A jaundiced view of life from the darkest recess of the saloon bar...
The current poll asking for your views on the issue of smoking in pubs and bars is coming to a close – I plan to take it down around midday tomorrow. It has already comfortably exceeded the number of responses gained by the identical poll last August but, whatever your view, don’t miss the opportunity to make your voice heard.
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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)
Samples of beer and cider and review copies of relevant books will be gratefully received – e-mail me for address details.
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You can also follow me on Twitter at @oldmudgie.
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.
Not much point on your site with it's regulars being the way they are in their pre ordaned opinions
ReplyDeleteTo many ,as long as their own cosy
fresh and frisky tavern is OK
BUGGER THE REST.
Last week I had a tete a tete with a local Labour stalwart froth sniffer who expressed conern at the dying pub trade in Ashton under Lyne
No No No nothing at all to do with the Total Smoking Ban
Its the TORY beer taxes that are crippling the pubs he sceamed.
So why bother,we will just have wait untill reason returns
anon (its safer)
Hmm, I think you will find Labour started the alcohol duty escalator. Although, as far as drinkers are concerned, one is just as bad as the other - the Coagulation have simply picked up where Labour left off.
ReplyDelete@anon
ReplyDeleteYou were clearly bullied at school. Still clinging to your Mummy's apron strings for not having the courage of your conviction to be publicly 'open' about it. It's 'safer' my arse. Your cowardly sort make me despair
Duncan Binks - Tiverton
@anon once more
ReplyDeleteSorry Duncan,
I stood up to be counted for 30 years in the Unions,all I got was, stabbed in the back
Anyway those who post their names dont seem to have much to say
I also learned to keep my head down behind the Berlin Wall for
obvious reasons
Staying "safe" ,too many narks on these blogg sites
Chin Chin and Cheers
ANON Mk2