A little late in the week, but it is time to award my prestigious "Prats of The Week" Award.This week it goes to all those tossers who complained to the BBC about a wee incident on Top Gear.
Jeremy Clarkson and his co-presenter, James May, managed to offend some interfering busybodies with too much time on their hands, by lighting up a couple of pipes on air during Top Gear.
Oh my goodness...the horror...the humanity!!!
The astute amongst you will be quick to point out that, under Nanny's new anti smoking laws, such behaviour is verboten.
Seemingly the mere sight of actors, "personalities" etc smoking would immediately cause the whole country to become addicted to tobacco..yes, we are apparently (in Nanny's eyes at least) really that thick!
Now here's the real laugh though, Clarkson and May weren't smoking "evil" tobacco...they were smoking "good" herbal tobacco. Therefore they were not breaking Nanny's laws.
Needless to say the interfering busybodies in this country, who have nothing better to do with their time than to stick their noses in where they don't belong, have chosen to ignore the facts.
The anti-smoking charity Action for Smoking on Health (Ash), have demanded an apology from the BBC.
Who are they to demand?
What gives them moral prescience over the rest of us?
Why should one single issue group be in a position to dictate to the rest of us what we may, or may not, do?
Have they really got nothing better to do with their lives?
Amanda Sandford, spokeswoman for the charity, shrilly squawked:
"Smoking in a studio is illegal.
Anything that causes smoke is prohibited.
We would hope that programme-makers make
some form of apology.
It was meant to be a fairly light-hearted
part of the programme, but the law is the law
and it's not appropriate for the BBC,
especially for a programme that's very
popular and seen by a lot of young people,
to be openly flouting the law."
Just to remind you all, they were smoking herbal tobacco...it is not dangerous and not illegal.
Facts of course do not matter to ASH.
The arrogance of ASH is beyond belief, well deserving "Prats of The Week".
Please drop them a note, with my love, to this address ASH
Layabouts with too much time on their hands, putting their noses into other people's business are a curse upon this nation; that's exactly how Nazi Germany started!
Don't take my word for it, ask Basil:
I've got a single issue: Get rid of all the jumped-up little fascist bastards currently controlling Britain.
ReplyDeleteTrouble is, this is the single 'single issue' that none of the other single issue groups want to have changed (for obvious reasons) so nobody gives any weight to our shouting.
Sadly, smoking any substance is apparently illegal... even herbal mixtures. Does that include incense, I wonder? Is the Catholic church breaking the law?
ReplyDeleteI read recently that it was not the smoking that was a problem but the act of lighting up. Presumably anything that one lights up is fine but lighting it is illegal.
ReplyDeleteThus matches to light a candle (for example) would be illegal. Or anything to light a candle. Therefore all churches are indeed potentially breaking the law UNLESS they are deemed not to be public places.
Hey, Grumpy, did you not know that not appreciating that "the jumped-up little fascist bastards currently controlling Britain" are in fact an intellectual elite, blessed with supreme knowledge as to what is best for you and all the other proles, marks you out as a sociopath. Beware the knock on the door in the early hours (do the police still work nights?), you will find youself whisked off to a re-education camp very quickly with rotten thoughts like those.
ReplyDeleteBut talking of bastards, these surely took the Gits of the Week Award:
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2555419.html
Docbud,
ReplyDeleteI think the case of the elderly gentleman is a great example of stupidity as picked up by the media. There again I get the impression, though only reading between the lines, that his action was not a one-off deposit. However the fact that he felt it necessary to move spoiling foodstuffs out of his small house more regularly than the 'authorities' deem necessary seems entirely reasonable - thus making the people who enforced the penalty doubly culpable.
Also I think you will find that grumpy comments. mostly, from the relative safety of Turkey, residents of northern Iraq permitting. On the other hand with the 'security forces' propensity for travel at the expense of the taxpayer you may be right. After all given the option of me or grumpy the offer boils down to a trip up the M1 through the ever present roadworks or versus a flight to sunhy Asia and, probably, an extended visit delayed by language difficulties and local authorities.
Which would you choose given that someone else was paying the bills?
I feel safer already.
Simon the Horrible ...
yes, I tend to agree although this is hardly a UK specific set of problems since most of the western world (as we describe it) seems to be suffering from the same malaise.
Let's face it the Antipodes seem to be confused, the Canadians don't seem to know which way to lean and the US had never recovered from the Bush/Gore election which, whoever won, would mean putting a lunatic in charge of the asylum.
On a broader political social and first language front for those who would not claim English as their first language, the EU seems to be determined to self destruct for environmental ideological reasons.
The great losers in all of this are those who believe in personal choice based on informed opinions from balanced sources.
Sounds like there might be at least two of us left.
Simon:
ReplyDeleteI too am a Yank who wonders what has happened to once-Great Britain, but I also do not believe for a minute that what is happening on the eastern edge of the great pond is any different than what is also happening here in the states. At best, Britain is serving as a "beta testing" laboratory for the (global) elite's totalitarian "Great Leap Forward." That just means that the seeds sprout more quickly in the UK than they do in North America, but the reality is that they'll sprout here anyway in the not-too-distant future and take root just as deeply.
As for the two pipe-smoking gentlemen, they're lucky that they were allowed to appear publicly in such a medium and in such a venue smoking anything at all. Here in the U.S., Nanny made such practices taboo almost four decades ago.
liberanter,
ReplyDeleteI suspect the beta-testing laboratory is in fact global - many of the knee-jerk ideas we have seen in the UK recently seem to have come from Australia (along with their soap operas) though it seems they are equally willing to adopt some of our apparently home brewed idiocies. I think there is some sort of international competition in the political club to see who can get away with what before people start complaining.
Your point about the pipe smoking is pertinent. I always thought of the USA as the Land of the Free (self billing admittedly) but in recent times and after a few visits I have come to realise that, in facts, it is the land of the legally trussed, though the nature of the truss may take different forms in different States. I rather suspect that Tony 'A New Law Every Day I am Prime Minister' Blair was using the US model. New boy Brown will simply pass responsibility to the EU who will do the job for him.
The pressure groups, like a pack of hounds sensing blood, seem now to be concentrating alcohol, food and breathing (or anything to do with CO2 - can you people do nothing about the Gore problem?)
In fact 'they' are so mean that whilst they wish to reduce consumption and output (and inference see a reduced population level though not all will make that a public statement) 'they' also seem to want to prevent people from choosing their own time of departure from the mortal coil. Clearly 'they' get their kicks from sadism.
On the other hand I suspect there are bigger games afoot that even 'they' may not have noticed yet and little problems like worrying about the weather, trans fats, wine consumption and cow burps may seem very insignificant after a decade or two more have passed.
Grant