The Kray model of government.

In my younger days, the preferred holiday for we young lads was a railrover ticket. Two weeks free rein on the railways. Go anywhere in the country on a whim, see anywhere, if it's not appealing, get back on the train and go somewhere else. We'd save all year for the ticket.

I wouldn't even consider it now. I can't smoke anywhere on the trains, nor even on a windswept platform in the middle of nowhere. The same is true for any hotels, pubs or cafes I might visit on those travels. If I want two weeks of gloomy despondency, I can have that at home for free.

As with pubs, clubs, cafes and restaurants, it's my choice not to take that train holiday. I don't want to pay to be treated like a leper, so I don't pay. I'm not forced to buy a ticket, nor am I forced to visit pubs in the rain just to spend my time getting soaked on the outside as well as on the inside. So I save the money and visit Smoky-Drinky instead.

Nobody comes round demanding I pay 'my share' to support the railways, the pubs, any of those businesses that have declared they don't want my custom. My choice not to use them saves me money.

Parks are a different matter. Part of that council tax bill goes towards the upkeep of council-run parks. Now I am to be banned from those too. The smokophobes will drive their 4x4's to the park and complain about a picogram of smoke. They want to be surrounded by several hundred tons of plant material but object to the few milligrams of plant material in my cigarette. Oh, the old 'non-biodegradable butts' nonsense will be trotted out once more, but filters are cellulose, the wrapping is paper and the contents are leaves. It's entirely biodegradable and it's vegan too. I empty my ashtrays into the compost bin. Not one fag-end has ever reappeared.

This is different. All those pubs and restaurants are private businesses. If I object to their rules I simply don't go there and therefore don't contribute to their upkeep. A simple arrangement that suits both parties. They don't want me, I don't have to pay them. No problem.

With the parks, I am forced by law to contribute to their upkeep whether I want to or not.

I rarely visit the local parks because they are full of screaming kids by day and the Red Stripe brigade at night. However, the parks are there, they are pleasant when the kids are safely locked away in school and I have the option to use them if I want. So far I have been happy for part of that council tax bill to be used to maintain a facility I rarely use, but like to have available.

That will change if I am banned. I will not contribute to the maintenance of something I am not permitted to use. I will have to look at the council accounts, work out the proportion of spending on parks and gardens, and deduct that proportion from my bill.

With the privately-owned parks, the same arrangement applies as with the pubs. I just won't visit them. With the council ones, there's going to be a fight.

They will insist I have to pay 'my share' to maintain a facility I am banned from. I will describe this as extortion because it is no different to the criminal definition of the word. They are demanding money with menaces and offering nothing in return. That is not a service. That is a mugging.

The same applies to the NHS. They have been making noises for some time about banning smokers from using their services. Once they do, my national insurance payments stop. Pension? There is no money for future pensions anyway. That's just another mugging.

It has gone beyond any talk of compromise. There can be no compromise. I didn't want this war, all I ever wanted was to be left alone to live my life as I choose. That option has been denied to me in all private and public businesses. Now they want to deny me the open air. Private cars are already in the process of being owned by the State.

Then they will come for my own home. Can't happen? It's already begun. The 'take seven steps outside' campaign has been running for quite a while now. No, I will not shiver outside my own home.

Compromise? No. There is no compromise on offer and I ask for none. I don't want compromise.

I want these interfering, arrogant, self-important, vicious, spiteful, abhorrent people out of my life completely. No compromise. Get rid of them all.

They will not stop with smoking, you know. They will not stop unless they are stopped. The only thing they understand is money.

Stop paying them.

The War on Weeds.

Today was uncharacteristically rainless until the evening so I managed to get the grass cut and trimmed back an evil bush that only exists to stop the Ferals throwing stones at the house over the back fence. It's being gradually replaced by an apple tree. Bramleys, so I hope the little sods will eventually steal a few and eat them. I might dye them to look like eating apples.

Leaving this place for two weeks in summer is always a bad idea. The light hours during summer mean that grass and weeds grow like triffids and you need to hire Death and his scythe to deal with it. He charges too much so I have to do it myself. I ended the day knackered and with a huge pile of cut branches to deal with, all of which are now soaked.

The long and the short of it is that I have been at the whisky tonight Grant's Sherry Cask Reserve, to be precise, on sale at Morrisons for a few pennies over £12. One of the best of the cheaper blends. So, try me for sensible discussion tomorrow.

No guarantees.

TV without a licence.

I made a few visits to an old school friend while in Wales. He's a miserable git like me, of similar political persuasion (they are all bastards) and prefers not to have an overload of blood in his alcohol stream.

He has a TV but he has no TV. When Wales went digital he kept his analogue TV which now receives no signal from live transmissions. He uses it to play DVDs.

So he needs no TV licence and therefore has no licence.

The switch to digital was a great thing for those who don't want a licence. Just have an analogue TV and no matter how much the licence-grabbers howl, they cannot claim you need a licence for a device capable of receiving live transmissions, because it isn't. Not any more.

I have an analogue TV here. Ditching the digital box (it was only £20 and I no longer watch any live TV at all) will save me the much greater cost of the licence every year. They can come in and check if they like. Yes, I have a TV but it is not capable of receiving any TV so they can whistle for their telly tax.

Thank you, government, for giving us all an easy way to have a DVD-watching screen without any danger of paying tax on it.

I bet that wasn't the plan.

You really can't make it up.

In the dystopia I'm working on, there is a vignette where the main character's light bulb blows. He can change it because he has a home electrics qualification, which allows him to change bulbs and reset circuit breakers, but he cannot reach the bulb because he does not have a stepladder.

The reason he has no stepladder is that he has no stepladder certificate. It's a three-day course and expensive, he can't afford it, and without the certificate he cannot buy a ladder.

Unrealistic? In Wales, a friend of mine told me of a recent health and safety inspection at his work. There was a ladder. They were told to get rid of it. Why? Nobody at his work had a ladder certificate. The real-life course is two days and costs £90. That is not fiction. It now takes two days to learn how to use a ladder and unless you have a certificate, you cannot use a ladder. It's already happened. The extension of this to home ladder users is only a matter of time.

Back to fiction. The character's neighbour has a stepladder and certificate so he comes round to help. It's only when he's all set up that the neighbour realises he doesn't have a home electrics certificate. So he can climb the ladder but he can't change the bulb. The main character can change the bulb but can't climb the ladder.

Again, unrealistic? Under EU regulations, you already cannot change a light switch or add a socket to your mains supply in your own home unless you are a qualified electrician. All I did was move it one small step further.

We already live in the world I'm trying to write. Nobody believes they can do anything unless someone else has told them they can do it, and signed a bit of paper to say it is so. Nothing exists unless there is a bit of paper to say it exists. Nothing is real unless a committee has declared it real. You can do nothing unless you have been instructed in how to do it by someone who doesn't know how to do it but who has the right to sign the form.

I've experienced this myself. An idiot administrator once tried to stop me recalibrating a balance. She said "You should leave it to someone..."

I finished her sentence. "...who knows what they're doing?"

"Yes." Even as the word left her mouth, I finished recalibration. It took a few moments only, because I was familiar with the machine, having used that particular model for over twenty years at that point. I gave her A Look. I don't know what it looked like but until the day she left the department, she never spoke or even looked me in the eye again. I expect she's in charge of something now.

There is no end to it. You are not disabled unless you have documentation. Really. Removing an artificial leg and falling over proves nothing. If you don't have the right forms, the absence of a body part is not sufficient evidence of the absence of a body part. Unless you have a bit of paper to say it's not there, it is there, you're just very good at hiding it. It's all Paul Daniels' fault.

Tipped by Subrosa in Email - a pub landlady who had ordered 'No Smoking' signs put up temporary signs while waiting for the real ones. The temporary signs said 'no smoking', everyone now knows pubs are not allowed to allow smoking, nobody was smoking on the premises, yet she was fined.

The temporary signs were not of the regulation size and shape. This is what the justice system is concerned with now. This is how deep official smokophobia goes.

This is beyond Orwell. Beyond Kafka. And it's reality.

How are writers supposed to compete with this?

Gardening Corner.

It's often very windy here, even with the six-foot fence surrounding my little patch. Nothing grows straight up. Nothing. Not even if it's fixed to a post.

While I was away, two of Dreadful's sidekicks broke free of their support sticks and fell over. They didn't snap, and are happily turning upwards again already after being propped up. Unfortunately the slugs could get at them while they lay prone. They couldn't have been down for long because there were only a few holes but I won't include those leaves in the drying experiment. Smoking slug slime does not appeal.

Those I planted directly in the ground have made a poor showing. They don't seem to have done much at all.


This house is only just over a decade old. The garden, when I arrived, was heavy clay overlaid with just enough soil to keep a plain lawn alive. There's not much lawn left now and I'm considering turning that into a potato patch. I see no use for grass.

I've added a lot of compost but it's nowhere near a 'mature' garden and the soil will take some years to develop into anything worthwhile.

So, for my circumstance, a bucket full of compost gives the best results by far. The litter trays with water in them are an effective slug deterrent too, an option that is not available to those directly in the soil.

There is no material difference between the bucket plants and the two I kept in the greenhouse, other than that one of the greenhouse plants has flowered. The garden ones are about to flower too. Here, ten miles north of Aberdeen, the greenhouse was essential up to the end of May but once the frost risk has passed, all these plants can go outside and the greenhouse can concentrate on tomatoes, peppers and chillis (I have three-foot-tall chilli plants this year so I'll have enough to burn every bottom in Aberdeen, and plenty of juice to rub into children's eyes at the next smoker meeting. Well, we're going to get accused of it anyway so...).

The big risks are frost and slugs. The bucket in a moat deals with the slugs. Keep the plants indoors or in a greenhouse until there's no chance of frost.

Other than that, there's nothing to it. They'll grow themselves.

The difficult part is yet to come.

Scythe time.

Not just the grass, although two weeks of Aberdonian summer daylight means I now get my arse wiped crossing the lawn. If there is a dry day this year I'll have to cut it before it tickles my chin too.

No, it's the scythe and cape and the pointing bony finger I'm talking about here.

What the hell is Guido Fawkes playing at? Is he trying to get us all killed? Oh, it's all fun and blog hits until someone gets sentenced to death for drink-driving, isn't it? I think maybe the Guinness has addled his brain. He must surely have heard the term 'mission creep'.

Passive smoking. Passive drinking. Passive obesity. None have really killed anyone at all, yet thousands of deaths have been ascribed to these nonsensical imaginings. So all could be construed as murder and all would attract the death penalty. Real deaths are caused by drink-driving so all drink-drivers are legitimate targets as potential murderers. You dipstick, Fawkes. You're signing your own death warrant. Do you think they don't want you gone? Why not load the gun for them while you're at it?

The Monsters claim they will be 'forced' to consider giving themselves the power to kill us whenever they feel like it because of popular opinion.

Commons leader Sir George Young has already said they should not ignore voters and shy away from debating the issue.

Really? Two governments have had no problem ignoring voters over the Lisbon treaty, membership of the EU, immigration, the smoking ban, and a host of other issues. Why can't they ignore this one too?

Sir George warned it would damage democracy to ignore strong opinions among members of the public "or pretend that their views do not exist".

You lot have pretended my views don't exist for my entire life. That's why I hate you and will not support you. I am far from being the only one. Very far indeed.

Schoolboy Clegg claimed that considering the reinstatement of the death penalty was as unthinkable as even talking about the smoking ban. Now it seems the Coagulation is pretending they will be 'forced' into killing us. They'll probably have the death penalty for smoking, Clegg, you foetid bubo filling. You want the death penalty, fine, you go first. In fact, why not set the example by topping yourself in the Commons? Let the country see what it is you want them to support.

Our government want the death penalty back. Yes, they do. Of all the issues they have been harangued about, this is the only one they have not ignored. This is the only one they claim they 'have to look at' because 'the people want it'. Rubbish. The people think they want it because they all think it will never apply to them. Until their children are summarily executed by park keepers for littering, and then it's too late.

What about this smoking ban then? A ban on something that in reality affects nobody but the smoker. What about the EU that's stuck to each of us like a nine-foot leech? No, they don't want to even talk about those things. A return of State murder, oh yes, they'll talk about that. You can hear their saliva bubbling at the prospect. Look how clean the Westminster windows are since this was proposed. The licking has been frantic.

I first came onto the political scene via Guido Fawkes' blog. It used to be a place I respected and considered to be a paragon of political persuasion. Now it's becoming the bloody Daily Sport of politics.

Forget about the old 'EU won't allow it' stuff. The EU have already proposed it. For the heinous crime of... criticising the EU.

This is a test case. If it gets support here, the EU will allow it and then roll it out across all of Europe.

Within days there will be no climate sceptics, no open smokers, no open drinkers, no EU protests, no dissent of any kind. One wrong move and you're dead. Not figuratively. Literally.

Guido, you are an idiot. A useful one, yes, but an idiot nonetheless.

Oh and if you give it a moment's thought, you'll realise you're pretty close to the top of their list.

The home-again ramble.

Aye, pure dead classy or what, pal?

Home at last. I managed to sell a few books although the short stories book sold faster than the novel. Probably because it's cheaper. Still, the good thing about signed copies is that everyone likes to say they have one but nobody wants to loan them. Excellent advertising.

While offline I managed to get some work in on the dystopia with some ideas even the government haven't yet thought of - I won't say, they'll just steal them. I might have to self-publish it because the delays in real-publishing mean it could be out of date before anyone reads it.

I also started on a short story which has now passed 6000 words so isn't really all that short any more. It'll be in the next collection along with those that have appeared here but weren't in the first one.

My last Email check was Sunday night. Scouting through the far-too-many accounts I have, I was looking for work stuff that had to be dealt with and for spam, which is never hard to find. Even so I had over 300 new mails when I came home tonight and most of them were spam. I now know where all the world's money has gone. It's all in dead people's bank accounts in Nigeria.

On Monday I flew out of St. Boyo Airport in Cardiff. I was on the 8:15 pm flight, the last one of the evening. An interesting thing happened. I was disassembled, as usual, to pass through the security circus. While I was reassembling, one of the security blokes asked if I minded him swabbing my laptop.

I didn't mind at all. It could do with a clean. He then put the swab into a machine which bleeped and said 'Nothing here'. It was the first time I had seen this so I asked what it was all about. He became evasive and said something about 'checking it hadn't been in contact with something it shouldn't have'.

My guess is drugs or explosives and I wondered how long it would be before his machine was calibrated for tobacco and alcohol and salt and fat and...

Why the laptop? Why not my fingers or clothes? He didn't swab the keyboard, just the outside, which was a shame because the keyboard could do with a wipe.

The funny part was that there were only three more flights out that evening. One to Newcastle, one to Edinburgh and one to Glasgow. If you were transporting drugs to any of those places, the last mode of transport you'd choose would be air. It's the only one with the checks. Go by bus, car or train and nobody cares what you're carrying.

The next flight was to somewhere in Spain at 6 am, check-in 3 am and the place was closed between my boarding time (8 pm) and then. His swabbing was futile but then he'll have targets to meet for the day.

I was in Ayr for a few days. I met an old friend who has also written a book and is now trying for publication. His book (fiction) deals with the aftermath of a total collapse of money worldwide. I told him that if he gets it published I know some people who'd be interested in reading it. One of them is me.

It's the exact opposite of what I'm working on. In my tale of woe, all money is electronic and on embedded chips. The chips are also passport, identity, even house keys. Step out of line and a few keystrokes can render you homeless, skint and unable to leave the country. One of us might well turn out to be horribly right.

Finally, I'm home, with regular internet access and far too little whisky in the house so I'm having to bulk up on cider. Tomorow is shopping day. Regular rage can now resume.

Tobacco plants survived my absence. Two had fallen over, they had broken free of the wind-resistant stakes but they survived. I've propped them back up. Unfortunately the slugs could get at them while they were prone so I have a few holed leaves. They are close to the top of that six-foot fence now. The ones in the ground have not done well, it seems that for me at least the best option is a bucket full of compost for each plant. There will be plenty of good leaves to attempt the drying and curing part.

Oh, my ride stopped at Stracathro services on the way back for a pee-break. That's where the classiest ashtray in the UK (pictured above) is to be found. I must make one for myself.

They do a decent bacon sandwich too.

Limbo beckons.

On the move again, so internet access might be impossible for a few days. Everything will be normal again by late Thursday.

I hope.

Get Clarkson.

When there is a recycling dump near the home of a champion of Green issues, he doesn't like it. So he has it moved to be near the home of someone who disagrees with Green issues out of a sense of spite and petty vengeance.

Step forward Cameroid, a persistent pain in the arse who tells us it's okay for pensioners to die in winter and for fuel poverty to be the norm, so that Greenness can fill the UK with corpses and useless lawn ornaments.

In his constituency, the Green Men's Heaven is situated close to his home and to that of Pete Sewnup Gums. It will cost a milion beer vouchers to move it, but it's being moved anyway. Next to the Clarkson household.

So the Green Men want their recycling but not in their backyard. They want it in the backyard of those who think it's all pointless. Isn't that nice? It means that all religious buildings will be placed next to atheists, all gay clubs must be sited next to churches and mosques and sensible, intelligent people will have to live next to MPs.

Deborah Grayson from Climate Rush said: 'For a man with a long history of dismissing environmental issues it will be particularly sweet to see a recycling centre built on his doorstep.'

Not next to Debs' house, naturally. She wouldn't have that.

Deborah Grayson and Climate Rush. Spite, malice and petty vengeance have taken human form. And to think, we believed ASH had already employed them all.


This has been another Government Logic Information Broadcast.

Now THAT is smoking.

Every time this video plays, a soap-dodger's sandals explode.



Why not watch it again?

Look for the terrible toxic fumes. Did you see them? Clue: They are coming from that little thing in Doug's mouth.

You cannot smoke on a station platform, nor can you smoke on a train.

Trains, however, are perfectly at liberty to smoke on you.

This has been a Government Logic Demonstration.