But that doesn’t mean that the current ever-escalating beer duty regime isn’t a thoroughly bad thing. Which, of course, it is, as explained passionately but somewhat unarithmetically by Pete Brown.
So please sign the petition which I have linked to on the left. If you’d like the HTML for the sidebar widget, send me an e-mail. It won’t happen this year, but one day it will.
As will the repeal of the smoking ban, so sign that one too, if you haven’t already.
If you believe something is wrong, go on and on and on about it, even if the prospects of immediate success are zero. In the words of former US President John Quincy Adams, “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”
You may lose the argument for a hundred years, but one day your descendents will win.
The sad thing is that a wide range of arguments that seemed to have been won in 1967 now appear to have been lost again. See this brilliant post by Simon Cooke.
The BBC Website has a piece on the public reaction to the 1962 Doll report on smoking and health. The people said:
ReplyDeleteOne man who says he smokes between 20 and 25 cigarettes a day is - by today's standards - amazingly fatalistic.
"Quite honestly, I think that the end of one's life is probably more in the hands of almighty God you know, than in my own hands or the hands of the tobacco manufacturers."
The reporter asks another man whether the enjoyment he gets from smoking is worth the risk.
"I think so, yes. If I'm going to die, I'm going to die, so I might as well enjoy life as it is now."
The site goes on to say:
Watching the footage now, it seems impossible that people could have been so blase about the risks smoking poses to their health.
Really? To me, they seem to have made a realistic risk assessment between their personal enjoyment and their inevitable demise. As Sir Kingsley Amis said, "No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare”
The BBC Website has a piece on the public reaction to the 1962 Doll report on smoking and health. The people said:
ReplyDeleteOne man who says he smokes between 20 and 25 cigarettes a day is - by today's standards - amazingly fatalistic.
"Quite honestly, I think that the end of one's life is probably more in the hands of almighty God you know, than in my own hands or the hands of the tobacco manufacturers."
The reporter asks another man whether the enjoyment he gets from smoking is worth the risk.
"I think so, yes. If I'm going to die, I'm going to die, so I might as well enjoy life as it is now."
The site goes on to say:
Watching the footage now, it seems impossible that people could have been so blase about the risks smoking poses to their health.
Really? To me, they seem to have made a realistic risk assessment between their personal enjoyment and their inevitable demise. As Sir Kingsley Amis said, "No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare”
Oh God, it's gone on twice. My own ineptitude, I'm afraid. Sorry.
DeleteI agree Bill, there was anti-smoker hatred all over the TV this morning, ASH must have been working overtime.
ReplyDeleteParticularly upsetting was that woman who had to appear as a supplicant on the dreadful This Morning because some slimey creep from the People had pictured her smoking a fag whilst being pregnant.
Dr. Chris was however , on hand to help her, and even HE opoined the smoking bans for cars/homes would be a step too far, so fair play to Dr. Chris.
Has Guinness been reduced in strength? I always thought it was 4.5 but now notice its 4.1 in cans? Same cost of course. Perhaps I'm mistaken.
ReplyDeleteIt's been 4.1% for many years.
ReplyDeleteNo ta, I believe Beer Geeks ought to be paying more tax not less.
ReplyDeleteta for the link, though. I shall start a petition to close any pub considered "dumpy" by the "dump police", that will of course need starting up.