A jaundiced view of life from the darkest recess of the saloon bar...
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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.
Maybe this could be the theme song
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2nq8DzYToE
That explains why the save our cider one is doing better. Better theme tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvvYO46J1xM
ReplyDeleteFor some reason I saw this and Mudge sprang to mind
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAGENje0zRk
Ah yes, maybe I should make that my theme tune :-)
ReplyDeleteHi PC, I thought I’d repeat here a comment which I made over at DP’s place, because if there’s one thing that drinkers need to be aware of, it’s the fact that no amount of campaigning on behalf of any persecuted group (which drinkers – both responsible and otherwise – look likely to be in the near future) has ever made any headway until significant numbers of people who are not of that group have added their support. Without the support of straight people, we’d still be slinging homosexuals into jail; without the support of men, women would still be resigned to a fate of washing dishes and popping out babies as the only career option available; and without the support of white people, there’d still be segregated buses and restaurants in the US. Big issues, yes, but the principle still holds other, smaller, “anti” campaigns.
ReplyDeleteAnd as a very, very rare drinker whose viewpoint won’t be able to be brushed aside as “just biased” or as those of a “brewery shill,” like those of you regular beer-lovers will (as the campaign rolls on – just watch it go), believe me, it’s people like me whom you need to be getting on side – and getting on side now, before the anti-alcohol brigade have really got the bit between their teeth.
“I’m sorry, Dick, but I probably won’t be signing the e-petition against minimum pricing. I’m so fed up with non-smoking drinkers still not accepting that it was their joining in with the anti-smoking jollities that has brought all this upon themselves, that as far as I’m concerned, they’re on their own on this one.
“I’ve thought long and hard about this issue ever since we smokers saw it rolling inexorably over the horizon (even though very few non-smoking drinkers did, and fewer still can see the connection, even now), because I like a drink myself on occasion (although not as much as I like a smoke), and there’s a bit of me which wants to be magnanimous and big-hearted and say: ‘Just because you lot sat back smugly whilst we were getting a kicking, doesn’t mean that I should sit back and do the same now that you are getting one. I’m a better person than that.’
“But the fact is, I’m still so angry at the ban and at everyone who played a part in it – even by their deafening silence – that these days I regard the targeting of any other group as a welcome break from everything – always and without exception – being the fault of smokers and no-one else. I admit that I breathe a sigh of relief with every drip-fed ‘alcohol-fuelled crime’ and ‘town centre chaos’ TV programme and newspaper headline I read these days, just because it’s no longer ‘only about smokers.’
“Unless and until I see some real humble pie being eaten by non-smoking, erstwhile ban-supporting drinkers, then as far as I’m concerned, they can fight their own corner on this, just like they left us to do – and look how well that went.
“I could be persuaded to support drinkers, but not without some show of support coming back in the opposite direction from them, because the way I see it, we both need each other now, and that has to work both ways; and as it was the drinkers who deserted the smokers in the first place, it has to be drinkers who make the first move to build some bridges now. For starters, I’d be interested to know how many previously ban-supporting drinkers have signed the e-petition for an amendment to the smoking ban, having seen the error of their ways. Yep – your guess is probably the same as mine. And we’re probably both right.
“I rest my case.”
Think about it, all you ale-lovers. The time to start recruiting your troops – including those who don’t share your liking for good beer – is now. Once landlords are obliged to limit the number of pints they can sell you in one visit, or when they are obliged to have three family-friendly, alcohol-free days a week, or when some ghastly court case renders them partly responsible for selling you the alcohol which you then drove home after consuming, it’ll be far too late.