Today is not a good day for freedom, following on from yesterday's article about Mel Smith smoking a cigar on stage in the People's Republic of Scotland, it seems that Nanny's Scottish anti smoking Gestapo have won.
Mel appeared in the play with a cigar. However, it remained unlit.
Nanny had threatened to close the Assembly Rooms if he lit up.
The bastards have won!
Half a page in the Daily Mail today with Mel sitting on a window sill complete with apparently lit cigar.
ReplyDeleteI say apparently since the subject of smoke in photos needs to be treated carefully after the Reuters Lebanon pics debacle.
Of course after yesterday's story about children being murdered by third hand smoke deposited on furniture, probably from millenia before they were born, I am surprised that the Gestapo did not deploy a marksman to shoot Mr. Smith to prevent the possibility of fourth hand smoke contaminating the outside of the building and offering the potential for harming the workers who will be deployed to decontaminate the stone and brick work at some point in the future. (Assuming there will be any children left to grow up to be those workers of course, so many being murdered by the actions of their parents ...)
So, when will Nanny ban recruitment to the Armed Forces? Especially the Army. Clearly the risk is at least on a par with the potential for second or third hand smoking and recruitment is an entirely avoidable activity.
I perceive the usual dual standards operating here.
Margaret Beckett's 'Gas Guzzler' caravan tow car is another example. Still, nice set of pictures published and her easily identifiable holiday home is unlikely to be armoured so maybe she is simply being set up as a target for an activist group.
Hezbollah or one of the extremist eco groups? Hardly seems to matter really.
Back to Mel Smith - I see a market for stage props which give of realistic looking but entirely safe smoke. I wonder what the zealots would do about that?
There is some confusion here. According to some reports the maximum penalty is a fine, but others report that it does not infringe the denied smokers(European) human rights. It is not clear how any of this would have allowed for the closure of the venue?
ReplyDeletePerhaps they should have a big screen on the stage displaying Mel as Churchill puffing away on his cigar?
Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete"There is some confusion here. According to some reports the maximum penalty is a fine, but others report that it does not infringe the denied smokers(European) human rights. It is not clear how any of this would have allowed for the closure of the venue?
Perhaps they should have a big screen on the stage displaying Mel as Churchill puffing away on his cigar?
4:39 AM "
I expect there is a suitable Health and Safety clause they could invoke ...
Not sure that the screen idea, neat as it is, would help. I'm sure there is a Professor of something somewhere, desparate for research money and a paper to keep his/her job, who would say that the risk of nth hand smoke MAY be transmitted by visual images, especially those using anything electrical to display them.
Of course I MAY be an ex-patriate Martian from one of the moons of Saturn on that basis.
Could I claim asylum and than demand that the Chancer of the Exchequer be ASBO'd for causing shock and distress by his handling of the economy, in particular the pensions industry? (I could list many more things if multiple ASBO's would result.)
The bastards didn't win.
ReplyDeleteA collective lack of balls was shown by the management of the venue/lead actor.
Had either of them stood up to The Nanny State an embarrasing climb down would surely have occurred.
The Scottish Parliament need the kudos/revenue that the Edinburgh Festival brings to the country. The alleged threat to close The Assembly Rooms if Mel Smith smoked during his performance was never going to happen as the repercussions would have been too great and turned this nation into an international laughing stock.
Had Smith/Burdet Coutts pushed ahead with their smoking plan our legislators would have hastily rewritten their ill-conceived bill.
OR
It was all just a cynical marketing ploy to shift tickets for a show which begins at 11am.
Either way the whole event was a shambles.