The scary book is cheaper for a while.

Apparently Lulu messed up. I don't know what or how, it was something to do with their cataloguing system, but as an apology they have sent me a discount code for the short stories book (print only, the download was free anyway and I don't think it applies to the Ebook).

This is most agreeable of them and encourages me to make use of their services in the future. They did this not in response to any complaint - I hadn't realised anything had gone wrong - but entirely independently. Not many companies would do that nowadays.

So if you haven't ordered the book and have been considering it, you can get it at 15% discount until 15th August.

Of course, the download version is still free for those who can read a whole book on a screen. I can't.

Fears of the old and the new. Purchase Fears of the old and the new. with 15% off with coupon code BEACHREAD305

A rant and an appeal.

There is an ashtray in my greenhouse. A proper glass one, not some makeshift thing fashioned from an old can. I am not a slovenly smoker. I like to relax and enjoy my cigarette. I will not be browbeaten into treating my smoking as something furtive and dirty, something akin to nosepicking or wetting one's trousers in public. I enjoy smoking and if you think that makes me filthy and evil, no problem. You're not the sort who'll be invited to my greenhouse, or even my house, so you need never experience it. Better yet, I need never experience you.

I have had visitors - smokers - who have automatically gone outside to light up. I have had to follow them out there and ask what they thought they were doing. Smoking is allowed inside my house. I have ashtrays in there too. Nonsmoking is also allowed but antismoking is not. If I offend you that much, don't visit me. You won't be welcome anyway.

Why do these smokers do it? They have been browbeaten to believe they are less than human. They have been conditioned to believe that they are inferior because of their smoking habit. Why have they accepted that if they are indoors and they want a smoke, they must go outside no matter the situation and no matter the weather? For many it has become an automatic response.

Why did the German Jews and homosexuals accept that they had to wear those yellow and pink badges respectively? Having to wear a badge to define yourself as something that is nobody else's business is humiliating. Why would anyone accept that? Why do smokers accept that they have to be out in the rain and that shelters cannot be enclosed - for no other reason than to enhance the suffering? Really. There is no other reason.

I have not been to a pub in a long time. It has been a particularly nasty winter and so far, a somewhat erratic summer. At the moment it is pouring with rain, cold and windy outside. Pubs won't be doing well tonight. Pubs, I have decided, will not see me again until I can smoke in there. This might not happen in my lifetime but I will no longer spend money in an institution that forces me to go outside for half of my evening's relaxation. It is not fun and if it is not fun, then it's not relaxing. I am not paying a premium for pain.

The publicans will argue that it is not their fault, that they are not allowed to allow me to smoke and they'll get fined if they do. Pubs demanded that the smoking ban be extended to private clubs for that 'level playing field' so pubs have ensured I have nowhere to go. I can't even set up a smokers' club for smokers only. Pubs made that happen. Many pubs also gleefully enacted the ban, thinking the non-smokers would turn up in droves. They didn't. Their existing nonsmoking customers drifted away too because their smoking friends weren't going.

Then there's the beer garden. Oh, we're allowed to have that in winter when the chairs and tables are piled with snow, or when the rain and wind make it difficult to stop shaking long enough to put a cigarette in your mouth. In fine weather, the antismokers whine and complain that we are smoking in the bit they now want for themselves. What do the publicans do? Not a damn thing. No publican, to my knowledge, has erected any sign along these lines in support of their smoking customers. Okay, it doesn't have to be worded quite so insultingly but the message would be clear.

We supported the pub with our money when we had to go out in the shitty weather to smoke. When it's nice outside, a little recognition would be nice but what do we get? More State-sanctioned abuse. Okay. You don't want my custom, fine. Don't bleat about falling profits and closing pubs when you won't even admit to yourselves what's causing it. Booze has always been cheaper in supermarkets. Before the ban I rarely bought any there. I'd rather go to the pub. Now the supermarkets are my only source. Not because it's cheaper. Not because it's better - it's not. Widgets produce fizzy beer, not draught beer. I won't go there because pubs don't want my business.

I am shocked by the number of smokers who have simply accepted that they must wear the yellow-fingers badge that denotes them as less than human. Don't accept it. The pubs refuse to support us, so refuse to support them. They will continue to close but what the hell - they don't want us in there so we lose nothing. Find or organise a smoky-drinky place. It's not hard. Ours is mobile, it is not fixed to anyone's house, it's just a bunch of mates who have a 'pub evening' with nobody having to get up and go outside to smoke. There are enough of us to guarantee one every weekend and in fact, most nights. We don't all have to turn up to every one. There is no membership. There is no business transaction occurring. It is not open to the general public. Antismokers will most definitely not be invited.

Is it as good as a real pub? No, but as smokers, it is all we have and it will develop into new pubs, with new landlords, when all this ridiculous and childish banning and whining has passed. If those pubs and landlords who spurn us now are all out of business by then, if CAMRA is reduced to five weirdie beardies drinking homebrew in a shed, it will be no loss to smokers at all. They didn't want us around, remember. They made it clear that they did not want our business. Their utter eradication should mean nothing to us, as our eradication means nothing to them.

Nick Hogan tried to stand up for his smoking customers and was roundly hammered by the State. If it hadn't been for Anna Raccoon and Old Holborn, he'd likely still be in jail now. Early release for murderers and rapists would not apply in the case of a smoking ban heretic. He was one. Where were the others? Tut-tutting over their hand pumps and shaking their heads at his impertinence. Where were CAMRA, those champions of the British pub? Hiding under the Dreadful Arnott's skirt and licking her nicotine-free backside. They are antismoking, even the smoking ones, unless you smoke 'the right sort' of tobacco.

So where is the support for smokers? There is none. None at all. The pubs won't help us in any way. The government hate us but still expect us to pay their inflated extra taxes on tobacco. There are other sources and if they are funding organised crime, why would you expect me to care? I am considered a criminal every time I light up. I am villified and despised by the Real People when I am in the pub and when I am smoking outside it. So if Man with a Van is funding some illegal activity that harms you Real People, why would you expect me to care? You hate me without reason anyway. I might as well give you something real to hate me for.

Nick Hogan was imprisoned because he let people smoke in premises he owned. Now you don't have to go that far to fall foul of the new Inquisition. Remember the lorry driver fined for smoking in his cab? He wasn't. He had an Electrofag but the word of a council Stasi who observed him from a distance was held to be of higher legal account than his proving, in court, that he used an Electrofag. Those who shriek about Sharia, in which a woman's testimony is worth less than that of a man's, were silent in this example of exactly the same thing.

The smoking ban was never about health. Now it is in place, that facade has dropped and we see the real control freakery underlying its inception. Passive smoking has never killed anyone. Third hand smoke is a sick joke. All we hear now is 'I don't like the smell' and the 'littering' arguments. Oh, and of course, that perennial favourite, 'for the cheeeeldren'.

That is it. That's all they have left now. Drop a cigarette butt, composed entirely of plant materials and completely biodegradable, and you will be hunted down like a dog. Drop a mattress over a hedge and there'll be 'tsk, someone's been fly tipping'. Throw your burger wrappings on the floor and people will roll their eyes. Drop a cigarette and they'll call the police. Proportionate? Fair? Really?

When smoking in the garden, I drop the butts in among the plants. You won't find any but the most recent. You also won't find many insect pests. They rot, they compost, they contain nicotine which is a natural insecticide. Don't come back with 'See? It's a poison'. Chocolate is a poison to many other mammals and in the case of insects, we are talking about creatures far more distantly related to me than a parrot. One man's smoke is another aphid's poison. Get it yet?

In the street, I do not simply drop butts on the ground. I put them out and put them in a bin. if I dropped them on the ground they would rot away but I have always been anti-litter, it's just the way I am. The antismoker perception is that we are all out there emptying our ashtrays over passers-by when we aren't knifing pensioners and desecrating churches and stubbing out cigarettes in kittens' eyes but the terrible reality is that we are just ordinary people. Some smokers are scummy buggers who never wash, some like to keep their lives unrealistically clean and tidy. Just like non-smokers. We are not a different species. We are not subhuman. I am not a monster. I am a human being. The only difference is that I like something that some other people don't like.

Who out there could say otherwise? Who can state that they only like what they are told to like, and hate what they are told to hate (Council employees, UAF and ASH drones excepted, of course).

It is acceptable to hunt down smokers, to persecute smokers, to despise smokers, for exactly the same reason that it was once acceptable to denounce witches. It takes your mind off what's really going on. It distracts you from what your government is doing. It stops you realising, and it stops you rioting because it gives you an outlet for your hate. Someone to blame for all your troubles, real and imagined.

There's no point explaining that to an antismoker. They are blinded by their hate. And that was the point of the exercise. It worked.

It has now reached the point where a council Stasi can stalk an individual smoker and prosecute them for littering while bragging about their stalking and presenting no evidence of any kind whatsoever... and win the case.

There were cries during the Nick Hogan appeal of 'You can't pay his fine, it's giving them what they want'. They are going to get that money anyway, either by impounding property or by stealing it from bank accounts. We lose nothing by helping other smokers who are treated worse than rapists by the courts, but bit by bit we show that we are not going to sit back and be shat on any more. We stood together on the Nick Hogan case and yes, the government got their thirty pieces of silver but they were tainted with the knowledge that they lost. The smoking ban heretic was freed. Their example was not made. Ours was.

I have pledged cash to support the woman fined for allegedly, with no actual evidence, dropping a cigarette butt as observed by her self-confessed and proud to be a stooge stalker. Not much cash, not as much as I would like, but every little helps. Pat Nurse has not yet set up a fund receiving account but as soon as that happens, I'm in.

It's not the money. It's the injustice. We are now legally despised and the Cleggeron Coagulation intend to continue that State-sanctioned hatred. I will not support the pubs, the restaurants, the duty-collectors who have stated they hate me. Instead I will support other smokers wherever I can.

We are on our own, smokers. The only help we can expect is from each other.

If we don't have that then the gulags are waiting.

Smokers don't bite.

Remember when all your teeth fell out? Oh yes, they did. Most readers won't even remember because they grew back - bigger and sharper.

Humans get a set of milk teeth first, which drop out to make way for the adult teeth when the jaw is big enough to accommodate them, or some other biological reason I don't care about very much. The milk teeth don't look exactly the same as the adult ones. They aren't anywhere near as sharp and the canines aren't pointy. Check yours - you have four incisors in the middle and either side of them, a pointy one called a canine.

Smoking, it is alleged, makes your teeth drop out. As this picture (donated by Email from Wh00ps) implies.


Note the message - smoke contains horrible chemicals - and the picture, unrelated to those horrible chemicals but unless you know about dental caries, you're not likely to spot that.

It's true that smoke contains horrible chemicals, as the warning states. All smoke contains horrible chemicals. Not just tobacco smoke. Putting MDF on your bonfire will give you a hell of a lot more horrible chemicals than you'd get from smoking, including some particularly horrible ones that aren't in any tobacco smoke anywhere. So it's not lying as such. Smoke, no matter what you're burning, contains horrible chemicals.

Now to the teeth. What have they to do with horrible smoke chemicals, you may ask? I hope you're asking anyway, not just accepting. The implication is that smoking did it and that is what you are supposed to just accept.

The first problem I identified a long time ago was that the teeth were white. Apart from the black bits that give them their piano-keyboard look, they were white. Mine don't look like that and I've smoked for decades. There are a couple missing but that had nothing to do with smoking. They are not covered in jet-black corrosion, nor are they pearly white. They are off-white because of staining. Tobacco is the least of my worries there. I have a liking for espresso and that has staining qualities the average dye manufacturer can only envy. I have to clean my teeth more often than average.

The ones in the photo are white. Were white, because as Wh00ps pointed out, the new packs show them stained.

A cheap trick and one that isn't going to work anyway. The teeth in that photo show the results of frequent sugar consumption combined with rare teeth-cleaning. Nothing to do with smoking at all. Not just because they were not tobacco stained until some ASH crony photoshopped them.

They are milk teeth. What you have there is a pre-teen with a sugar addiction.

Even if the staining wasn't faked, they could not possibly have been smoking for more than about ten years and that assumes Mum was shoving fags and a lighter up there before they were born. Not legal now, the womb is an enclosed space and has 'No Smoking' signs fitted at gynaecological examination time. They try to keep it quiet, but they do it.

I don't know any smoker with teeth like that. But then, I don't hang around with pre-teen smokers who follow every cigarette with a bag of sweets.

There has only ever been one type of cigarette capable of doing that to a child's teeth, and they were banned a long time ago.


Oddly enough, they never had any warnings on them. Nowadays they would.

The same one.


UPDATE An anonymous dentist suggested in the comments that the image was 'meth mouth' so I looked it up.

There is a picture. A remarkably similar one.

So far then, we have:

The black lung was not caused by smoking but by coalmining.

The aged skin was caused not by smoking but by age. If those hands resulted from smoking, the nicotine staining would almost cover two fingers.

Now, the teeth are caused by gingivitis which can be linked to methamphetamine use. Not smoking.

Is there any truth in any of the propaganda? If there ever was, it has long since been buried by the lies. The only sensible course of action is to disbelieve every word an antismoker says.

They are probably even lying about the smell.

Do you smoke?

That's the question you hear every time you visit the doctor. Harmless enough, you think? A simple yes or no, and the 'no' can be delivered with an air of irresistible superiority, can't it?

Did you know that nonsmokers can get lung cancer? Oh yes, we don't have a monopoly on that. In the interests of equality, you nonsmokers can get lung cancer with almost exactly the same frequency as smokers. The figures are massaged by including 'have you ever smoked', so someone who tried one cigarette 20 years ago and didn't like it counts as a smoking-related cancer. Isn't statistical absurdity wonderful?

Did you realise that if you answer 'no' to the 'Do you smoke' tick-box and you're at the doctor's because you have breathing problems, the one thing he will not be looking for is lung cancer? You can't possibly have that. You're a non-smoker. Must be something else.

Meanwhile cells divide, lumps grow, and your GP is looking for something that isn't what you have. Alien is growing in your chest and he refuses to see it because Righteous logic has dictated it cannot be there.

I quote from a new addition to the list, someone who thinks along the lines of Frank Davis and an increasing number of us:

Lung cancer is not always diagnosed in non-smokers, because doctors aren't necessarily looking for it.

Lung cancer has always been, and remains, a fairly rare disease. Many GPs will go their entire careers without seeing one single case. If you say 'yes, I smoke', they will test for it as a matter of urgency because they have heard ASH insist that all smokers get it. Good news for smokers. We all get checked.

If you say 'no' they will discount it as a possibility because ASH insist that only smokers get it. Bad news for non-smokers. Your cancer will go undiagnosed until the lump is as big as your head. In the case of the rabid antismoker, about one millionth the size of your ego and five hundred times bigger than your IQ.

Smokers didn't do this. ASH did this. With twisted science and hysteria, ASH have ensured that if you say you don't smoke, your spontaneous cancer will be ignored as an impossibility even up to the point where it pops out of your chest and says 'Hi there'.

If you visit your GP with chest problems, always, always answer 'yes' to 'do you smoke?' He will then at least order the full range of appropriate tests.

If you say you don't smoke, you'll die.

It's hard not to laugh.

A taxing evening.

I have completed my tax form early but didn't press 'submit' yet. I have to phone the taxman tomorrow.

Every year, the damn thing changes. This year, a bit popped up that said something about my notice of coding having an addon for underpaid tax for the previous year. The amount it stated as underpaid was 0.00 and there was a little box next to a question that said 'is this correct?'

Naturally I selected yes, because it was correct. This was not the best move, apparently.

Now I have a box on the account page saying that the amount of 0.00 is due immediately and if I don't pay it, it will accrue interest.

Not a big issue in itself. No matter what rate of interest they apply, the amount will remain zero. Forever. I'll never get rid of it. I'll be getting tax demands for 0.00 until the day I die.

Should I send them a cheque for 0.00? I suspect the computer won't let go of this until it has a cheque or other payment number attached to the amount so that it can mark the account paid.

I'm doing the return early because there's a tax on account bill due at the end of the month and I don't owe as much as they're asking for. Normally I'd let it go because it would cut down the amount payable in January, just after Christmas, but the Coagulation have decided to continue with smoker gulags so I'm not paying extra. Rather than risk getting the calculation wrong (getting it wrong can be expensive) I thought it easiest just to fill in the form.

I wasn't expecting the new trap question. I'm tempted, you know, to just send them 0.00 by online payment but the bank staff might look at me funny in the morning...

No extra tax from me this year. It's better off in my bank account.

Although now that the BS is under way, perhaps it'll be safer under the mattress.

Veils and paper.

In the Grauniad today (whoops, yesterday), Damian 'The Beast' Green declared that we would never ban the Islamic veil because it would be un-British to do so.

Where has this man been? Banning random things with no real reason is now entirely British. The only way it would be un-British in today's world would be because it would look like we were copying the French and that would never do. Declaring war on countries that don't threaten us, demonising whole swathes of our own people for a bit of a laugh, adding layer upon layer of worthless people in pointless jobs just to give the proles the run-around, fine. But doing something the French have done? Unthinkable!

I don't think the veil should be banned. Wear what you like, dress as a banana with a cherry on the top if you want but you can't then object when people snigger because you look odd. And don't come to me for sympathy if you get sniggered at. I look odd all the time.

There is a case for insisting that people have uncovered faces in certain situations - banks spring to mind. And dentists would find their job somewhat difficult if you insist on having a sheet over your face the whole time. In the street, I really don't care whether I can see your face or not. Like most men, I'm not looking above chest height anyway (we all secretly yearn for bottle-end glasses and a dirty mac, you know). People could go around with a Dalek head on and I won't care at all.

Mark Wadsworth put up a spoof of this, and an anonymous commenter didn't get it. More on that later. MW's spoof changed it to 'banning smoking would be un-British' and you know, not so long ago, it would have been. Now, banning anything on a whim is the British way. Look at the comments section on any newspaper site. One incident is all it takes and the calls for 'Ban it!' are out in force. No matter what it is. If someone chokes on a pickled onion, the calls for banning all pickles will start at once.

As if to counterpoint Damian '666' Green's words, the same extrusion of the Grauniad also carries a story from the lovechild of the Dreadful Arnott, that organisation dedicated to the Annihilation of Smokers Horribly. This time they are bleating that people will take up smoking cigarettes because the eeevil tobacco companies are advertising little bits of paper with glue on one end.

Hint to ASH: at music concerts, they aren't all rolling tobacco in those bits of paper. Many are using a totally tobacco-free product instead. They'll be using the packs with the extra long papers in, too.

Tobacco giants 'target' music festivals by... sponsoring them. That's right, in order to advertise little bits of paper with glue on one end, they are handing over much larger bits of paper with Mrs. Queen's face on them. Paper that the music festival needs if it is to exist at all.

This weekend's Lovebox festival in east London's Victoria Park, headlined by Roxy Music, is co-sponsored by Imperial Tobacco's Rizla rolling paper, which is exempt from the ban on tobacco advertising.

It's exempt from the ban on tobacco advertising because... it's not tobacco. The same reason that toothpaste and chicken and cup-a-soup are exempt. It's not really that hard to grasp.

There are no tobacco adverts. As Smoking Hot points out, it's just paper. With glue on one end. We don't need the glue, you know. We can roll tobacco in any old bit of paper. It doesn't need to be posh paper, we're just going to burn it anyway. We can even roll tobacco in tobacco leaves and make a cigar.

Really, ASH are scraping the barrel here. Rolling papers won't even be excluded from display if they succeed in banning tobacco counters. Neither will filters, matches or lighters because they are not tobacco. You cannot ban the advertising of paper, ASH. I wonder what their stance is on the veil? They won't want a ban on that for sure. It's impossible to smoke with a comfort blanket over your mouth. ASH would be more likely to insist we all wear them. Mine might develop a little hole.

At last year's Latitude festival in Suffolk, only Marlboro cigarettes could be sold. The cigarettes were available in black-and-red kiosks that lit up at night and were sold by young, attractive staff wearing "Marlboro Red" T-shirts and sunglasses.

At this year's Latitude festival there have so far been two rapes. I would say that worrying about people in illuminated kiosks is a pretty low priority there no matter what they are selling. As for 'attractive staff', is there any sales business anywhere that would prefer to staff their kiosks with people who look like John Prescott? Be honest - if there was a stall selling dirt cheap computers and it was staffed by someone with a Brown Gorgon scowl, would you rush over?

At last year's Big Chill in Herefordshire, five large cigarette stands that were illuminated at night sold only brands produced by JTI, which include Camel, Benson and Hedges and Amber Leaf. The stands, which sold limited edition packs and cigarettes at a reduced price, were staffed by "promotion girls" dressed in white uniforms. Festival "packages" were also available, containing two packs of cigarettes in a box that came with a lighter and glow stick and could be worn around the neck. Cigarette "stub tidys" bearing the JTI and Gallaher tobacco company brands were given away, while customised camper vans sold rolling tobacco.

You'd think they were talking about heroin, wouldn't you?

Tobacco is legal and if you're at a festival, there is little to no enclosed public space so smoking it is legal too. All of this is scaremongering hype. It is the ranting of someone who thinks reality must conform to what they say it is - more on that later too.

As to all this 'only certain brands can be bought' well that is why the festival is getting sponsorship money. It is exactly the same as what is happening with the Olympics but that's all right because tobacco isn't involved there. In fact it's going to be banned within a hundred mile radius in case one of those super healthy athletes gets a molecule of smoke and drops dead on the spot. Great muscles, no immune system, you see? I prefer to be the other way round.

Finally, remember that po-faced commenter over at MW's place? Remember that remark a couple of paragraphs back about these people defining their own reality?

Here, quite possibly, is the reason for those people and the reason that the world seems to make no sense these days. The psychotherapist quoted calls them 'humanoids'.

I call them 'Righteous'.

Smoky Drinky update.

It was an extended, small-hours smoky-drinky evening last night and there was much discussed but for some unfathomable reason, I can't seem to remember it too clearly.

Stolen child remains stolen, parents' marriage is cracking under the strain but Antisocial Services aren't worried about that. This child wasn't even overweight. I don't think the parents are likely to get the lad back unless they win the lottery and hire people to steal him back.

Last night's host has arthritis and last night was the worst I'd seen him in a long time. Lucky we were in his house because he wasn't going to be walking very far. Still managed to put away a good belt of whisky, but as he says, it doesn't stop the pain. It just means he doesn't fret about it. He'd take several minutes to get out of his chair and then stand for several more until the pain subsided enough to try to move. He is not classed as disabled by the caring profession so gets no benefits for that.

Arthritis hit him in his teens. Doctors told him he'd be in a wheelchair in his twenties. He's nearly fifty and no wheelchair to be seen. Never mind the placebo effect, this is something medical science has never considered - the bloody-mindedness effect. You want him in a wheelchair, you'll have to superglue him to it.

The smoking pensioner hasn't taken to Electrofag which isn't good, because she has shadows on both lungs. Could be an infection which antibiotics can deal with, could be a lot worse, we don't know yet. She still has Electrofag, maybe she'll give it a go, but then seventy-year-olds are hard beasts to change.

If you have lung problems, stop smoking until it clears up. That's not antismoking propaganda. If you had RSI (wanker's wrist) I'd advise you to lay off typing and bishop-bashing until you'd recovered. If you sprained an ankle, I'd suggest maybe reconsidering that marathon entry for this year. If some part of your body is damaged, leave it alone and let it heal. I have certainly laid off the tobacco in the past when I've had bad colds or flu. Straight back to it when I've recovered. That was long before Electrofag which produces steam that might actually help a sore throat. Next time I get one, I'll try it.

[Apocrypha - I have only once had laryngitis. Someone phoned to ask how I was. I hung up and sent an intemperate Email. Don't phone people who can't speak. It just annoys them.]

Another is interested in Electrofag, mostly because he's worked out he spends more on smoking (readymades) than he does on rent. He's working so I gave him links rather than let him take a battery and cartridge away. I'm not made of Electrofags, you know! An Electrofag starter set costs no more than five packs of readymades so trying it isn't a big financial risk for a readymade smoker. It makes a bigger impact on a rollie smoker. Even so, although I use it more in winter when it's horrible outside, over the year it does save money.

The message 'would the Jews vote for Hitler?' is going down well among smoky-drinkers. Next stage is to drop that line outside a few pubs. Catchy, isn't it? Oh, if you're thinking of typing the phrase 'Godwin's Law', read this first. If you still want to invoke Godwin's law afterwards, be aware that I am just going to laugh at you. Also, be aware that most of those standing outside pubs have neither heard of it, nor will care about it.

They are, however, likely to be interested to hear how much of their council tax is spent on persecuting them. Via Email (I'm not going to reveal the source unless he wants me to, and he didn't say) came a link to a response for an FOI request as to how much Norwich City Council spent on enforcing the smoking ban. Some highlights:

How much has the council spent on salaries, staff training, equipment and publicity (including leaflets, 'no-smoking' signs, advertisements and awareness activities)?

£63000 was paid by central government to Norwich City Council and this was spent on the above expenses. Much of the officer time was also spent on other work but it is not possible to provide information on how much time was spent on each issue.

There was a phrase, long ago, that applied when someone asked a very pertinent question to which nobody knew the answer. 'Ah, that's the sixty-four thousand dollar question'. Here, it seems, we have the sixty-three thousand pound answer. In Norwich, that's how much they spend on harassing smokers for no other reason than that some people get all weepy about a bit of a pong. Sixty three grand could buy a couple of nurses to look after old, pickled smokers, rather than harassing them when they're not ill.

Look how many complaints the council received in one year;

6 complaints that were referred to us by the National Smokefree Compliance Line
That's the Spiteful Harridan Hotline. You know, the one where someone who is totally unaffected by someone else smoking can call in and whine anyway.

121 complaints.

I have to wonder if there was one from the sewage farm, you know? Or maybe the local battery-hen box or the piggery? It would not surprise me in the slightest to find that people who work in environments that make your eyes water would be upset at a little bit of tobacco smoke.

So, a hundred and twenty-seven complaints. That must have brought in some fine revenue.

Between the period of 1 July 2007 to 30 June 2010, Norwich City Council have received a total of £220 for breaches of the smoking ban.

I'm no accountant but to me, that is not a good return on investment. if I set up something that cost me sixty-three grand and my return was £220, I would stop doing it at once. Losing 62,780 in one year is Very Bad Business. But hey, citizens of Norwich, it's not their money they are losing. It's yours.

It's a fairly safe bet that every council would return similar figures. All over the country, that council tax paid by smokers and non-smokers alike is being poured away to demonise a group of people that you non-smokers used to be quite happy to have around. Antismokers were always Righteous Nazis anyway, but their ideology has spread and is costing you non-smokers now. You'd spend less if you took up smoking yourselves instead.

Antismokers like to shout 'Smokers cost the NHS money'. Well, the fact is that the smoking ban is costing YOU money. Not the NHS, and God alone knows how much of your taxes they also spend on this demonisation exercise before we even start on the fat and salt and drink etc programmes YOU are paying for. All that smoker hatred is expensive, and the bill lands on your doorstep. That cost is not because we smoke. That cost is entirely due to your hatred of smokers. Did you think hate was free?

The best part is that the FOI response comes with the warning that if you want to do anything with this information (such as send it to a rabid smoking blogger) you have to talk to the council first. Freedom is a relative term in our brave new world and is variably defined depending on what the council want it to be. Freedom of information is defined as 'don't tell anyone else but...' and everyone but the Council drones know where that leads.

The letter is signed by Chris Lambert who is Norwich Council's 'Democratic Services officer'.

Democratic Services officer. My ghast has never been so flabbered.

I need a drink and a smoke. Fortunately I have both to hand.

The Referendum Bus.

Remember Cast Iron Dave's Cast Iron Guarantee? Cast iron is tough stuff but it's brittle. Nowhere near as brittle as a politician's promise. The EU continues to dictate from afar and even the Coagulated Cleggeron tug their forelocks and say 'yes sir, yes sir, have three bags full of money sir'.

Yesterday I received an Email from this group (apologies for not responding sooner, I was busy with important smoky-drinky things). I quote:

We launched our petition due to the announcement in the Election 2010 Coalition Government manifesto under Political Reform that under new legislation they will ensure that any petition that secures 100,000 signatures will be eligible for formal debate in Parliament and that the petition with the most signatures will enable members of the public to table a bill eligible to be voted on in Parliament. This has created a unique opportunity to embarrass and hold the government to account.

Manifesto promises aren't worth the glossy paper they are scrawled on any more, and this government defines 'listening to the people' the same way the last one did, so the chances of it being debated in parliament are slim.

However, if it turns up in my town, I'll sign it. No, I don't believe the Coagulation will listen but this action is going to get people's attention in a way no online campaign ever could. It will reach those who have never and will never use the Internet. It will reach those whose only interest in the news is the latest celebrity to pop out a boob. It will reach those whose only TV channel is the Mindless Drivel Channel.

The government won't listen. Maybe the people will.

I hope it arrives in Scotland in time for the Scottish elections. Al the Oily Fish promises independence from England but what he doesn't shout so loudly is that he plans to swap it for enslavement to the EU. Oh, it's not just the smoking ban that gets me riled up, but the smoking ban is right at the heart of it. I am not going to listen to 'If we are re-elected we will do away with this ridiculous ban'. I don't believe you. Manifesto promises mean nothing.

So, Al, you're up next. 'Exchange partial control by Westminster for total control by the EU' is another of your new slogans.

It works for all the parties, with minor tweaking. I'm getting quite a collection ready.

Vote for me and I'll sell your body parts to EU millionaires.

Vote for me you smoking scum, and see what real suffering is like.

Oi. Fat boy. Vote for me and I'll put you on a treadmill for six hours a day.

Vote for me if you like a drink. I'll soon put a stop to that.

Vote for me and have Spanish police kick your door in at dawn.

Why bother voting? Just send your money to the government. We're going to take it all anyway.


The best part is, as New Labour proved, none of them have to be even remotely true. Manifesto promises are not binding in law. You can say what you like during an election campaign and nobody can force you to actually keep those promises.

There's another Email waiting in there with some very interesting information on councils and smoking bans. Later...

Friday priorities.

1. Smoky-drinky.

2. Blog.

3. Sleep.

2 and 3 might change order, depending on the smokiness and especially the drinkiness of 1.

Sounds? Zounds!

View from the Solent (I can't find the blog - is it gone?) left a comment a few posts back with a link to this.

Yes, in the wake of Electrofag come the Electrojunkies! Some even report 'physiological effects' from listening to the new form of legal high - sounds.

The video is full of hysterical adults insisting that listening to sounds will make their kids rush out and buy heroin. None have, or they'd have reported it. Nobody is allowed to think that the teenagers in the video are putting on any kind of act to wind up the adults because we all know kids don't ever do that sort of thing. Sounds make them do it.

The adults want to put a stop to it. How? You can't test for residual sound metabolites. What will they do - test the kids' skulls for echoes? If you have a teenager and they are behaving oddly, that's because they are a teenager. If they are not behaving oddly then you'd better keep a close eye on them because that's abnormal. They are up to something.

You can produce physiological effects with sounds. The most obvious one being deafness from listening to Nazareth at full volume through headphones. Perhaps less widely known are the tricks you can play with subsonics, sounds below the range of hearing. A low frequency tone can make your eyes vibrate and you'll think you're seeing strange ghostly shapes in your peripheral vision. A high-volume tone at around 19 Hz will make most people's bowels spontaneously evacuate. Nobody can hear it so they won't know why they are suddenly sitting in something warm and damp. Must get a tone generator and wire it into the sound system at an ASH meeting.

High-pitched sounds are used to drive teenagers away because we oldies can't hear those sounds any more. Feel the pain, young 'uns.

These aren't dangerous. I doubt anyone could become addicted to shitting themselves and any who do are the sort who needed serious help anyway. There is no reason to suppose that listening to tones is a gateway to crystal meth. Even if some of those sites do link to drug-stuff sites, so what? If the kids wanted to find that stuff, they'd find it. If they don't want to find it they won't follow the link. There's no need anyway - most of that stuff is available behind the bike sheds.

There are far more dangerous sounds out there. Listening to Nick Clegg talking about the smoking ban is bad for your blood pressure and can make your head turn inside out. Listen to the Dreadful Arnott for too long and you'll experience an urge to burst your eardrums with cocktail sticks, as well as spontaneously catching scabies and head lice.

These sounds are a fad. No adult will admit to having tried them - and you just know they have - because to do so would mean they'd have to admit that they didn't get the urge to seek out Filthy John the drug dealer and give him the keys to their car in exchange for a little bag of Vim. The kids are having a hell of a laugh at the adults' expense here.

What's next? Looking at pictures of politicians can make you psychotic?

Oh, wait, that one's true.