Wednesday 30 December 2009

Smoke and drink.

Ah, the perfect pairing. At the Smoky Drinky place last night, one of the unofficial tobacconists had his post-Christmas sale so I'm stocked up and the Brown Gorgon can whistle for his duty. The trick is to keep a few empty packs with 'UK Duty Paid' stamped on them and transfer the baccy into those, in case of spontaneous checks or of being observed by Council Stasi while rolling. Alternatively get a good baccy tin, but it's been a long time since baccy came in tins.

There are no snoops in the Smoky Drinky place. We are very, very careful who gets invited. It's all getting a bit 'resistance'-like but then with the increasing criminalisation of smokers, we don't really have a lot of choice.

As for the duty part, well the Gorgon won't get any support from his EU puppetmasters. If the stuff's bought in the EU, then the EU have already had their cut. They don't care about the Gorgon's coffers at all, and if he realised that, he might review his relationship with the Faceless Ones who run this country now. I thought the Cameroids might be starting to catch on but sadly it seems they are just as gullible as the Gorgon and his nosegoblins.

Lately it seems the Righteous want to stop the cross-channel trade in dodgy baccy and cheap wine. My first thought was 'Good, that will stir up anti-EU feeling' but then I realised that it doesn't matter. The EU no longer needs the bribery of cheap fags and booze to keep the British onside. Lisbon means they can do as they please and if that means stopping us buying on the continent, there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. They can stop the cross-channel trade and we can howl all we want. The Cameroids won't help us.

The grandfather whose grandson was stolen for socialist indoctrination was there, with a strange tale to tell. The foster parents who were allocated the child were ill so could not look after him for a few weeks, so he was placed with the paternal grandmother (they are divorced but on amicable terms). This meant that the whole family could visit the child for Christmas after all. Even though the SS had forbidden this, you won't find council staff working on Christmas day so nobody could check.

The grandfather has spoken with the foster parents. They have been looking after the child until they became ill and they don't understand why he was taken. He is absolutely unmarked, is the correct weight for his age (neither over nor underfed) and shows no sign at all of any psychological problems. He is a slow developer but those parents have fostered children with the same disability - and for those with his disability, he is normal. They see no reason why he should have been taken into care. I hope they don't say anything to the SS about this because all the SS will do is move him somewhere else. I really, really hope they save their opinions for a courtroom.

Increasingly, it seems the only reason for this care order is a) the father smokes and b) the grandfather ejected the same social worker from his house when she objected to him smoking in it. I have passed on the advice from the comments you all left last time - thanks again - so we'll see what develops.

Smoky drinky tonight is solo. Tomorrow night I have some invitations to consider (all smoky drinky) so might or might not be here, depending on the growth of Street Glacier. Typing might not be a valid option anyway, not if I reach the stage where I have twenty fingers and can't control any of them.

In Scotland, Hogmanay extends well beyond any thought of 'units' and 'limits' and 'sensible'. Here, the holiday covers both the first and second of January to allow extra recovery time. I have, in the past, missed January 1st entirely although I'm getting too old for that level of excess these days. Last year I was ill and only managed a few sips at midnight. This year I am in much better health and have been practising. Even so, there are those I won't take on in a drinking contest.

This year, since the 2nd is Saturday, there is a bank holiday on Monday 4th. Therefore the Scots don't need to sober up until Tuesday and I know some who won't. Not for me the liver transplant queue. I have to drum up some new projects and the English companies will be back at work on Monday.

I still have to do my tax, too. It's getting harder because now that I know what they'll do with the money, I'd rather give it to some smackhead on the street. At least he's only screwing up his own life.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy New Year and best hopes for the poor child caught up in that social service nightmare with the anti-smoking SS gestapo.

Good for the Smoky Drinky place hosting the new underground Resistance Movement against the current stasi-ship.

Best o' luck in 2010.

Beware of Geeks bearing GIFs said...

Happy New Year LegIron!

Long may you continue to blog in 2010.

subrosa said...

Don't know about the streets in Aberdeen LI but the pavements in Perth are treacherous. Was there today and could hardly keep my balance. My local town in the same.

When I spoke with a friend who's in the medical profession and on call, they said they'd contacted the council to ask them to fill the grit bins as they were empty. They needed to get out in emergencies.

The reponse?

'No can do. We're on holiday until 5 January."

Magic eh? So I'll do my shopping tomorrow and then hibernate until the thaw. All my friends feel the same. We don't think it's worth breaking anything just because it's Hogmanay.

Once the roads and pavements are safe we'll get together.

Glad to hear the wee fella saw his family over Christmas. As you say I do hope it goes to court and quickly.

Quiet_Man said...

Enjoy your hols, some of us are back at work already (no I don't work for the council) still at least I can blog from work, if I can get my boss off the pc.

JuliaM said...

Happy New Year in North 'o the Border Land!

"Even though the SS had forbidden this, you won't find council staff working on Christmas day so nobody could check."

The expected combination of State 'services' - unduly harsh, yet lazily incompetent...

"I hope they don't say anything to the SS about this because all the SS will do is move him somewhere else."

Not to mention, they will find themselves off the 'approved' foster care list. And their own children looked at, if they have any...

Anonymous said...

I'm still doing my tax, too. Don't know how I'm going to pay it - but the prisons are full so I suppose HMRC will content themselves with slapping on extortionate interest.

I so wish I could find a smoky drinky place (and some cheap fags). I'd have some kind of social life again and the satisfaction of denying HMG the means to keep beating me with its big stick! I think this should be my one New Year Resolution.

I'm a relative newcomer to your blog but it's become required reading. Keep on!

A very Happy New Year when it comes both to you and my fellow righteous-loathers.

Jay

banned said...

"... means stopping us buying on the continent, there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it."
The Common Market that I voted to stayin was supposed to be about europe-wide free trade. What exactly happened to that idea?

Good luck with that child, there seems to be some pressure building up in the press to stop the whole process of child-kidap being shrouded in secrecy, dunno if that applies in Scotland.

I have heard rumour of after hours smoke-ins at certain pubs but am never out late enough to find out if it is true.

Happy New Year LI and please do keep up the good work, I may not always comment but do try to make yours a must-read blog.

English Pensioner said...

I think cigarette cases will come back into fashion, who wants to walk about with those revolting pictures. My father would never be seen taking a cigarette from a packet, the first thing he did when he bought a packet was to transfer them to his silver case and throw the pack - perhaps because he didn't want anyone to know when he was smoking. Perhaps you can get similar tobacco cases!
As a non-smoker the constant anti-smoking campaign infuriates me. Partly, I suppose, because if they win the next target will be my nightly dram (actually, they've already started). But worse is the talk of what it costs the NHS, the income from tax far exceeds any extra NHS costs. And if they are telling the truth, smokers die earlier and there is presumably a huge saving in pension payments.

john miller said...

I seem to remember you like modelling. As in making them. Err, like Airfix kits, I mean.

Anyroaduplike, I noticed a curious anomaly the other day.

After World War II, Airfix made plastic models of Messerschmitts, Heinkels, Junkers etc. But they did not put a swastika on the decal sheet, as it was considered offensive. That has now lapsed and it is very easy to make a perfect model replica of any of the above.

My personal modelling fetish is cars.I recently saw advertised a Lotus 79. Looking at the advert, I was struck by a sense of something missing. It was sponsored by John Player. Sure enough, the model bore no trace of the original tobacco advertising. Christ, the team was even called John Player Team Lotus. What are the chances of some adult (at £89.99 you're not going to buy one for a kid) looking at this model, seeing the words "John Player" and immediately becoming a life long smoker?

Anyhow, the real irony is that in the 21st century, it is now perfectly acceptable to display on a model the symbol of a regime that murdered several million people, but you cannot display the name of a tobacco company.

And before any trolls start up, people like Leg-Iron have a choice whether to smoke or not. The Jews weren't asked whether they wanted to go to Belsen or a nice chalet in the Swiss Alps.

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