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The miraculous power of cigarette smoke

Head Rambles Posted on by

There were a couple of reports in the meeja over the last few days which left me somewhat bemused.

Yesterday Simon Clarke wrote about a woman who is demanding that smoking be banned near playgrounds because of an "incident".

However I'm not quite sure what this "incident" was. 

“Yesterday a woman asked if it would bother me if she smoked in the playground while on the seesaw with her young daughter,” Dressner explained.

“When I said it would bother me, she told me that my one-year-old son would turn out to be ‘arrogant’ and smoke anyway.”

Now that is either  a bad bit of reporting where a lot has been left out, or else it was a very strange conversation.  Either that or the Dressner woman has a very selective memory.  However this non-incident is apparently enough to start a petition.

Reading between the lines, my guess is that Dressner felt insulted so is determined to take revenge on all smokers.

The other item which is in a very similar vein was over here in Ireland.

Councillor calls for cigarettes to be banned from Irish parks after family tragedies.

Reading the headline my first reaction was that maybe her kids found a lit cigarette and set themselves on fire with it.  That indeed would be a tragedy.  But no, it seems her mother died seven years ago and her aunt died recently, which with all due respect is a bereavement, not a fucking tragedy.

So it transpires that the mother died of breast cancer and presumably [we’re not told] the aunt died of the same.  Neither of them were smokers so where does the call for a ban come in?  This is what baffles me.

Have we finally reached the stage where everything and especially everything to do with cancer, has to be caused by cigarettes?  They died from cancer therefore it had to be caused by cigarettes?  A baby dies from Sudden Infant Death but nobody smokes within a five mile radius therefore someone at some stage in the distant past must have lit a cigarette in that bedroom.  An unfit Marathon runner dies of a heart attack during a race so he must have passed a smoker somewhere along the route?

This level of belief in the miraculous powers of cigarette smoke is getting more and more ridiculous by the day.  Cheeeldren being contaminated by cigarette residue that may be left on a swing?  People dying from a [probably] hereditary cancer becoming a clarion call for banning smoking?

There really is no word for the level of absurdity to which the world is descending.

 

Comments

The miraculous power of cigarette smoke — 31 Comments

  1. You're right Grandad, there is no word for it. We are in unchartered waters.

    I knew someone a few years ago who's father was in hospital with cancer. Two other blokes were in the same ward. All three had the same cancer and were in for the same operation with the same surgeon. My friends father used to smoke. He was told that smoking caused his cancer. The other two blokes never smoked and when they asked what caused their cancer the doctor said "we don't know".  Presumably if my friends father had not admitted  to smoking in the past he would have got the same "we don't know" answer. 

    Soon they will be classifying car crash deaths as smoking related on the basis that a pack of smokes were found in the glove box.

     

    • It seems to be automatically assumed that if you have cancer that smoking caused it in some way.  The corollary of that of course is that if you don't smoke, you won't get cancer which is extremely dangerous for non smokers as they could be crawling with the stuff but it will be the last thing to be diagnosed, and by then it cold be too late.

      In other words, it's healthier to be a smoker as then you will get a far quicker diagnosis than a non-smoker.

  2. Well, I'm pretty sure my cat died unnecessarily at the young age of 21 only because the poor thing always had to eat the residue of my third hand smoke which collected in her food bowl within seconds of me putting her food in it – no amount of ever washing up the bowl could remove that poisonous third hand smoke residue. I'm very sorry I didn't switch to vaping during her lifetime because of all the propaganda in the meeja, I'm sure she would have lived to a 100 if I had. Oh, no, of course she then would have died of third hand vaping residue … I'm also sorry for my now 12 year old border collie who faces certain death from third hand vaping residue in his food bowl. I'm also very sorry for all the poor birdies outside that have no choice but to breathe in my second hand vape. I think I'm now going to call the RSPCA so they can put me out of the misery I'm causing for other living beings …

    • Surely the birdies are coughing to death in the vile plume of secondhand smoke that rises from your place?  It could also be a deadly hazard to any aircraft flying overhead?

      • Nah, I stopped smoking in favour of vaping so as to not make the poor birdies fly up in dire need of fresh ari and cause all the airplanes to crash on my front lawn.

        Dog's liking it better, too.

        • Do you not realise that vapour is every bit as deadly as cigarette smoke?  Studies have shown ….  etc etc…

          • Not generation OMG but still … OMG!!! No, I didn't know that! Will I become immortal if I also quit the vaping? Pretty please?

            • I think that's the first OMG to arrive on this site!  OMG!  Awesome!

              The only immortals are those who give up smoking, vaping, drinking, eating and breathing.  I have a feeling there is a flaw in that logic somewhere though…..

  3. Next somebody is going to demand a ban on incense burning in churches and Buddhist temples.

    • Hello there!   Its already happening! This headline  "Clergy warn burning incense could be made illegal under proposed legislation to tackle "legal highs"" appeared in the UK Independent last September!  Under the "psychoactive substances" Bill anything capable of 'stimulating or depressing a person's central nervous system' could face up to 7 years in prison".  Would post a link but I don't know how so try looking for it in the search engine of your choice.  

      • Incense has a purifying function in religious places and is an anti-mosquito agent in private dwellings in the tropics. I never imagined it to be a 'legal high'. 

    • Surely they will also have to ban barbecues?

      If we are including all "legal highs" then they had better ban music, views, birdsong and one or two other things…. ?

      • And maybe all those psychoactive things that depress a person's central nervous system?  The govt would have to ban itself on both counts first for depressing us and then for the spontaneous 'legal high' that would give us!  

        • Fair point.

          I never gave you the old Welcome!  Are you a distant relative of mine or of someone else?  Presumably you are [both] if we go back far enough?  I discovered once that I am a fifth cousin of myself [once removed] a while back and it has left me in a state of confusion ever since.

              • I hope not!  Giacomo-the-lad obviously had a crap memory for faces because he once got engaged to his own 16 year old daughter without knowing who she was – absentee father and all that.  Rumour has it that years later he fathered his own grandson via the same daughter because he hubby couldn't do the deed.  Sorry I've digressed.  To answer your question Grandad, no I'm not related to you that I know of but I may be, as may we all, distantly.  The experts who claim to know about all that say if you're vaguely European, whatever the hell that means, you are the fruits of Charlemagne's loins.  Deep joy 🙁

  5. Apart from being run over by bin-lorries, in Scotland the only remaining cause of death is smoking (at n-th hand). Once that is eradicated we will all be immortal. The trouble is, we’ll become really old, and inevitably commit repellent thought-crimes, as old people do. So there’ll be queues of us at the vets (accompanied by young people in special uniforms with peaked caps) waiting to be put to sleep. I’ll be queue-jumping.

    • Welcome Hamish!  Are bin-lorries a common nuisance in Scotland? Surely they could be rounded up and kept in a compound somewhere?

      I agree about the vets.  If they got their way and we were all reduced to a tedious live with no beer, baccy or buns then what is there to live for?

  6. The local kiddie play-park already had “No Smoking” signs applied to the outside of the kiddie compound “fort” in a corner of the (public) recreation ground – now being that it is enclosed by wooden, Cuprinol soaked stakes and has a woodchippings covered area inside I might see the point of it (they brought the woodchips in when they ripped the original concrete with rubber mat inlays when sad sacks had their kiddies skin their knees) anyway its fun to lean over the fence having a smoke waiting for some distressed parent to take umbrage, but not for too long otherwise the plods might be summoned and ask what you’re up to.

    NHS Lothian declared itself and all its grounds “smoke-free” in April, and then the arseholes in our toytown Parliament made it nationwide later…

  7. I once set fire to myself with a cig.

    Wide flares, 2 inch turn ups, carelessly discarded butt, etc ,etc, etc…

    This was back in the 70s btw. Having said that, I've still got some flared cords and can just about squeeze into them, though the other half has forbidden my wearing them in public.

    • That's the best thing you could do with flairs!  My only attempt at self arson was putting a lit pipe in my pocket.  I liked that jacket.  Wasn't happy.

  8. The anti-smoking brigade, despite making claims more ridiculous than Bible-Basher or Loonie-Lefty, is still not seen for what they really are.

    Yes, the above sentiments related to “correlation does not imply causality,” plus the fellows with the same cancer do ring true. It seems as though smoking is responsible for every ailment, every woe, every trouble in society.
    Someone robs a store: Well, he’s a smoker therefore he must’ve needed cash to feed his “dirty, rotten, disgusting, vile, scourge, rank, putrid, stinking, addictive, deadly, poisonus, terminal habit.”
    I feel ill walking in the street: Must’ve been the smokers, because I never used to feel like that when I lived in the countryside.
    I have a headache: Probably smokers again.
    My health insurance went up: Oh, obesity never was and never will be a prolific issue. Its all those smokers!

    Fark! All this carry-on, yet we want to legalise the merry-ju-arna… “Oh but that doesn’t carry the same medical costs.” BULLSHIT. What about the social problems it causes? Psychosis, to name but one (several people I’ve met that are exposed to this stuff are either completely brain-dead, or spent time in an institution because they flipped out after semi-regular use… Smoking is “deadly” my arse!)

    Perhaps I ought to carry the title “Great, Great Granddad.” I’m just too grouchy about these things.

    • An interesting hypothesis – People get a lot grumpier as they grow older.  Correlation or causation?

      • Is a mixture of both permissible?

        Causation as with age, you have the benefit of hindsight and can reflect on the past, compare it to today and consider what progress or losses have been made.

        Correlation, like ice-cream consumption and drownings (was that one of your figures?) – our personalities simply change over time.

        • Right on both counts.  The world has changed so much in the last fifty years that I wonder what modern yoof would make of The Old Days?  This is part of the problem – freedom has been taken away so slowly that most people don't even realise what they are losing.  The only way to count the cost is to compare the modern world with the days of my youth.

          And I am getting grumpier into the bargain!

  9. The fags calm my nerves. I'm thinking of getting a pipe next. sorry for trolling your site, but I need to give my  life some meaning.

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