Gasping For a Fag III

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.

Gasping For a Fag II

One day into the fag ban in England and Wales, and we already see Nanny's chums in our "respected" local councils doing their bit to push their intrusive noses into people's private lives and to go beyond the law.

Councils have decided to extend the indoor smoking ban to playgrounds and parks.

that's not all, Nanny's chum Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, has signalled the start of a wider campaign to make smoking socially unacceptable. The Department of Health is likely to force cigarette manufacturers to carry picture warnings on packets showing the health effects of smoking, which may include images of blocked arteries.

I find it a bit rich that doctors keep banging on about what we eat and drink, given that they are notorious for being at the top end of the statistics for alcohol, fag and substance abuse in this country.

It should be a case of physician heal thyself!

Anyhoo, disregarding our alcoholic substance abusing chums in the medical profession, Nanny's best chums in local councils in Middlesbrough, Cleveland and Derwentside, Co Durham have decided to go beyond the law and have imposed smoking bans on open-air spaces such as municipal playgrounds.

NOTE...

THESE BANS ARE NOT LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE

I WILL REPEAT

THESE BANS ARE NOT LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE

It would seem that local councils no longer give a stuff about the law, and are now openly contemptuous of people's freedoms and liberties.

What does this tell us about the sort of individual who stands for council???

By the way folks, if you think that being banned from smoking in parks is bad...may I acquaint you with Professor John Britton?

Britton is chairman of the tobacco advisory group, at the Royal College of Physicians.

He has decreed that smoking in front of children is child abuse.

Quote:

"If the child is being seriously affected

then you would need to establish that for

the individual child and take action."

Excuse me?

What the fark does "take action" mean?

How unbelievably arrogant and unpleasant!

The state, doctors and councils need to be reminded that they are not on this planet to tell us what to do or to dictate to us.

Here are a few email addresses for you to vent your spleens upon:

-contactcentre@middlesbrough.gov.uk
-paul_stenson@redcar-cleveland.gov.uk
-Derwentside
-j.britton@virgin.net

These people will do the same with booze and food next, mark my words.

Gasping For a Fag

My commiserations to all you fag lovers out there...

Editor's note

For reference, especially for my American readership, fag in this case means cigarette!

Today is the last day that you can have a relaxing fag in a public place (eg pub, bar, club etc). As from tomorrow Nanny's new anti smoking rules come into effect in England.

Even the hallowed Smoking Room of my club (The East India) will have to ban smoking (note, the room will still be called "The Smoking Room").

All very silly, we are adults and should be allowed to go to the devil in our own way. I certainly have quite a few methods of going to the devil!

Unfortunately, Nanny does not believe in freedom of choice.

Whilst I do not smoke myself, I believe that others should be allowed to do so. I also have a view that the exhaust from cars are far more likely to damage our health, than even the smokiest of bars. However, you will never see Nanny banning cars.

Now that she has dispensed with smoking, her next target is drinking; then comes meat eating.

Mark my words, Nanny will do her best to ban these pleasures as well.

"In Germany they came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
The they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Martin Niemoeller



So there we have it ladies and gentlemen, another freedom has been eroded.

Whilst we contemplate this, let us list the various terms for smoking and cigarettes; I will start you off:

-Having a fag
-Tabs
-Death sticks

Please add to the list.

Prat of The Week

Methinks that it is time for my infamous Prat of The Week award.

This week the award goes to Nanny's Public Health Minister, Caroline Flint, who has been putting the boot into booze.

Flintstone and Nanny have decreed, based on no evidence whatsoever, that pregnant women should not drink anything at all.

Why?

Nanny thinks that some people are just too thick to stick to the guidelines for moderate drinking.

Nanny doesn't quite get it, you cannot legislate against thickness.

Anyhoo, as if that were not enough, Nanny and Flintstone have decided that all booze should come with a health warning by the end of 2008.

Labels will include:

• The drink's unit content and the recommended Government safe drinking guidelines



• UK Health Departments recommend men do not regularly exceed 3-4 units daily and women 2-3 units daily



• Website - www.drinkaware.co.uk - detailing sensible drinking messages from the charity Drinkaware



• For beer, wine and spirits, unit information will be given per glass and per bottle

Flintstone has missed a couple of facts here; those who drink sensibly don't need to be told how much to drink, whilst those who drink stupidly don't care and will deliberately ignore the advice.

Flintstone went on to say:

"I would like to pay tribute to the drinks industry

for their commitment to promoting a responsible drinking culture."

Could someone please pass the sickbag?

What planet does this woman live on?

The drinks industry does their best to get the youth of this country bladdered, by heavy duty marketing of sweet (girly drinks) loaded with spirits, at knock down prices.

As if the labelling idea were not naive enough, Flintstone actually praises the drinks industry!

Clearly well deserving of the Prat of The Week award.

Whilst we are on the subject, those of you looking for the best bang for your buck should probably go for a Bucky (a beverage made by the good monks of Buckfast Abbey); which a good chum of mine and his colleagues worked out (by entering data about all types of booze into a spreadsheet) provides the best value bang for you buck, when taking into account alcohol by volume, price etc.

Nanny is onto a real loser here, as drinking is part of our culture; viz our language contains countless words/phrases that describe being drunk:

-bladdered
-pissed
-off your face
-inebriated
-an elegant sufficiency
-shit faced
-rat arsed
-squiffy etc

Can you think of any more?

Prat of The Week

Congratulations to Alcohol Concern who have won, "slam dunk" (if I may quote ex CIA Director Tenet), my prestigious "Prat of The Week" Award; for their absurd suggestion that parents should be prosecuted, if they give alcohol to children under 15 (even if it is only with a meal in their own home).

Alcohol Concern claim that this causes alcohol problems later in life.

Bollocks!

I was allowed alcohol when I was a child, and look at me now!

Aside form that, here is why the suggestion is total and utter bollocks:

1 It is unenforceable (even Nanny's health minister, Caroline Flint, says that!).

2 The state, nor charities, should intervene in the way that parents bring up their children (where there are no child abuse issues).

3 The problem with underage drinking arises not because the "children" are drinking with their parents, but because they are drinking unsupervised. Therefore parents should drink with their children.

4 Let us assume that Alcohol Concern's recommendation was implemented, and booze banned from children under the age of 16/15. Once the "child" passes the magic age of 15/16, he/she is meant to face the world with all its temptations and problems without any experience of how to manage alcohol. How on earth does that help prepare the "child" for entry into the adult world? Surely this counts as child abuse?

5 The continentals allow alcohol with family meals, they seem to manage OK.

6 The root cause of anti social behaviour and binge drinking amongst "youths" is that they are thrown into the adult world without any real preparation. Physically they may well be "adult", mentally (because they have been cossetted, spoilt and kept in cotton wool by Nanny and over protective parents) they are immature, spoilt self centred children. They are not equipped to deal with responsibility or the real world. To ban parental supervision of drinking would exacerbate this situation.

Congratulations to Alcohol Concern for thoroughly earning your award!

Please drop them a note and let them know that they have won: contact@alcoholconcern.org.uk

Nanny Is Mother, Nanny Is Father

The key to any "successful" authoritarian dictatorship is to ensure that the state is involved in every aspect of people's lives.

Sometimes the state will legislate, by force, its involvement; eg banning smoking, health and safety reviews and ethnic quotas etc.

In other areas the state will try to "ingratiate" itself, by first of all undermining people's self confidence and dignity. Once the fundamental bedrock of people's independence has been undermined, Nanny can push her way in and start to lecture us about how we should be living our lives. This makes us reliant on her, and as such gives her the whip hand over us.

One of Nanny's experts in the Machiavellian art of confidence erosion is Nanny's best chum Caroline Flint, so called Minister for Fitness. Ms Flint has issued an edict saying that overweight people should be given lessons in how to eat fruit and vegetables.

Call me old fashioned...

"Ken you're old fashioned!"

...but I thought the principle of eating fruit and veg was easy; you open your mouth, put the fruit/vegetable in your mouth and start to chew.

You know how to chew, don't you?

Anyhoo, in Ms Flint's world, too many Britons are refusing to eat fresh produce because they see it as "scary food."

The reason that some people find it "scary" is that when they were children, they were not forced to eat what was put in front of them; ie they were spoiled and indulged by lazy parents.

Ms Flint wants supermarkets to provide instore demonstrations on how "healthier" food, eg apples and bananas, should be prepared and eaten.

Ms Flint, referred to a seminar where a parent apparently referred to some food as being scary:

"What she was talking about was vegetables she had never seen in her life before.

Here's a fruit you have never seen before.

What do you do with it?

Do you peel it?

Do you boil it?

Do you chop it?".

Ms Flint said the solution was to provide cookery lessons in major stores.

She added:

"If people are calling some of the healthier foods 'scary food'

because they are not sure how to prepare or cook them

it doesn't matter how many times I bang out a leaflet

saying eat this - it is not going to happen."

Three points to the above:

1 It's not the state's role to tell people what to eat.

2 People resent being told by the state what to eat, and will rebel.

3 It is the role of parents to educate their children as to what to eat.

Let the responsibility and consequences of lazy parenting rest with the parents, not with the state. The more that state interferes, the more lazy parents will become and as a result the more reliant society becomes on the state.

Ms Flint also admitted that another problem that Nanny faces is that some people simply don't consider themselves to be obese...well that's their right isn't it?

That observation is as facile as if she were to say that some people don't consider themselves to be ugly, when in fact they are (to some others)...totally subjective.

Quote:

"We have to do it in a way not to stigmatise people.

One of the things you have to think about is sometimes

overweight parents do not recognise their children as being overweight.

If they compare themselves with people who are considerably larger than themselves

they think, 'That's not me I don't have a problem'."

In other words, Nanny will now be upping the volume on her "you are a fat bastard" campaign.

Once everyone feels inadequate, and has had their self confidence undermined, Nanny will "come to the rescue" and make us all dependent on her.

More Nanny Smoking Nonsense

Following on from yesterday's article about Nanny's chumps in the Scottish Executive banning smoking on stage, it seems that Nanny's English lackeys have realised how stupid that is. Nanny is now trying to implement changes to the anti smoking laws that will allow smoking on stage in England.

Actors will escape a blanket ban on smoking on stage, after West End theatres led a revolt against the move.

The revolt warned that many plays would be difficult to stage if characters, such as Sherlock Holmes or Winston Churchill, had to stop smoking.

Nanny, doubtless realising how daft the Scottish Executive looks, has revealed a plan to exempt live theatrical performances and film and television recordings from the ban, where smoking is "integral to the plot or storyline".

Funny that explicit sex, violence, murder, wife beating etc are all happily allowed; yet smoking was about to be banned!

The decision comes after some pressure was put on Nanny as to the impact of the smoking ban, due to come into force next summer, on current West End hits such as Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? and Billy Elliot and future productions such as The Graduate.

Nanny's Health minister Lord Warner said:

"The Government are considering a specific exemption to ensure that smoking can take place on stage during live theatrical performances,

or during film and television recording,

where smoking is integral to the plot or storyline."

He said that Nanny's public health minister, Caroline Flint, was writing to theatre groups, film directors and TV producers to set out Nanny's "intention" to exempt actors from the smoking ban.

Needless to say it will be a bureaucratic mine field to deal with this. Ministers expect extensive consultation on the details of the special consent for actors to light up, including who would be allowed to do so.

Some argue that such an exemption would be impossible to police. Theatres which allowed smoking on stage, where it was not permitted, could be fined 2,500.

I find it quite ridiculous that so much time and effort is being wasted on this, when common sense dictates there should never have been a ban in the first place.

Tory health spokesman Earl Howe said:

"Many plays would be rendered artistically impossible, indeed risible, if the actors were prevented by law from smoking.

Current examples of smoking on the London stage include

Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? and, notably,

Billy Elliot.

In some plays smoking is required, for example,

in all plays by Ibsen except one,

almost all plays by Noel Coward,

in all plays by Simon Gray and, perhaps most notably,

in John Osborne's Look Back In Anger."

Another example being Carmen, Carmen's opening scene is set outside a cigarette factory with many chorus girls, and Carmen herself, lighting up.

In other words, smoking is part of our cultural heritage. Nanny, by trying to ban it, is trying to mess with our cultural heritage and change who we are.

The Anfluence of Ilcohol

Hot on the heels of Nanny's anti smoking drive, it now seems that she is planning to launch another anti booze drive.

This time Nanny feels that by labelling booze with health warnings, we will all drink less.

Nanny's chum Caroline Flint, the Public Health Minister, recently announced plans to place health alerts on bottles and cans similar to those on cigarette packets. She said that Nanny was talking to the drinks industry about putting the warnings in pubs, off-licences and on supermarket shelves.

I am not alone in feeling that this is a total waste of time and money.

No less a person that Egon Ronay, the food critic, has in effect called Nanny's scheme bollocks. He says that the changes would expose Britain to "worldwide ridicule".

Ronay said:

"Britain would be exposed to worldwide ridicule if plans by Caroline Flint to print a health notice on wine labels materialise."

Unfortunately, Nanny has already caused this country to be subject to worldwide ridicule.

Nanny believes that because wine measures varied, people did not always know how much they were drinking.

Ronay quite rightly points out:

"Jacques Chirac, chief detractor of eating in Britain, would lead the laughter.

The degree of alcohol, mostly 12 to 13 per cent in ordinary wines, is already on every label."


One of Nanny's latest warning messages is

"Don't do drunk".

Effective it is not!

As with cigarettes the messages will be ignored; a man and a woman, each with a cigarette packet. The woman's packet says that fags will reduce the chances of pregnancy, the man's says that the fags will reduce the sperm count.

Solution?

Swap the packets!

As with the majority of Nanny's "ideas", this is all a load of old tosh!

Nanny's Gestapo

Nanny really hates smoking, maybe she had an unfortunate experience with a cigarette in her childhood?

Anyhoo, as we all know, Nanny is implementing new powers effectively criminalising smoking in public.

Now banning something is all well and good, but actually policing and enforcing the ban is another matter.

That would require some considerable resources.

As we all know the police are already working flat out chasing those who drive too fast; they then have to worry about lesser offences, such as burglary and robbery, before they could even hope to enforce a smoking ban.

Have no fear, Nanny has a cunning plan.

Nanny's new best friend, Caroline Flint, the Reich health minister has announced an "intelligence-led approach to enforcing the law".

What precisely does Frau Flint actually mean by "intelligence-led"?

Well, in a nut shell, Frau Flint will recruit a network of informers who will be encouraged to report breaches the ban in places such as; company smoking rooms, bus shelters and the outsides of office blocks made no-smoking areas.

Those who transgress will be fined £50.

There will also be penalties for companies that fail to display "No Smoking" signs in areas newly outlawed.

Establishments that attract repeated complaints could be subject to "sting" operations by council enforcers.

Frau Flint confirmed that the policy would be vigorously enforced, with the assistance of informers from the public.

The Reich Minister went on to say:

"I don't think we are talking about brigades of people out on the streets..What we are talking about is an intelligence-led approach to enforcing the law."

The Reich Minister will place the burden of enforcement on councils, which will receive extra money for the task; with informers calling a telephone hotline manned by officials at the town hall.

Those of you with even a rudimentary knowledge of history will recall that this form of "intelligence gathering" formed the bedrock for the Third Reich. People were encouraged to inform on each other; as such political debate was stifled, as no one could trust their friends neighbour's or families.

The system was used by many to pursue private vendettas and to pay off old scores. The same will happen here.

Nanny has gone too far this time.

It is now up to us all to ensure that this disgusting proposal is wrecked, and made to be unworkable, by overloading the system with false reports of smoking.

Those of you who wish to raise the above issues with Reich Minister Flint should email her at flintc@parliament.uk