I must commend Nanny's latest initiative on trying to persuade smokers to quit the evil habit.Nanny has set up a special website (www.packwarnings.nhs.uk/index.aspx) which asks smokers and non smokers to fill in a questionnaire about their smoking habits, job and ethnic origin.
It then takes the respondee onto a page showing a series of photos that Nanny wants to print on fag packets. The smoker/non smoker is invited to select the one that is most likely to put them off smoking.
The "winning" photo will then be printed on fag packets next year.
One small point about this rather odd site. The smokers who respond to the survey are well aware of the dangers of smoking, and by definition will not be deterred from smoking by seeing a photo that they have already chosen; those who don't smoke have no ability to determine what will put smokers off smoking.
An exercise in futility if ever there was one.
It also has a useless survey about pack warnings.The survey fails to ask any negative questions about pack warnings.
ReplyDeleteDoubtless this will be used to produce facts that 101% of respondents found pack warnings effective.
Never assume that a web site is anything to do with what it purports to be.
ReplyDeleteSites like the one referenced have two effects.
Firstly they can be pointed to as evidence that Nanny is 'doing something' about [name any issue you like].
Secondly they will no doubt count towards the stats for targets for egovernment where what matters is that something exists and whether or not it is effective or people even know it exists matters not at all.
It allows a tick in the box, an incremental adjustment to the measured stats and, as such, is a success simply by being created.
Also I think everyone should respond to it in whatever way they think appropriate. I hope there is a section for ex-smokers and some really gory photos suitable for frightening young children and those of a nervous disposition.
Frankly I don't care if people smoke or not but the idea of Nanny enforcing the publication and distribution of particularly unpleasant images somehow appeals to me.
For the next tick in the box for egov targets, how about a few pictures of unpleasant politicians to discourage people from voting?
Hmm, where to start ... ?
Further to my previous, I have now completed the survey and am pleased to note that the most popular pictures (I am glad they are forcing the manufacturers to print in full colour despite the extra costs - the images are indeed much more gruesome that way) do seem the be the goriest. Excellent.
ReplyDeleteI had a strong urge to go into 'character' for this exercise. The first (intrusive) page of personal questions provided some spur. So I decided to be someone from an HU post code, over 55, unemployed and seemingly mostly concerned about the effect of smoking on one's libido and related matters.
If I were a younger 'character' I think I might have found some comfort in the constant promotion of smoking as a form of contraception. Perhaps that is what is taught in schools? I would partly explain the teenage single mother syndrome.
I do encourage the opportunity to indulge any thespian leanings when passing through the site referenced.
;-)
Maybe the Web site is sinister. Maybe Nanny will log the IP addresses of respondents and then track them down to their fuggy lairs. Examples will be made. Insurance companies and employers will be notified. Finally, Patricia Hewitt will deliver a 45-minute harangue to each victim. Televised by Channel 4, no doubt, in a deal brokered by Tony's friend Silvio. I myself haven't got a barge-pole long enough with which not to touch anything inspired by, related to, or produced by this bunch of creeps.
ReplyDeleteI quite enjoyed my visit to Nanny's anti-smoking site. It allows you to go through the pages of images without actually ticking any of them, which may produce some disappointing results for Nanny. I also opted to tick all the options marked "prefer not to say" and made up a postcode (AB because they were the first two letters that came to mind). There was also a "where did you hear about this site" question and I put "www.nannyknowsbest.com" (hoping that Nanny would venture to log on and find out what anyone with half a brain thinks of her and her insane control-freakery) so be warned, we are probably all Being Watched now ...
ReplyDeleteLike Anonymous, I have just visited Nanny's new website. I am a professional/managerial female smoker (who later clicked a box saying she doesn't smoke) and none of the images did it for me, though I did download the rotting teeth/gums one to use for my desktop.
ReplyDeleteI gave your splendid site a plug, Ken, and hope the trolls there tune in for an earful of abuse and a sound whacking from Cherry, Wharton, amd all the other fellows in my dorm!
The Patricia Hewittness of it is terrific, as Ranjit Singh remarked, while looking over my shoulder at the jolly old laptop my uncle sent me.
Soo Raliwayman39, on the basis that Nanny is adamant that people who smoke die an average death 14 years earlier than they might otherwise of a smoking related disease and, after a little mental arithmetic (there, shows MY age) I would have to point out that absent the pipe you would be on target to receive a telegram from the King (or A King)N in a few years from now BUT, in view of the pipe smoking an the statistical evidence that the Queen sends relatively few telegrams (I can remember telegrams as well, though not from Liz), you are clearly communicating with us from 'the other side'. Hence, from this day forth, I will sincerely believe in anything related to the hereafter and electronic ouija boards.
ReplyDeleteUnless, of course, you are a transposed figment of Ken's imagination. Hmm. I think I need to go and think about this ....
BTW, I suspect that giving up now would in fact be bad for you quite frankly.
sticking gory pictures on the box is a great way to encourage teenage boys to smoke
ReplyDeleteFat Owl
ReplyDeleteThanks for the plug, and indeed very impressed to see that you are familiar with Wharton, Cherry and the chums of the Remove.
I have some reprints of Frank Richards stuff, and my father has an original Holiday Annual (circa 1930, I think).
Halcyon days:)
The postal order of six shillings, as a reward for your efforts, is in the post.
Ken
Pity there was no "comments" box at the end of the survey. Might have been an opportunity to give Nanny and trolls a good ear-bashing. Ah, silly me - that's why there isn't one, I suppose. If there's any ear-bashing to be done, Nanny thinks it should be done by her.
ReplyDeleteI say, Ken -- I have already spent your remittance of 6/- at the tuck shop. Yarroo!
ReplyDeleteLook out, here comes Quelch!
Mr Quelch to you Fat Owl!
ReplyDeleteFollowing your earlier posting, I was moved to read a few choice excerpts from Frank Richards today eg:
"Fritz Von Splitz was the fattest duffer in the school"
"Skimpole goes gay"
"I suppose the brute's a Prussian?"
They don't write kids' comics like that anyomre do they?
Ken
Frank Richards and all his works would certainly be banned. All those dungaree-clad librarians would have a fit if they even glimpsed one paragraph of his gloriously non-PC prose.
ReplyDeleteWhat a dull place the world has become, and all thanks to Nanny.
Ken -- memory lane has at least two portals: here or here.
ReplyDelete