This really is the gift that keeps on giving!

Grandmother praises UK's first outdoor smoking ban in Bristol.

This is the best headline they could come up with?  No "widespread praise", just one granny?

So Granny smoked 70 cigarettes a day for 58 years and is now a Reformed Person.  There really is nothing so devout as a fucking convert.

If only people realise you're here to help them, not trying to stop their lifestyle," Ms Butt said. "Help is out there and people can become nicotine free, like me.

Right, Granny!  This is where you can go and royally fuck yourself.  If I want help I will ask for it.  I do not need anyone telling me I need help and then trying to ram their fucking condescending "help" down my throat.  You kicked the cigarettes into touch and fair play, but do not assume that the rest of us want to follow. 

Kirsty Vass, 33, inspired the voluntary ban in Bristol after being diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) a year ago when one of her lungs collapsed.

Oh Christ!  Another one!  I'm sorry for your troubles, Ms Vass but you can royally fuck off too.  Getting COPD is bad luck but it is no fucking reason to go on a fucking crusade to "save" the rest of us.

Fiona Andrews, director of Smokefree South West, said the voluntary pilot would police itself.

This is an interesting one.  Are the signposts going to tut-tut at people if they light up?  Or could it possibly be that Ms Andrews is giving carte blanche to every fly-swatting prod-nosed busybody to approach smokers and insult them? Nothing like a bit of rabble rousing incitement against a minority?

From the comments –

I for one would like this policy adopted in the whole country. You smokers have no idea what it is like to go to a town, city, park, popular places, and have trouble breathing because of the amount of smoke. It DOES travel in the open air, it can travel up to 30 feet away and yes, second hand smoke does harm people, even in the open air.

Good Grief!  Smoke harms people in the open air thirty feet away?  I never knew that.  Maybe someone should tell Granny who smoked seventy a day [from zero feet away, indoors] who despite 58 years of heavy smoking still seems fit enough at 69 to "help" us all?  According to the Anti-Smokers she should have been dead many many years ago?  I would suggest that "Cathy Ball" should go and see a doctor immediately – get some happy pills to cure her of her neurosis.  Either that or "Cathy Ball" works for Smokefree Bristol?

Many of the comments point out that the two squares involved are surrounded by traffic filled streets.  That, in my book is a fair point.  I also notice that Millennium Square seems to be built over an underground car park, which presumably vents its fumes into the square?  Maybe the cars self-police themselves and don't emit fumes in the vicinity?

It is many years since I was in Bristol.  I found it to be a beautiful friendly city and had plans to return some time in the future.

I think I'll give it a miss though.

I hate intolerance.

Words fail me!