A jaundiced view of life from the darkest recess of the saloon bar...
Well, actually it’s smoking, but there’s only a fag paper’s width between the two mindsets. A more naked example of the “get them to the camps” mentality is hard to imagine – what a vile, intolerant piece of scum Duncan Bannatyne is.
I’ll only be happy when Duncan Bannatyne is banned.
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"The era of big, bossy, state interference, top-down lever pulling is coming to an end." (David Cameron, 2008)
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." (H. L. Mencken)
"The final nails have now been hammered into the coffin of the freedom to smoke in enclosed public places. This piece of legislation must be one of the most restrictive, spiteful and socially divisive imposed by any British Government." (Lord Stoddart of Swindon)
"Raising taxes on alcohol to prevent problem drinking is akin to raising the price of gasoline to prevent people from speeding." (Edward Peter Stringham)
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." (C. S. Lewis)
"People who deal only in 'craft' beer do not care about some dirty old pub and the dirty old people who are in it and the dirty old community that it holds together." (Boozy Procrastinator)
"The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies." (Robert Conquest)
"A Puritan is someone who lives in mortal fear that somewhere, sometime, someone is enjoying himself." (H. L. Mencken)
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'Wow! What a Ride!" (Hunter S. Thompson)
"No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare." (Kingsley Amis)
"When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves,
For you will have lost the last of England." (Hilaire Belloc)
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Any proposals of marriage will be given serious consideration - there must be some cash-strapped drunk cat ladies out there!
If you have a blog that links to this, and is at least vaguely on a political or beer-related theme, drop me a line and I'll add it to my blog list, even if I don't agree with you on everything.
It's the Frank Skinner approach: "I used to do it, but now I've seen the light I want it banned." Although I like the fact that pubs are now smoke-free, I think the smoking ban has gone far enough, unlike Duncan. But then I've never smoked & don't have the zealous fanaticism of the convert, again unlike Duncan.
ReplyDeleteRead that earlier PC after a tip off from Dick Puddlecote on the F2C forum. Left it to him and the likes of yourself to do a piece on it as I know you both would treat it with the contempt it deserves.
ReplyDeleteI really do dispair at my fellow smokers who, for the sake of argument, turn on alcohol as being more of a killer than smoking, SHS etc. Everything we consume has the potential to kill us if not imbibed rationally.
I am waiting for DP to give it to Bannatyne with both barrels. I have a non-swearing policy on my blog, but I confidently expect the c-word to be used >;-)
ReplyDeleteWe need a St George to step forward and slay this particular dragon.
ReplyDeleteI like him. I like all the judges on Dragon's Den. Not sure I agree with him on smoking, but I don't really see that as important.
ReplyDeleteDescribed here, aptly, as "the most sinister article I've read in a long time".
ReplyDeleteThe comments to this posting make the point that Bannatyne has extensive business interests in gambling, which in its own way has the potential for wrecking lives just as surely as smoking does.
ReplyDelete"Not sure I agree with him on smoking, but I don't really see that as important."
ReplyDeleteIn which case, you haven't been listening properly, and are part of the problem.
Maybe Jeffrey needs to read this:
ReplyDeleteThe drinks industry hates to compare itself with the tobacco industry (understandably), but it really does not matter who they compare themselves with. It matters who the specialists are comparing them with.
You may think drink has nothing to do with tobacco, but the people who want to ban and restrict things don't agree.