to us during an election need be honoured. Not one. Politicians can lie as brazenly as they like on their campaign literature and we have no redress. A referendum on Europe? Sure, we'll promise that. A partial smoking ban? Sure, we'll promise that. Anything you want, just ask and we will promise it.
Fine words...
There are many more, but it's late and I can't recall them now. What seems odd is that it's not just some of those old sayings that have vanished. All of them have dropped out of use, all at once. Almost as if the collected wisdom of those simple sayings was deliberately destroyed. I don't recall when it happened. Was it gradual, or was it done by decree? If we had seen it happening we might have been able to stop it. If you can fix something in the early stages of breaking, it saves you a much bigger fixing job later. But then, that saying:
A stitch in time saves nine
would have been an awfully inconvenient one to have hanging around the Brown Gorgon's government.
Anyone remember any more?
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me.
When we were small we would shout that at anyone who called us names. Being called names didn't matter to us as children. At least, we would never let the name-caller see that their words had any effect. Offence is never given. It cannot be given. It can only be taken. I cannot offend you with words unless you decide to take offence. You cannot offend me unless I accept the offense. If I call you names and you brush them aside, then my insult is powerless. If you take offense, my insult has hurt you and I have won. See how it works?
If you know me, if you know my past in detail, you might be able to find something to say that would cut me deeply. You might want to use that to upset me. Your words can only affect me if I let them. If I show no reaction, you have lost. Sticks and stones...
Now, of course, there's profit in being offended. You can make the insulter pay, but you can only do that by taking offense. Forget the sticks and stones - one word out of place can now damage your wealth and even cost you your freedom. In order to make this work, people have become feeble. They are looking for offense. They can no longer hold their head up and shrug off a word or two. They call the police and say 'Please sir, he called me a bad name'.
At school, we had a word for people like that.
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Remember that one? The Dreadful Arnott and her like don't remember it. To them, it is perfectly fine to tell you lies about five-a-day, to make up alcohol limits and demand you stick to them, to tell you you must believe the world is warming even though this week is the chilliest June week I've experienced for some years, and to pretend that smoking harms others when all the data shows that it doesn't.
They don't like the same methods used on them. They will howl and stamp their feet if we use the same data to claim that smoking doesn't do any of the things it's claimed to do. Well, Righteous, I for one plan to use exactly your methods against you. If you don't like me doing it, the only way to stop me is to stop using those methods yourself. You can't. It's all you have.
My personal favourite, one that might not be so commonly known:
Fine words butter no parsnips.
I imagine Labour deliberately silenced that one. It means that no matter how eloquently you present a case, if you don't actually do what you say then your words are pointless. Labour have demonstrated that manifesto promises can be out-and-out lies and there is nothing we can do about it. A court case has set the precedent for all parties. Not one of the promises made to us during an election need be honoured. Not one. Politicians can lie as brazenly as they like on their campaign literature and we have no redress. A referendum on Europe? Sure, we'll promise that. A partial smoking ban? Sure, we'll promise that. Anything you want, just ask and we will promise it.
Fine words...
There are many more, but it's late and I can't recall them now. What seems odd is that it's not just some of those old sayings that have vanished. All of them have dropped out of use, all at once. Almost as if the collected wisdom of those simple sayings was deliberately destroyed. I don't recall when it happened. Was it gradual, or was it done by decree? If we had seen it happening we might have been able to stop it. If you can fix something in the early stages of breaking, it saves you a much bigger fixing job later. But then, that saying:
A stitch in time saves nine
would have been an awfully inconvenient one to have hanging around the Brown Gorgon's government.
Anyone remember any more?
Thursday, 10 June 2010
The Fabulous Bingo Brothers.
The last foray into Rutland Weekend television reminded me just how funny some of it was. So here's a bit more for a laugh.
The last line cracked me up. I'm not saying why.
The last line cracked me up. I'm not saying why.
Give it a rest.
Look, antismokers. You can whine and complain all you like. We smokers are banned from every public place. You are not exposed to us in any pub, restaurant or biker-laden transport cafe. You are not exposed to us in any train, plane, bus or taxi. Not in any office building nor in any shop, not even a tobacconist's. You do not 'go home stinking of smoke' because we are not allowed to be in the same room as you. You are not forced to take the radical step of washing your hair or clothes, something you regard as a terrible chore forced upon you by the smokers, because we are never in any room with you.
You have the entire length of every windswept railway platform to enjoy your diesel fumes, as well as those goods trains leaving a trail of cement powder and coal dust, uncontaminated by smoke. You can stand in the open at a bus station and inhale those lovely traffic fumes uncontaminated by a wisp of smoke. We are banned from smoking there. We are now banned from many parks and public gardens too, so all those asthmatics can enjoy the metric tonnes of pollen in the air without worrying about a tiny trace of smoke.
Still it's not enough for the deranged control freaks out there, is it? No, they have to follow us home and ban us there too. They have to pretend that the smoking ban has worked with deceit and with pathetic attempts at 'science' that claim to show the smoking ban has prevented heart attacks.
You know what that graph shows to a real scientist? It shows, very clearly, no effect whatsoever. The rate of decline in heart attacks passes through the smoking ban as a straight line, totally unaffected in any way by the experimental variable applied to it. Any graph like that in any branch of real science screams 'This has had no effect whatsoever. The variable applied to this experiment is therefore completely unconnected to the test subject'.
That graph proves, to a real scientist, that the smoking ban has had no effect on heart attacks. I'll go further. It strongly suggests (but does not, in itself, prove) that smoking does not cause heart attacks. The smoking ban has had no effect. So where is the massive decline? If smoking caused heart attacks, that line would have dipped from the date of the ban and would now be declining faster. A real scientist would now be re-examining the link between smoking and heart disease because that data strongly suggests that there isn't one.
I'm a self-employed scientist. There aren't many of us. It's not easy outside the comfort zone of the easy-money university life and if I did my science the way those smokebusters do theirs, I'd be back on the streets by now. Their science and their conclusions border on the insane. Whoever is paying for that 'work', you were robbed. I could have made up a story for you for half the price and it would have had some imagination in it too.
They are grasping at straws with third-hand smoke. More rubbish science from more rubbish scientists, producing more rubbish reports with conclusions that were obviously written before the experiment started. Cretinous journals publish what fits their agenda and to hell with rigorous experimental construction.
Science thinks that those who study ghosts and demons bring science into disrepute. In reality, it does not depend on what a scientist studies, it depends entirely on how they do it. Even some of the paranormal guys are incensed by the pathetic state of mainstream science now. So am I. More and more, it comes down to 'I am a Scientist therefore my word is True'. It is no different to 'I am the Shaman so you have no choice but to believe'. Not different at all. Even New Scientist, a magazine that used to be worth the cover price, recently moaned that people were not believing the Pronunciations of Science without question. For Klebs' sake, this is not a religion!
You are supposed to question what science says. That's how it works. You are not supposed to accept anything at all without question. Not one word. Nothing. Question it all, that is the Scientist way. Question nothing and believe what you are told is the Scientologist way. They are not the same thing. Science is well on the way to Scientology in many areas now. Just believe, for We know Best.
Stand near an 80-year-old smoker and you will die at once. Pass a smoker in the street and you have minutes to live. If you have nitrous acid in the air in your house, it will turn a trace of nicotine into a tiny trace of something that might be dangerous. If I had nitrous acid in the air in my house I would open all the windows and call a boiler serviceman. That stuff is much nastier than smoking. Yet you lot believe it all. Without question. Without a thought.
No wonder you're all mad. Yes, that's blamed on smokers too. If you experience second-hand smoke it will drive you insane. It isn't the constant insistence that it's a crazed addiction, nor the constant terror handed out by the Dreadful Arnott that has driven you into the padded room. No, it's a little bit of dried leaf in a paper tube. It has driven you insane.
Rubbish. You antismokers were nuts to begin with. You could not possibly get any more deranged.
We're banned from everywhere you might want to go and everywhere you'll never go. So if you wouldn't mind just giving it a rest now, that would be nice.
You can't. If there's one thing worse than a bad loser, it's a bad winner.
You want compromise now? Tough. We wanted compromise and you wouldn't hear of it. The time for compromise has passed.
Smokers, we fight for it all or we fight for nothing at all. Our opponents do not want compromise. They want us eradicated.
It's us or them now. There is no longer any other way.
You have the entire length of every windswept railway platform to enjoy your diesel fumes, as well as those goods trains leaving a trail of cement powder and coal dust, uncontaminated by smoke. You can stand in the open at a bus station and inhale those lovely traffic fumes uncontaminated by a wisp of smoke. We are banned from smoking there. We are now banned from many parks and public gardens too, so all those asthmatics can enjoy the metric tonnes of pollen in the air without worrying about a tiny trace of smoke.
Still it's not enough for the deranged control freaks out there, is it? No, they have to follow us home and ban us there too. They have to pretend that the smoking ban has worked with deceit and with pathetic attempts at 'science' that claim to show the smoking ban has prevented heart attacks.
You know what that graph shows to a real scientist? It shows, very clearly, no effect whatsoever. The rate of decline in heart attacks passes through the smoking ban as a straight line, totally unaffected in any way by the experimental variable applied to it. Any graph like that in any branch of real science screams 'This has had no effect whatsoever. The variable applied to this experiment is therefore completely unconnected to the test subject'.
That graph proves, to a real scientist, that the smoking ban has had no effect on heart attacks. I'll go further. It strongly suggests (but does not, in itself, prove) that smoking does not cause heart attacks. The smoking ban has had no effect. So where is the massive decline? If smoking caused heart attacks, that line would have dipped from the date of the ban and would now be declining faster. A real scientist would now be re-examining the link between smoking and heart disease because that data strongly suggests that there isn't one.
I'm a self-employed scientist. There aren't many of us. It's not easy outside the comfort zone of the easy-money university life and if I did my science the way those smokebusters do theirs, I'd be back on the streets by now. Their science and their conclusions border on the insane. Whoever is paying for that 'work', you were robbed. I could have made up a story for you for half the price and it would have had some imagination in it too.
They are grasping at straws with third-hand smoke. More rubbish science from more rubbish scientists, producing more rubbish reports with conclusions that were obviously written before the experiment started. Cretinous journals publish what fits their agenda and to hell with rigorous experimental construction.
Science thinks that those who study ghosts and demons bring science into disrepute. In reality, it does not depend on what a scientist studies, it depends entirely on how they do it. Even some of the paranormal guys are incensed by the pathetic state of mainstream science now. So am I. More and more, it comes down to 'I am a Scientist therefore my word is True'. It is no different to 'I am the Shaman so you have no choice but to believe'. Not different at all. Even New Scientist, a magazine that used to be worth the cover price, recently moaned that people were not believing the Pronunciations of Science without question. For Klebs' sake, this is not a religion!
You are supposed to question what science says. That's how it works. You are not supposed to accept anything at all without question. Not one word. Nothing. Question it all, that is the Scientist way. Question nothing and believe what you are told is the Scientologist way. They are not the same thing. Science is well on the way to Scientology in many areas now. Just believe, for We know Best.
Stand near an 80-year-old smoker and you will die at once. Pass a smoker in the street and you have minutes to live. If you have nitrous acid in the air in your house, it will turn a trace of nicotine into a tiny trace of something that might be dangerous. If I had nitrous acid in the air in my house I would open all the windows and call a boiler serviceman. That stuff is much nastier than smoking. Yet you lot believe it all. Without question. Without a thought.
No wonder you're all mad. Yes, that's blamed on smokers too. If you experience second-hand smoke it will drive you insane. It isn't the constant insistence that it's a crazed addiction, nor the constant terror handed out by the Dreadful Arnott that has driven you into the padded room. No, it's a little bit of dried leaf in a paper tube. It has driven you insane.
Rubbish. You antismokers were nuts to begin with. You could not possibly get any more deranged.
We're banned from everywhere you might want to go and everywhere you'll never go. So if you wouldn't mind just giving it a rest now, that would be nice.
You can't. If there's one thing worse than a bad loser, it's a bad winner.
You want compromise now? Tough. We wanted compromise and you wouldn't hear of it. The time for compromise has passed.
Smokers, we fight for it all or we fight for nothing at all. Our opponents do not want compromise. They want us eradicated.
It's us or them now. There is no longer any other way.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Filthy Drivers.
Yes, drivers, it's your turn to be condemned as filthy disease-carriers.
Apparently eating in your car is going to make you die of a horrible bacterial infection. There are all kinds of nasties in there. Here's what the technical terms really mean.
Scientists testing swabs taken from a typical family car discovered bacteria bacillus cereus and staphylococcus in the interior, including the steering wheel, gear stick and door handles.
Bacillus cereus is a common bacterium found in soil. It can cause food poisoning if it's in your food but unless you routinely wipe your dinner on your garden (or your car) I wouldn't worry about it. You're much more at risk of this from dodgy food outlets.
Staphylococus aureus is not MRSA. MRSA is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and that started in, and is still mostly found in, grubby hospitals. It's a subset of the normal bacterium - which can cause problems if it gets into you, anything from boils to septicaemia, but unless you wipe everyone's nose with your bacon sandwich before eating it, there's not much to worry about. The non-MRSA type is commonly found living on humans, especially up noses, and you can go your whole life without it causing you any trouble at all.
Finding these in car interiors is no surprise. Not finding them would be a surprise. It would mean you must be treating the interior of your car daily with high pressure steam and bleach, washing your hands and taking off your shoes every time you get in. But let's not allow that to get in the way of a good scare story.
Dr Anthony Hilton, reader in microbiology at Aston University said: 'Although many strains of bacteria are harmless, some can cause unpleasant illnesses.
Reality time. Forget the kindergarten-level microbiology in the above statement. Almost all bacteria are harmless. Some are essential to human, animal and plant life. Very few are dangerous, it's just that they are the only ones you hear about. Avoiding all chance of catching something is impossible, but simple steps are enough to reduce the risk to minimal. How do you imagine humanity survived the Stone Age when the best thing available was to rinse your eating implements in a sheep-shit-ridden stream? We aren't that delicate.
'People would be horrified at the prospect of eating from a toilet seat however they ought to be aware that eating from a contaminated car dashboard may represent the same health hazards.Really? I don't know what drivers get up to in their cars now, nor what new features have been added, but I don't recall dashboards having enough space to fit a flush. Do you really do that on the dashboard these days? Disgusting.
I don't eat off the toilet seat. I don't eat off the floor. I don't even eat off the table.
I use a plate. Unless it's a bag of chips, in which case I have paper between the food and the supporting surface. Unless you line your chips up along the dashboard before eating them, they shouldn't come in contact with it.
More from Paris - sorry, Anthony Hilton:
'It is important, particularly now the weather is becoming warmer, for people to ensure that do not leave food debris in their cars as bacteria such as Staphylococcus and Bacillus Cereus can thrive on even tiny crumbs. Also if you have animals in your car they can contribute to the presence of harmful micro-organisms.'
Do you really eat your dinner off a dog-hair covered seat? If you do, you deserve all you get. Look, bacteria are all over you, right now. They fill your guts and every orifice and they coat your skin. They are on the keyboard you are using and they dance in the fridge when the door is closed. That fridge light doesn't go off when you close the door. Bacteria have rewired it to strobe. There are millions of them in every handful of dirt including the dirt in your potted plants. If you are going to waste time worrying about bacteria, get yourself laminated and bathe in Dettol. Cook everything in a pressure cooker on full belt for 15 minutes every time. It's the only way to be sure. You'll still die, you know.
Bacteria need water. More than warmth, they need water. Hot weather is not good for them. Dry dirt is not to their liking. A shrivelled bit of bread under the driver's seat won't support them. The heat reached inside a car in the summer sun will stop most of them and even kill many of them. Dessicated substrates won't support bacteria although some moulds can deal with that. You are at far greater risk with a leaky car that has damp carpets than you are with a lost chip that drops behind the handbrake. Even then, you are only at risk if you're a carpet-licker and we already have too many of those anyway.
Dr Hilton, a member of the Society for Applied Microbiology warned: 'Those who eat in their cars should treat it as an extension of their home and maintain the same levels of hygiene as they would in their dining room.'
I'm also a member of that society. It's not an exclusive club. You just need to be a microbiologist and pay the fees. Membership does not make you an expert. Quoting it here is irrelevant, other than to impress anyone who doesn't know that it's really just another scientist's club.
You know, I suspect people who eat in their cars would be likely to have the food in something rather than spread over the seats and dashboard. Just as they do at home. Unless their home eating habits involve dumping the food straight on the table to save on washing-up.
I have a very nice wooden dining table. I am not going to apply harsh disinfectants to it and there is no need. I don't eat from that surface. The plates I use are clean but not sterilised. I don't use bleach when washing up and I don't soak them in industrial disinfectants overnight. There's no need. You are going to swallow bacteria when you eat. As long as what you eat isn't rancid or contaminated, it's not a problem. Sterilising the eating surface won't help with that anyway.
As for dropped food - do you eat food you've dropped, at home or in the car? Depends what it lands on, doesn't it? If it landed in the mud from your shoes or a pile of dog hair, you'd most likely not eat it. Unless you're starving and if you're at that level of starving, you can't afford a car. Or a house. Or, apart from rarely, a bag of chips.
Nobody who owns a car is ever hungry enough to eat a dried-up chip that's been under the seat for a week and if you don't eat it, you won't get food poisoning from it.
It's all just another 'get the driver' story. Your car is a mobile bioweapon now. Everywhere you go, children will fall dead in your wake and heaven forbid you ever let your child in the car. That child who eats garden dirt and worms with impunity is highly susceptible to car germs because they are different even though they are the same.
Just like smoke from a cigarette is different to smoke from a bonfire.
Prepare to be taxed or fined because of your travelling health hazard any day now. Be ready to have mechanics refuse to service your car in case of third-hand botulism or second-hand squits. No, the threat isn't real, but have any of them been real lately?
When it comes to punishing the public, reality just gets in the way.
Apparently eating in your car is going to make you die of a horrible bacterial infection. There are all kinds of nasties in there. Here's what the technical terms really mean.
Scientists testing swabs taken from a typical family car discovered bacteria bacillus cereus and staphylococcus in the interior, including the steering wheel, gear stick and door handles.
Bacillus cereus is a common bacterium found in soil. It can cause food poisoning if it's in your food but unless you routinely wipe your dinner on your garden (or your car) I wouldn't worry about it. You're much more at risk of this from dodgy food outlets.
Staphylococus aureus is not MRSA. MRSA is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and that started in, and is still mostly found in, grubby hospitals. It's a subset of the normal bacterium - which can cause problems if it gets into you, anything from boils to septicaemia, but unless you wipe everyone's nose with your bacon sandwich before eating it, there's not much to worry about. The non-MRSA type is commonly found living on humans, especially up noses, and you can go your whole life without it causing you any trouble at all.
Finding these in car interiors is no surprise. Not finding them would be a surprise. It would mean you must be treating the interior of your car daily with high pressure steam and bleach, washing your hands and taking off your shoes every time you get in. But let's not allow that to get in the way of a good scare story.
Dr Anthony Hilton, reader in microbiology at Aston University said: 'Although many strains of bacteria are harmless, some can cause unpleasant illnesses.
Reality time. Forget the kindergarten-level microbiology in the above statement. Almost all bacteria are harmless. Some are essential to human, animal and plant life. Very few are dangerous, it's just that they are the only ones you hear about. Avoiding all chance of catching something is impossible, but simple steps are enough to reduce the risk to minimal. How do you imagine humanity survived the Stone Age when the best thing available was to rinse your eating implements in a sheep-shit-ridden stream? We aren't that delicate.
'People would be horrified at the prospect of eating from a toilet seat however they ought to be aware that eating from a contaminated car dashboard may represent the same health hazards.Really? I don't know what drivers get up to in their cars now, nor what new features have been added, but I don't recall dashboards having enough space to fit a flush. Do you really do that on the dashboard these days? Disgusting.
I don't eat off the toilet seat. I don't eat off the floor. I don't even eat off the table.
I use a plate. Unless it's a bag of chips, in which case I have paper between the food and the supporting surface. Unless you line your chips up along the dashboard before eating them, they shouldn't come in contact with it.
More from Paris - sorry, Anthony Hilton:
'It is important, particularly now the weather is becoming warmer, for people to ensure that do not leave food debris in their cars as bacteria such as Staphylococcus and Bacillus Cereus can thrive on even tiny crumbs. Also if you have animals in your car they can contribute to the presence of harmful micro-organisms.'
Do you really eat your dinner off a dog-hair covered seat? If you do, you deserve all you get. Look, bacteria are all over you, right now. They fill your guts and every orifice and they coat your skin. They are on the keyboard you are using and they dance in the fridge when the door is closed. That fridge light doesn't go off when you close the door. Bacteria have rewired it to strobe. There are millions of them in every handful of dirt including the dirt in your potted plants. If you are going to waste time worrying about bacteria, get yourself laminated and bathe in Dettol. Cook everything in a pressure cooker on full belt for 15 minutes every time. It's the only way to be sure. You'll still die, you know.
Bacteria need water. More than warmth, they need water. Hot weather is not good for them. Dry dirt is not to their liking. A shrivelled bit of bread under the driver's seat won't support them. The heat reached inside a car in the summer sun will stop most of them and even kill many of them. Dessicated substrates won't support bacteria although some moulds can deal with that. You are at far greater risk with a leaky car that has damp carpets than you are with a lost chip that drops behind the handbrake. Even then, you are only at risk if you're a carpet-licker and we already have too many of those anyway.
Dr Hilton, a member of the Society for Applied Microbiology warned: 'Those who eat in their cars should treat it as an extension of their home and maintain the same levels of hygiene as they would in their dining room.'
I'm also a member of that society. It's not an exclusive club. You just need to be a microbiologist and pay the fees. Membership does not make you an expert. Quoting it here is irrelevant, other than to impress anyone who doesn't know that it's really just another scientist's club.
You know, I suspect people who eat in their cars would be likely to have the food in something rather than spread over the seats and dashboard. Just as they do at home. Unless their home eating habits involve dumping the food straight on the table to save on washing-up.
I have a very nice wooden dining table. I am not going to apply harsh disinfectants to it and there is no need. I don't eat from that surface. The plates I use are clean but not sterilised. I don't use bleach when washing up and I don't soak them in industrial disinfectants overnight. There's no need. You are going to swallow bacteria when you eat. As long as what you eat isn't rancid or contaminated, it's not a problem. Sterilising the eating surface won't help with that anyway.
As for dropped food - do you eat food you've dropped, at home or in the car? Depends what it lands on, doesn't it? If it landed in the mud from your shoes or a pile of dog hair, you'd most likely not eat it. Unless you're starving and if you're at that level of starving, you can't afford a car. Or a house. Or, apart from rarely, a bag of chips.
Nobody who owns a car is ever hungry enough to eat a dried-up chip that's been under the seat for a week and if you don't eat it, you won't get food poisoning from it.
It's all just another 'get the driver' story. Your car is a mobile bioweapon now. Everywhere you go, children will fall dead in your wake and heaven forbid you ever let your child in the car. That child who eats garden dirt and worms with impunity is highly susceptible to car germs because they are different even though they are the same.
Just like smoke from a cigarette is different to smoke from a bonfire.
Prepare to be taxed or fined because of your travelling health hazard any day now. Be ready to have mechanics refuse to service your car in case of third-hand botulism or second-hand squits. No, the threat isn't real, but have any of them been real lately?
When it comes to punishing the public, reality just gets in the way.
The long dark teatime of the blog.
Sometimes it's easy to understand all those bloggers who close down, whether temporarily or permanently. Sometimes you just look at the news and think 'What is this crap?'
So Danny 'The Cylinder' Alexander joins the Treasury and the Telegraph digs a little bit of dirt. Yes, yes, yes, they're all at it, we know, we can't trust any of them, tell us something new. So George 'Chopper' Osborne is going to make sweeping cuts. It's not as if he has any choice, really. No news there. So one more of the Labour-spawned Entitled is found to be beating up his girlfriend, lacerating a neighbour or barbecuing his children. We're all immune to it. It happens every day. It's just not new any more.
Sometimes the news just sounds like this.
I'm taking the night off and having a rummage on YouTube instead. They have Charlie Drake, Hylda Baker, Jimmy Jewell, Jimmy James and many more you'll never see on television again because someone will be offended.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.
So Danny 'The Cylinder' Alexander joins the Treasury and the Telegraph digs a little bit of dirt. Yes, yes, yes, they're all at it, we know, we can't trust any of them, tell us something new. So George 'Chopper' Osborne is going to make sweeping cuts. It's not as if he has any choice, really. No news there. So one more of the Labour-spawned Entitled is found to be beating up his girlfriend, lacerating a neighbour or barbecuing his children. We're all immune to it. It happens every day. It's just not new any more.
Sometimes the news just sounds like this.
I'm taking the night off and having a rummage on YouTube instead. They have Charlie Drake, Hylda Baker, Jimmy Jewell, Jimmy James and many more you'll never see on television again because someone will be offended.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.
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