Category: Let's talk
In Scotland it will soon be illegal to smoke indoors in pubs clubs offices ect the anti smoke storm troopers will have the power to break down the doors of any building suspected of harbouring smokers and arrest everyone involved. Furthermore if you refuse to give your name and address,you face arrest! Since when did my beautiful country degenerate in to Nazi Germany at the behest of its Fuhrer Jack McConnell to think that a civil right enjoyed by countless suicidal Scots can cause such heavy handed behaviour.My brother Ally and I and our friends await the day or evening when the doors of Failte are torn off their hinges as the SS plie in to arrest some hapless, clueless, tourist: Just off the plane for lighting up!.
I actually agree with you on this one goblin, although to be honest there is good cause to worry about the heealth of the Scotts, since you are something like five times more likely to die of heart disease north of the border. The smoking ban is wrong, pure and simple. I wouldn't go as far as using the analogy with the SS and Nazi Germany as Hitler had bigger fish to fry to be honest, but my objection is rather based on the government depriving people of the right to choose, once again.
It's a desperate and unworkable measure to combat the terrible health record of Scots but the areas with highest number of smokers are invariably deprived socially and economically need I say that our talking shop and Glasgow council have consistantly ignored the problems that lead to smoking. {unemployment debt and borrowing from loan sharks ect high crime rate and of course the Scottish talent for seeing the negativity in everything}
It's a desperate and unworkable measure to combat the terrible health record of Scots but the areas with highest number of smokers are invariably deprived socially and economically need I say that our talking shop and Glasgow council have consistantly ignored the problems that lead to smoking. {unemployment debt and borrowing from loan sharks ect high crime rate and of course the Scottish talent for seeing the negativity in everything}
Well, Goblin, perhaps for the first time in ages and ages we are in absolute and complete agreement over this ban. it's wrong wrong wrong! Anyway must be off as big brother blair is watching me and I need to get my eye-prints done for my ID card. I do hope it will be ready on time! Just think, in a few years when we're not allowed to smoke, eat sweets and crisps, drive, or sing nursery rhymes, where we're all wandering around the place like prisoners on early release, with our ID cards and electronic tags so that nice Tessa Jowell can make sure we're getting enough exercise and Dr John Reid can make sure we're all in bed by 8, uncle tony will still find black holes into which mysterious faxes and emails disappear to save the integrity of his government. Don't worry, if you know the right people, despite all the surveillance it won't take much for the government to suffer an attack of collective amnesia to make everything all right. get networking my lads and lasses, get networking! It's not what you know, it's whom you know.
Hmmm yes that's right cheer me up no wonder I'm worried about the kind of future my little boy will inherit.
Right, firstly, I am amazed to be witnessing lawlord and goblin agreeing! Something I never thought I'd see in my life.
Secondly, lawlord, you crack me up, you're so funny. Thirdly and probably more important as it is the whole point of the post, the banning of smoking. As a non-smoker, there is nothing I hate more than having to breathe in smoke fumes. I think that there is no point in banning it because there are going to be so many people who won't abide by that law, they're wasting their time. Does the government not realise that there are far more important things to put police time on to? However, Living in a house where I am the only one that doesnt' smoke, I wake up in the morning with a blocked nose and a cough that makes me sound like I have smoked than more of the house hold put together. I agree that it's not right to ban it all together, but pointless, but at the same time, is it fair to inflict your habbit upon people who don't share the desire to breathe in filth? I accept that you can not get away from polution, but does that give us the right to justify creating more instead?
Smile so am I. Sugar I agree but I can see the stupidity of this ban its going too far and has been implmented without any thought or consideration for why people rely on the evil weed,if they spent more time dealing with these reasons instead of this the problem could just possibly be halved...
Sugar I agree with you, but that alone can't justify a ban on smoking. smokers are not animals and will generally be courteous enough to not smoke if you ask them not to. I appreciate your problem, but the government ban wouldn't solve it as it doesn't apply to private dwellings. Maybe your smokers would need to smoke less in their home if they were able to enjoy cigarettes in their favourite watering hole? I'm afraid I don't buy the argument that basically states that people don't like cigarette smoke so the smokers shouldn't be allowed to do it. people don't like drunks, compulsive gamblers or the Notting Hill carneval, and yet the government does nothing about the first problem, and positively encourages the last two. As an occasional smoker of the odd cigar I do not like chain smokers at all if they smoke constantly in my presence, but I find equally as objectionable the obsessive non-smoking fundamentalists who prosecute their remorseless witch-hunts, persecuting people who are for the most part courteous, and who are not indulging in criminal acts. Banning smoking in public is wrong, pure and simple, not just because I believe that establishments such as bars should have the right to choose whether they be smoking or non-smoking establishments, but more importantly because of the principle it endorses. Last week the lawlords ruled that the government infringed the civil rights of foreign terrorist suspects by detaining them indefinitely without trial. Now, whatever you think of this ruling, it does show that this government, and others before and no doubt after it, doesn't think things through properly. This is an unjustified constraint on the liberties of ordinary people, for something that is not even criminal.
I agree LL. I'm in no way saying that because I am a non-smoker, the whole country should be too... I'm not that naive. I do however, as I said, think that, there is no point trying to ban smoking because noone is seriously going to take much notice. Actually, maybe it's for that reason that it is being suggested. Noone will take any notice, so lots of people will have to pay up their fines, so the government will have yet another little nest egg, just like the conjestion charge.
Well actually the chancellor benefits hugely from the taxes paid by smokers and, contrary to popular myth, not all of that money is spent on treating smoking-related illnesses. It's the meddling tendencies of the do-gooders such as Tessa 'everyone's a snob who doesn't agree with me' Jowell who are behind this.
oh, i think anyone with any sense knows this ll...
Just think LL, in a few years time when the Tories are in charge...it'll all be sooooo much worse!! Anyway, someone has to do something to get those Scots a bit healthier...
Frey.
John reid is himself a Glaswegian I think, which gives me this new theory about him: the non-smoking policy of hte Labour government is his extreme reaction to his past, during which I have to reveal that our current secretary of state for health was on forty a day and drinking like Paul Truman from Eastenders. speaking of young Paul, I never thought I'd hear Patrick Truman, his dad, telling someone that they were drinking too much!
lol, yes, that was quite funny.....
I do hope that they don't change Paul truman too much and make him into a model citizen, he's fine as he is. and they'd better not get rid of that andy Hunter in a hurry either, although thank god we appear to have seen the back of Catt slater for a bit. The most recently added family with the child who has a baby are also excellent and make up for the time-wasting Fareras on any day of the weak. Several of them are smokers as well I think, and it would be a shame to see people like Dott Cotten being thwarted in their hobbies by Dr John Reid who isn't even a doctor and whose so-called doctorate is only honourary. Dr Liam Foxe, on the other hand, is a real doctor.
I'm afraid that after last night it looks like it may be curtains for Paul in the not too distant future...and what's wrong with poor old Cat eh? Alfie's just not the same without her...Frey.
Catt and the slaters have had to go to court more often than I'm going to have to.
Makes life more interesting eh? Frey.
I feel very sorry for Charlie Slater, the amount of grief those girls of his give him, and that Maureen Harris acting as though she fancies her son-in-law.
Oi! What the feck is going on here LL hmmm your digressing with ease... old chap that wont do in court.
No it certainly won't do in court old lad, but neither will the F word. Don't worry I'm perfectly focused in court.
Paul Trueman dies on Christmas day.
Well that's just wrong wrong wrong then. The Trumans always had something about them. bloody fools! don't worry, Lawlord will bring them back when he takes over writing the script for eastenders.
I actually have taken both sides to this. Where I live now we had it up on the balot the last election and it past. I was one who voted for it. I am a non smoker and can't stand the stuff. It's nasty. But on the other hand, it's you that chooses to be around smokers, it's you who chooses to work with smokers, and it's you who chooses to be in a smoking environment.
Troy
Sullydog I daresay you're going to generate a fair bit of disagreement with those three rather wide propositions, for I'm not sure whether it is you, for instance, who choose to work with smokers. Nay, most people choose to work where they work just to put some food on the table, and I doub whether they conduct much of an inquiry into whether or not their colleagues like a bit off golden Virginia to keep them going. I do agree that the smoking ban is disproportionate, but as will be evident now, I reach my conclusion for different reasons to your own. I do actually think that in workplaces a smoking ban is quite justified, or else a restriction to a particular part of the workplace where the smokers can gather and puff away to their heart's content.
Have to agree with you LL, about that Maureen...she seems to act as though she is married to Charlie, not his mother in law! And Sugar I had no idea Paul was going to shuffle off, you've ruined the Xmas surprise for me now tsk tsk!
Script writing aswell now eh LL, is there no end to your talents...Frey.
It will be a very sad day when Paul goes this weekend. What is it about Paul Truman and the winter months? Last year he got caught up in that awful mess with barry and Janine, and this year he's going to be murdered I presume? and by Andy Hunter's lot? Oh eell, at least there's still andy Hunter to keep the bad guys' flag flying in eastenders, and for comedy value that Keith is hilarious.
Okay well back to the smoking thing, I know this topic is old, but I feel like posting somewhere, and reading a topic, and this is where I landed this day. So anyway, I agree with Sugar. I'm a nonsmoker (i should hope so, seeing as I'm only fourteen), and I wish people would stop smoking, but I know that that will never happen, so I think it's pointless to put a ban on it. But whatever.
Caitlin
Getting back to Eastenders, I'm glad they kept dirty Denn in for the moment, at least. Paul truman seems to have disappeared without trace, and Alfy Moon was caught nicking spuds from Beale's cafe. I have to say that Corry got the better of the christmas storylines this year, and thank god that Karen Macdonald has gone at last. Please please please resist the temptation to bring her back.
Back to the smoking...Something stupid is going on here. One of our primary money suppliers is tobacco; we're a tobacco state, and the government is banning it. In public places, and some places are even trying to bann it outside.
Witchcraft that is the same sanctimonious non-smoking fundamentalist claptrap that is prosecuted in the name of pillocks like Dr John Reid who isn't a real doctor in this country. But back to Eastenders, I understand that dirty Denn is going to be axed as well, whilst Barbara Windsor otherwise known as Peggy Mitchel is set to be brought back. I saw good old Babs on Parkinson on Christmas night actually and she seems to have bounced back quite well from the massive amount of feeling sorry for herself that she's been doing lately. I know she hasn't been in the best of health perhaps due to smoking, but I'm not sure what she's got to worry about after the acting career she's had.