There's no smoke without ire
Herself likes to read the Sunday Times.
It’ll be the death of me because that’s where she gets all her ideas for new ceilings and floors and furniture. Once or twice, she has even picked out a house she wants.
But that’s beside the point.
I read a nice article in the last edition by Kathy Foley. It had a nice title -“There’s no smoke without ire”. I like that. In fact, I’m going to plagiarise it. [sorry!]
She started a wee rant about the erosion of liberties of the smoker and how we are being pushed around by the Anti Smoking Nazis. I saw a kindred spirit here. She says that the EU is now considering banning smoking in pub doorways, and bus shelters. I checked the date, but it’s not the First of April.
It was a well written article, and by the half way mark I was cheering away. I had found a fellow rebel.
But then she let herself down. Badly.
She mentioned a ban on smoking in cars and said [and I quote] “I might have to concede that one”.
My heart sank. Her spark of rebelliousness was being extinguished by the ongoing tide of political correctness and the hysterical popularist rant against the smoker. She is being brainwashed into accepting the mass hysteria against passive smoking.
It is sad when intelligent people succumb to the verbal kristallnacht of the politically correct.
Come on Kathy. Keep the flag flying.
It’s time to start a rebellion.
-oOo-
UPDATE….
Kathy has just posted the article on her blog
Private cars or taxis?
Would you believe – private cars?
I am really thinking of staging a coup. This country may be one of the wealthiest per capita in Europe, free of the oppressive ideology of the Catholic Church, with an economy that’s still on the crest of a wave, and yet society is being destroyed by continuously increasing political correctness, and a mentality that the Irish people are too stupid to know what’s good for them.
While that is true on one level, the Irish people have to stand up fopr what they fucking believe in. If Bertie Ahern tries to bring back colege fees for middle-class familess while continuing to give free college education to the working classes, I will riot. I will thrown bricks through the windows of Dail Eireann. I’m not paying six grand a year while some Anto strolls around UCD for free.
In the same way, someone needs to smack these idiots who think smoking should be banned outright. I don’t care if people smoke, I don’t, but it’s their business if they want to, but these ASH fuckers are just the most militantly extreme branch of PC I have ever seen. Fuck this, we shouldn’t have to listen to whinging bastards telling us how to run our lives. Are we criminal?
I cry Revolution!
Righteous anger induces typos …
Taxis I understand. Unable to get my head around the idea that someone wouldn’t be allowed smoke in their own car.
Seen this new suggestion that smoking will be banned with 9 metres of any bar, rendering all the nice outdoor smoking areas completely useless?
@Dario – I was just going to say that you want to calm down before typing!!
@Twenty – The EU is considering banning smoking [quote from Kathy Foley] “in doorways of pubs, bus stops and other partially enclosed public areas”. The UK is seriously considering banning smoking in private cars and that w*nk*r Clancy is calling for the same here.
This is going too far.
Hi again Grandad!
Just publicly pointing out that my sort-of concession on the private car issue was on safety grounds rather than on personal freedom grounds.
There has been the odd moment where I’ve thought to myself while lighting a cigarette as I drive that I wouldn’t be able to react quickly enough if something happened, well, at least not without setting myself on fire.
This isn’t true of most driving, just high-speed motorway driving when it’s busy.
Cheers,
K
Hi Kathy and welcome to the madhouse!
You are giving in too easily. I have already given a list of things that are far more dangerous than lighting a fag [see my link above].
Be honest. Which would you feel safer with –
A driver who lights the odd fag?
A driver who puts on mascara using the rear-view mirror?
A driver who reads a book or newspaper?
I know my answer and it isn’t the last two.
There are existing laws to cover reckless or dangerous driving. Why pick on smoking?
Because of the PC Bandwaggon!
Can’t believe people READ while driving. They would seem to be mutually exclusive activities.
Mascara? Yes, alright I’ve done that. But only when stopped at the lights!
I have seen people reading newspapers and books while driving on the Stillorgan Road. I have also seen women [mainly] putting on mascara while driving.
A friend was giving Herself a lift one day and insisted on putting nail varnish on Herself’s nails [while driving]. Not a friend any more!!
All the things I listed in my previous post are things I have witnessed.
Yesterday, I saw a man get into his car and drive off. He had an ice-cream cone in each hand!
Ah, the dual carraigeway. The only road I know of that takes ten minutes to actually cross …
Try using a footbridge? Anyway, how does it take ten minutes to walk across four lanes of stationary vehicles?
What about moblie phones! It’s illegal to hold one to your head but legal to be distracted by a hands free and careen all over the road. Try policing it!
Baino: in some places it ISN’T legal to use a hands-free set in a car.
On smoking, isn’t it already illegal to smoke in bus shelters, semi-sheltered train stations, etc.?
Is it, Rob? I wouldn’t know – I haven’t used a bus in years. And I would have thought that a diesel locomotive would produce more fumes than a cigarette!!!!
I was talking about the platforms where the sides of the platform, but not the actual track, are covered.
Though yes, in Pearse Station, which is entirely covered, smoking is verboten, and yet the platform area is routinely full of diesel (or in extreme cases coal; they sometimes run a steam train through) smoke. It doesn’t necessarily make all that much sense.
“It doesn’t necessarily make all that much sense.”
But that is the point. None of it makes any sense.