Post by albert tatlock on Feb 22, 2006 9:37:59 GMT
WHat a HypoBrit Government
So the government are banning smoking in public places? Yet they welcome opening pubs 24 hours for a drug thats known to be the bane of most violent acts and contributes to family breakups. TWITS!
Goodbye The Falstaff Arms. Hello The Avon Lady's Armpit.
SO farewell then, English boozer, you warm, fuggy refuge from this plastic world of shallow hype and image obsession.
Soon you'll be gone, replaced with "dining experience outlets" that may be fresher than an Avon Lady's armpit but will be as soulless as a Bracknell roundabout.
If you're an old fella, who's spent his life fighting for his country and seeing his lungs rot in a mine, forget about seeking a haven in your local or working men's club with a pint and a ciggy.
To do so will be a crime. Punishable, ultimately, by jail. Which won't be a bad thing, because at least there you'll be able to enjoy a ciggy in public.
Oh yes, thanks to a breathtaking New Labour U-turn - which saw the Cabinet defy the government's manifesto pledge for a partial ban on smoking, and decided to turn tobacco-users into lepers - convicted criminals will be OK to smoke in public. But not law-abiding, tax-paying smokers. Even if they do it in places where the only people they're affecting are those who don't mind.
How difficult would it be to give every pub and club the right to declare itself smoking or non-smoking, allowing drinkers the choice to avoid or inhale tobacco fumes?
The health lobby says smokers have no rights because passive smoking kills. Even though the only evidence we keep hearing is Roy Castle's death over a decade ago. (Yet we never hear about the millions of passive smokers who haven't died from cigarette smoke in that time.)
Yet smokers DO have a moral right to wallow in their own death fumes, so long as everyone inhaling them consents. Because this government makes tobacco legal and takes billions of pounds off nicotine-users in taxes (not to mention the odd million off Bernie Ecclestone which enabled him to keep tobacco advertising in Formula One). Which buys smokers some respect.
I've never smoked, but I have drunk with smokers all my life. And I want to carry on doing so.
I don't want to be forced to take cans to their houses like druggies organising an illegal rave. I don't want to talk to myself at the bar listening to Coldplay muzak while they're outside freezing their goolies off under patio heaters which burn off the ozone layer.
I don't want to see my favourite boozers stripped of their character and turned into squeaky-clean gastro-bars, with tables full of non-drinkers sipping coffee after their brunchtime special.
A Pint of PìsS please
I'd rather smell Capstan than garlic. I'd rather risk cancer than die of thirst because all the bar-staff are chasing up lasagne orders in the kitchen.
And what about the other killers in pubs? Radiation from mobile phones. Salmonella from the reheated two-for-a-fiver crap they pass off as dishes of the day. Weil's disease from rat-infected bottle necks. Stray darts, pork scratchings, the suicidal tendencies you develop from looking up and seeing Countdown on the telly.
What about alcohol? You know, the thing that kills livers, car drivers and marriages, which the government has just allowed to be served 24 hours a day if the management fancies it.
So why can't they also allow smoking if management, staff and customers fancy it? Why? Because those old fellas in those pubs and clubs no longer register on the political map. No one turns up to a focus group and rolls their own.
Goodbye The Falstaff Arms. Hello The Avon Lady's Armpit.
So the government are banning smoking in public places? Yet they welcome opening pubs 24 hours for a drug thats known to be the bane of most violent acts and contributes to family breakups. TWITS!
Goodbye The Falstaff Arms. Hello The Avon Lady's Armpit.
SO farewell then, English boozer, you warm, fuggy refuge from this plastic world of shallow hype and image obsession.
Soon you'll be gone, replaced with "dining experience outlets" that may be fresher than an Avon Lady's armpit but will be as soulless as a Bracknell roundabout.
If you're an old fella, who's spent his life fighting for his country and seeing his lungs rot in a mine, forget about seeking a haven in your local or working men's club with a pint and a ciggy.
To do so will be a crime. Punishable, ultimately, by jail. Which won't be a bad thing, because at least there you'll be able to enjoy a ciggy in public.
Oh yes, thanks to a breathtaking New Labour U-turn - which saw the Cabinet defy the government's manifesto pledge for a partial ban on smoking, and decided to turn tobacco-users into lepers - convicted criminals will be OK to smoke in public. But not law-abiding, tax-paying smokers. Even if they do it in places where the only people they're affecting are those who don't mind.
How difficult would it be to give every pub and club the right to declare itself smoking or non-smoking, allowing drinkers the choice to avoid or inhale tobacco fumes?
The health lobby says smokers have no rights because passive smoking kills. Even though the only evidence we keep hearing is Roy Castle's death over a decade ago. (Yet we never hear about the millions of passive smokers who haven't died from cigarette smoke in that time.)
Yet smokers DO have a moral right to wallow in their own death fumes, so long as everyone inhaling them consents. Because this government makes tobacco legal and takes billions of pounds off nicotine-users in taxes (not to mention the odd million off Bernie Ecclestone which enabled him to keep tobacco advertising in Formula One). Which buys smokers some respect.
I've never smoked, but I have drunk with smokers all my life. And I want to carry on doing so.
I don't want to be forced to take cans to their houses like druggies organising an illegal rave. I don't want to talk to myself at the bar listening to Coldplay muzak while they're outside freezing their goolies off under patio heaters which burn off the ozone layer.
I don't want to see my favourite boozers stripped of their character and turned into squeaky-clean gastro-bars, with tables full of non-drinkers sipping coffee after their brunchtime special.
A Pint of PìsS please
I'd rather smell Capstan than garlic. I'd rather risk cancer than die of thirst because all the bar-staff are chasing up lasagne orders in the kitchen.
And what about the other killers in pubs? Radiation from mobile phones. Salmonella from the reheated two-for-a-fiver crap they pass off as dishes of the day. Weil's disease from rat-infected bottle necks. Stray darts, pork scratchings, the suicidal tendencies you develop from looking up and seeing Countdown on the telly.
What about alcohol? You know, the thing that kills livers, car drivers and marriages, which the government has just allowed to be served 24 hours a day if the management fancies it.
So why can't they also allow smoking if management, staff and customers fancy it? Why? Because those old fellas in those pubs and clubs no longer register on the political map. No one turns up to a focus group and rolls their own.
Goodbye The Falstaff Arms. Hello The Avon Lady's Armpit.
