Somehow the brisk and bracing weather has had a stimulating effect on my political incorrectness glands.
Last week I went back to my old stamping ground of Hamburg, where they have just followed us in introducing a smoking ban. Being reasonably sensible people they have left all sorts of loopholes - I asked a couple of my friends who run pubs how it was affecting them, and they said it wasn't much, because they had separate smoking rooms, which I don't think is allowed over here. Another pub has reconstituted itself as an official smokers' club, members only (but I suspect membership criteria are not that rigid). But then maybe the Germans are only interested in ensuring that non-smokers can have a smoke-free environment if they want, rather than calling down the wrath of God on sinners.
Meanwhile, as the Independent reported, the first person to fall officially foul of the law was ex-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Schmidt (whom God preserve) is 89, smokes approximately the same number per day, and has for years made it clear that anyone inviting him and/or his wife had jolly well better provide ashtrays. A big Hamburg theatre invited the old couple (she is only a couple of months younger) to a premiere, extended the proper courtesies to a respected elder statesman, got grassed up by some arsehole, and so the old chap is facing charges.
This is the really insidious thing about the smoking ban. My new local in Lancaster after my move is utterly delightful. The place is run by a female Al Murray called Joanne. The first night I went in there it was karaoke night, fortunately for me, who has been described as "the deaf man's Pavarotti". I stepped up to the mike to sing "Delilah", telling the audience that they could throw knickers if they liked. "I'm not wearing any, luv," came back quick as a flash. Later in the evening, noticing it was past midnight, I asked Gordon what time the pub closed. "You'd better ask Joanne, she's the licensee," he replied. "What time does the pub shut, Joanne?" I asked. "It shuts when I shut it, luv."
The licence is actually till 1 a.m., but it basically shuts when Joanne wants to go to bed. There's a sign up saying "no children after 8 p.m." but I've seen them running around at half past twelve. But the smoking ban is rigidly observed. No-one is going to complain about late hours, as everyone who's there after hours has a direct interest in being there. But any arsehole can raise a complaint about someone smoking. Even Joanne daren't smoke in the pub.
Fuck them. Fuck them from a great height. Meanwhile Dawn Primarolo is saying that middle-class people are still drinking more than they should and "it's got to change". Now, I am not always aware of what I do when I'm pissed. But I'm pretty sure I never married Dawn Primarolo. That alone would give her any locus standi in how much I drink, or anything else I do within the law of the land. The woman I am married to, though in her heart her views don't differ much from Dawn's, expresses it a bit more tactfully.
But fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck them. Can I be arsed to go to all the trouble and expense of taking up smoking just to spite them?
The other pain in the fundament, following my recent house-move, is rubbish disposal. Obviously, a move generates huge volumes of stuff that needs chucking away. Chucking anything away, however, is now as difficult as a master's degree in nuclear physics. Last time the bin men came, my wife was told she'd put the wrong bins out in the wrong order (and probably with the wrong stuff in them) and so they couldn't take them. They did, however, give her a closely printed card with detailed instructions, which I have been trying to make head or tail of ever since. And woe betide you if you put any paper in with the cans, or glass with the plastic, or if you don't wash the insides of horrible plastic bags thoroughly, or anything like that. So I have been driving stuff to the local dump, knowing that no-one is actually supervising and so you can get away with chucking out almost anything. Can't people tick a box on a form, maybe involving an extra £50 on one's council tax, saying I CAN'T BE ARSED WITH ALL THIS, and just bunging it all in the wheelie like we used to? But even the mere suggestion that I might want to would make me the equivalent of a Nazi war criminal in some people's eyes.
Again, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck them.
And don't get me started on mucking Fuslims......
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4 comments:
Smoking... HMG is not enforcing it directly, that is done by the councils who have been given extra money to take on the inspectors. No council would be penalised for refusing to enforce the law.
So why are you not trying to get the publicans into a committee and then getting folk onside to promise not to vote for anti-smoking councillors?
Interesting idea. But it wouldn't solve the problem of the freelance nark, the PC arsehole who's quite capable of getting on the phone to the filth on his own. That's what publicans are frightened of, and while the law lasts there's no defence against it.
Er, no, because prosecutions are in council hands as well. The police are NOT involved.
So, get your council to refuse government money and sack its inspectors and that's an end to it.
Well, I must say I didn't know that. I'll discuss it with Thommo when I see him the day after tomorrow. This could be a good case for a cross-party alliance.
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