Choices

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25

I have had a pretty good life.

So far.

I have worked hard and played hard.  I have done great things and I have done bad things.  I have no regrets.

From the day I left college up until a couple of years ago I worked.  The jobs I did were sometimes dangerous, often uncomfortable and frequently I hated them, but I did them as I had responsibilities and I believe in paying my way.  In all those years, I never once took any handouts from the state.

For all those years, I had the expectation that a day would come when I wouldn’t have to work any more.  The day would come when my time was my own and I could do exactly as I please.

That day has come.  I now have no responsibilities to anyone apart from myself and Herself.  My time is now my own to do with as I please.  That is my reward for forty odd years of hard graft and paying a hefty chunk of my salary into a pension scheme.

I am in my sixties and thus have sixty years of experience behind me.  I am reasonably mature and reasonably intelligent so by now I know what I like, what I dislike, what’s good for me and what’s bad for me.  If I want to do something that’s bad for me then that is my choice.  I know the consequences and am prepared to take them.

So why the fuck can’t people leave me alone?

Who are these fuckers who think they know what’s good for me?  Why do they think they have the right to nag me about my choice on how to live my life?  They nag me about my choice of food.  They nag me about my choice of drink.  They vilify me and stigmatise me because I choose to smoke.  The complain because I don’t get enough exercise.  Nag, nag, nag, fucking nag.

If I want to spend the rest of my days growing fat on the couch watching daytime television and drinking gallons of beer it is none of their fucking business.  If I choose to smoke a hundred fags a day that is my fucking business.  If I choose to eat nothing but greasy bags of chips covered with a canister of salt and washed down with the strongest coffee that is my fucking choice.  What I chose to do and how I chose to do it is my right that I have earned.

So, to all of you who think you know better as to how I should be living my life …

Just rev up and fuck off.

OK?

Talking to The Enemy

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12

I see our Dame Enda has held talks with Big Tobacco.

Oh dear!

That won’t go down very well with Crown and Clancy, who see Big Tobacco as so evil as to make The Evil Empire look like Disney World.

Let’s see how Crown and Clancy and their pals in the Tobacco Control Industry are doing in their battle to save us all from ourselves.

They banned smoking in the workplace. They banned the sale of packs of 10 cigarettes.  They banned all advertising.  They banned even the sight of tobacco in tobacco shops.  They banned vending machines.  They introduced pornographic images onto all tobacco products.  They pushed the price of tobacco so it’s the highest in Europe.

And what have they achieved?

The pub and hospitality industry has been decimated.

Smoking rates which were on the decline actually rose after the initial ban was introduced and are now stabalised.  In other words, the ban stopped the decline.

Smuggling has become one of Ireland’s greatest growth industries, and costs the exchequer in the region of €100 million a year [and growing].

Children are openly selling smuggled cigarettes on the streets.

I don’t have the figures for Ireland, but in the UK which has similar measures, smoking rates amongst children is on the increase.

There has been no improvement in the health of the nation.

Bar workers [who were the prime excuse for the ban], far from being healthier and now mostly out of work.

So for all their tantrums, petty regulations and their demonisation of a quarter of the population they have achieved a big fat zero positives and a shed load of negatives.

It’s time to call a halt to this madness.

BAN THEM

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18

All you can do is laugh.

“Are cars the new tobacco?”

Here we go again…..

Big Cars is the new Big Tobacco.

How much do cars cost the economy each year [ignoring the income they provide]?

How many people will die prematurely because of cars?

Think of the cheeeeldren.

yadayadayadayada……

So what’s next?

Cars to be banned from the workplace?

Massive hikes in petrol tax each year?

Petrol can only be bought one litre at a time?

Car sales areas cannot display cars on their forecourts?

All cars to be banned from Formula 1 racing?

All cars to be painted drab olive green with at least 75% of their bodies covered in lurid images of crash victims?

All smoking children to be banned from cars?

[*yawn*]

This is getting really fucking tedious.

Drugging the masses

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23

I went to make myself a mug of tea last night.

I turned on the tap and nothing happened.

Nada.

Rien.

There wasn’t so much as a drip or even a breath of air.  I might as well have been playing with a tap in a kitchen showroom.

It meant I had to drink cans of Guinness instead which was of course a terrible sacrifice.

This morning, I tried the tap again.  It spluttered, farted and generally made a sound like a Lada starting up, before settling into its usual low pressure trickle.

The smell of fluoride nearly made me sick.

I don’t know what it is about the local supply but my theory is that we in fact are supplied by a fluoride source which is slightly dilutes with water.  The smell fills the kitchen, and as stenches go, that isn’t my favourite.

I did a wee bit of research on the Interweb about fluoride and there are loads of conspiracy sites claiming that the stuff is supposed to prevent tooth decay but it also sedates the population.  I can tell you there is a flourishing dental trade in this country, and I believe Ireland has an abysmal record of bad teeth so it is doing fuck all good for Irish teeth.  I read that most countries have stopped using it, so why the fuck are we still being subjected?  I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but on this count I might even be persuaded.  Why do I have to drink that shit?  The only way to remove it is to get a damned expensive filtration system in.

It has one thing in its favour though.

It’s yet another cast iron reason not to pay any fucking water taxes.

The moral police

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23

I was browsing the Into today when I came across an interesting piece.

“SOME residents in a nursing home drank too much while socialising locally, putting their safety at risk, inspectors have found.”

Now this is not a maximum security home for the bewildered we are talking about here.  This is a nursing home which “mainly caters for people aged over 65 who are independent and need little support for their day-to-day activities, such as walking, washing, dressing and eating.”  The key word here is “independent”.  These are people whose only distinguishing feature is that they are getting on a bit in years.

So the inspectors disapprove of their drinking?  So fucking what?  What precisely is “excessive”?  What precisely is “challenging behaviour”?  Who the fuck are these moralistic, holier-than-thou interfering “inspectors” anyway?  What fucking right have they got to judge people’s behaviour?

I enjoy a pint or five.  That occasionally causes little problems such as a wee head in the morning [usually if I have been drinking out of damp glasses].  Sometimes if there are a group of us we can get a little rowdy.  Sometimes the apres-pub Vindaloo might make a sudden and dramatic return to the outside world.  So what?  It’s my life, my body and my choice.  I am old enough to make my own choices and I am fully prepared to take [and suffer] the consequences.

Some would say that at my age I should know better, but what does that mean?  “Better” presumably means that I should be living my life according to their standards and that just is not on.  They can go fuck themselves.

“All of the residents smoked and, although a smoking room was provided, staff had not properly assessed the risk they might face lighting up unsupervised.”

So a perfectly normal mature person has to be supervised now while having a smoke?  Why?  And if the residents choose to smoke outside the smoking room that is a problem with the law and not the residents.

So now there has to be a 47 point “action plan”.  These residents who are enjoying their well deserved retirement in a way that they see fit and proper have to be told to toe the line.  They have to obey the rules.  They must be good quiet little citizens and not cause any hassle.

I just hope those “inspectors” find themselves in some home when they retire and that they are bossed around, nagged and castigated for trying to lead their own lives.

And I sincerely hope they are miserable.