Heh heh:)I see that the recent articles here about Nanny's smoking ban have produced some rather entertaining, and well observed, comments.
Keep it up!
In the spirit of sticking two fingers up to Nanny, and doing my best to thwart (now there's a word I haven't used for a while) her evil plans for subjugating us, I believe that I may have come up with a means of circumnavigating the smoking ban.
It seems that cruise ships are exempt from the smoking ban, thanks to a mixture of laws and customs.
Ships registered in Britain, such as the QE2, come under the Merchant Shipping Act which overrides the smoking regulations. Therefore on the QE2 you are still able to have a fag.
What has this got to do with circumnavigating the smoking ban?
I will tell you.
Pubs and clubs in England/Wales that still want to allow smoking should register themselves as cruise ships, that way they will be able to claim exemption from the ban.
Now, I hear you say that the UK would never allow a building to be registered as a ship flying the British flag.
Maybe so...but what of countries that offer flags of convenience for any old rust bucket?
I am sure that countries such as the Bahamas, Bermuda or Panama would be happy to welcome an English pub into their fleet.
May I suggest that you forward this suggestion on to every pub and club that you can think of?
It is most assuredly worth a shot.
Registering buildings and sites as ships is an old tradition.
ReplyDeleteThe Royal Navy being one example, all shore bases carry the designation HMS.
Even the old P&O headquarters in Aldgate, London was registered as a ship, before it was demolished.
Perhaps we could get the RN to adopt a pub, and reclassify it HMS.