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The elephant outside the room — 13 Comments

  1. That's just 1 Lorry/Lurry Grandad – What is the City of Dublin pumping out in to the atmosphere with all the Trucks and busses

    • I had to work in the centre of Dublin [Hawkin's House, God help us] for a number of years and I never suffered so many throat and chest complaints as during that period.  Once I moved out of the city all my health complaints mysteriously vanished.  Not a coincidence.

  2. Fine by me if Spandex Ballet get the biggest slice of the shit-cake – less for the rest of us. It pains me to say it, but the more the better….

    Still, I'd rather hug a pollution-eating tree than a middle-aged spandex clad bloke (any bloke, strictly speaking).

    • Those cyclists really freak me out.  The only reason they wear such horrible attire is they want to brag about how "healthy" they are.  Is there any other pursuit that apparently demands such weird garb?

  3. Sounds right to me. And why did they sit beside you other than the obvious who is that good looking older gent he must be famous thing? humm? they knew what they were getting.

    • My theory is that if they had sat at the far end of the terrace that they wouldn't have had the excuse to pull faces.  To cap it all they were Vegans which gives an idea of what I was up against?  Homo Sapiens desperately needs a healthy pruning to cut out all the dead wood that seems to proliferate these days.

  4. Ah yes, anti-smokers have elevated cognitive dissonance into an art form. Even if you'd explained it to them, GD, they would just stick their fingers in their ears and chant "La la lala la, I can't hear you…"

  5. But it isn't just sitting in a coffee shop terrace, is it? These cyclists are breathing in traffic fumes with every breath they take, not just a few puffs, when they are on the roads. It always amuses me when I see joggers running along the pavement of a busy road – getting 'healthy' by running but poisoning themselves at the same time.

    • And then they probably go home, have a nice relaxing bath surrounded by scented candles and wrap up the day with a fine barbecue.  But they are all "healthy".

  6. Had a recent encounter with a rabid antismoking nut case.  

    Setting: Outdoor dining area of a restaurant. It’s a place at which I’ve had lunch over many years. In the State in which I reside there is no ban (yet) on smoking in outdoor dining areas. This particular restaurant has [voluntarily] divided the outdoor area into half smoking, half non-smoking.  

    On this particular day I was having lunch with a friend at the usual table at the end of the smoking section. The outdoor area was pretty full. I had been there for well over an hour and had had maybe 4 cigarettes [I did notice that I was the only one smoking] At this point a group of 5, 3 men/2 women, sat at the end table of the non-smoking section, three tables away from me. They were at least in their fifties and, looking at the group after the following incident, seemed like a bland bourgeois brigade (BBB).  

    The BBB hadn’t been there for more than 10 minutes and I was having a cigarette, chatting with a friend. As I was chatting I noticed out of the corner of my eye someone approaching my table and flapping their hand (yep, it was a “hand flapper”). As I looked around it was a woman from the BBB table that was standing a few feet from my table, still flapping her hand “displacing” non-existent smoke.  

    As we made eye contact she spouted in an aggressive tone, “what you’re doing [smoking] is illegal”. I replied, with a smile, “it’s not”. She repeated emphatically, “it’s illegal!”. I again replied, with a smile, “no, it’s not”. At this point she decided to huff and puff back to her table. As she began walking away in self-righteous indignation, she left me with, “remember, it’s all about respect”.  

    “It’s all about respect”?? This coming from an ignorant, neurotic, bigoted nitwit that went out of her way to confront a complete stranger and making baseless, inflammatory accusations.  

    But little Ms Superior wasn’t finished yet. Back at her table consulting with her buddies, she called over a waitress to lodge a complaint about having to put up with someone smoking nearby. The waitress informed her that there was no smoking ban in the outdoor area and that the area was divided into smoking/non-smoking sections (clearly marked). This seemed to shut the group up of the overt whining.  

    I was there for another 15 minutes. It crossed my mind that Ms Superior, being a stickler for “respect” [giggle], might have made another visit to my table and apologized for her senseless outburst. Fortunately, I wasn’t holding my breath. Antismokers don’t do apologies. They only do explosions of [irrational] fear and hate, even with complete strangers.

    • Welcome Pontiac!  These people have been brainwashed into thinking that they are somehow morally superior to the low-life that smoke.  By rights, all smokers should be dead by now anyway and it is very inconsiderate of those who survived the Deadly Weed to clutter up the world. 

      My policy is to completely ignore them unless I am directly approached in which case I consider the gloves to be off and they must be prepared to get as good [if not a good deal better] than they give.

      • A well-told anecdote Pontiac. Manners maketh man, madam – you could have told her. You tipped the waitress who put her in her place, I hope?

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