The Smoking Ban

Today, I thought I would write a little bit about the Smoking ban which will come into force in the UK on July the 1st 2007. I know that this is going to be a highly emotive time for those on both sides of the virtual fence in regards this, and that I may just upset a few people by writing this now. I must confess though, to be perfectly honest with you I'll be glad when the ban comes into force...

As a lifelong non smoker, you might say that I might be a little biased in this argument but I will TRY to remain as unbiased as I can and TRY and see this from both sides of the proverbial fence so to speak.

For many years, the smoker has argued of course that it is his/her right to smoke wherever he/she damn well pleases regardless of what anybody else thinks, and that sentiment has been almost forcibly taken up by pretty much every smoker I have ever encountered with the exception of just a few good friends. OK, I can relate to that to an extent, it is indeed anyone's right to do as they please so long as it doesn't affect other people.

This however is where the argument of the smoker falls apart somewhat.

Their habit, vile and disgusting as it is...... Oh shit, there goes my unbiased view.... does not just affect only themselves, it affects everyone within a given radius of their fucking poison. Many people have died as a direct result of passive smoking, many have contracted incurable, long suffering diseases due to other peoples insistence on being able to do exactly what they please, when they please.

What about the non smokers right to breath clean air whenever and wherever he/she pleases, what about their rights to safeguard their health?

For years smokers have banged on about how, if non smokers don't like it, then they can go elsewhere and leave them to their, err...umm pleasures!

Well not any more!! The tide has turned, Karma has come back and bitten them in the ass. Common sense has prevailed at long last and the powers that be have finally realized the poison these people inflict upon others in the name of their rights to do as they please, is totally unacceptable.

And I have to say I'm not unhappy...

Do you have any idea what's in that shit? There are 60 different Carcinogenic compounds in cigarette smoke, if your unsure of what a Carcinogen is then just ask Roy Castle. Ooops, too late...

Tobacco smoke, as a smoker will no doubt agree is the direct residue of their pleasure, it permeates the air and putrefies my hair and cloths until I stink like a damned ashtray. It also takes place without my consent and against my express wishes.

I have a pleasure also. I like a glass or two of ice cold Fosters Lager once in a while. I find myself wondering tonight whether the smoker would be annoyed if I inflicted the direct residue of my pleasure upon them as they do me. Would they be annoyed perhaps if, after a few pints of the amber nectar, I stood on a chair and pissed on their cloths and in their hair without their consent?

I would imagine not, so why do I have to put up with the residue of their disgusting pleasure all the time?

No. I will not feel remorse for those poor unfortunates denied of lighting up their cancer sticks in public places. I will not feel remorse that they will no longer be able to completely smoke out public places such as restaurants, public houses, cinema's or what have you. I ask you, did these people EVER feel remorse for me for having to breath all their shit in? I very much doubt it....

Roll on July 1st

Justice/Injustice

I sometimes wonder if there really is any justice in the world today. It is said that we are innocent until proven guilty and yet the more I see each and every day, the more I become convinced that the opposite is in fact the case.

We are Guilty until proven Innocent!

It also seems to me these days that the criminals and the miscreants of society are treated more favourably that the actual victims themselves. An example of this in action took place in my life just yesterday, it did not involve myself but it did involve a friend of mine whom I shall simply call by her first name of Sue. I will call this case, 'The British Heartless foundation' as I feel it is an apt and suitable title given the subject matter herein ;-)

So anyway, my friend Sue gets up one morning and goes into town with the intention of doing a little shopping and having a nice cuppa in our local coffee shop. En route however, she has the misfortune to go into a local charity shop as she needs to return some items which she bought earlier and has since discovered she can't use.

Fair enough, sounds harmless enough doesn't it?

Ordinarily it would be harmless of course but this charity shop has a couple of resident fuckwits in attendance. Add to that that these are not your normal common or garden fuckwits, these are fuckwits of the highest calibre and these fuckwits could seriously use a personality transplant to say the very least.

So let me explain further.... Exhibit One M'Ludd

My friend Sue takes the items in question into the British Heartless Foundations charity shop where she then suffers a veritable diatribe of abuse from the rather strange fuckwit like proprietors, who then go on to claim that she has actually gone in there and assaulted them!

Now, remember one thing here. Sue is actually returning some unsuitable items which she has bought, but has since discovered she cannot use. Sue is not a violent person at all, on the contrary she is a rather mild woman in fact. The proprietor however, a rather unsavoury looking character if I've ever seen one before now takes it upon herself to take offence at her returning said items to the shop.

"How dare you bring things back to us...how dare you!!!"

This Troll of a woman then proceeds to make an absolute scene right there in the shop, which culminates in my friend being hurt by the proprietors husband as he, in his own words, "Wheelbarrows" her out of the shop and throws her down forcibly onto the pavement in a bruised and crumpled heap.

Sue of course is unsurprisingly upset by all of this and as there seems at the time to be a few witnesses to the event, she phones the police as she feels that she has been treated unfairly, which after all, she has been.

So anyway, along come the boys in blue only to arrest my friend and charge HER with assault. She then spends the rest of the day and evening in the clink answering ridiculous charges concerning her apparently going in to the shop to cause trouble. Consequently, she misses an important appointment at the hospital the next day for a needed stomach operation and then goes on a major downward spiral over this gross act of injustice by the British Heartless Foundations resident Trolls.

The resultant ongoing court hearings that have since transpired from this horrendous little event have caused a number of unsavoury things to happen. Namely that my friend Sue has had a nervous breakdown and has slowly disintegrated into someone now afraid to even face the day.

But anyway, I digress once again.

Her final court appearance took place yesterday, her friends accompanied her to court only to watch the gloating Troll come away with £50 damages being awarded to her. Sue herself suffered the indignity of getting an 18 month conditional discharge and £50 court costs, bringing her total fine to £100.

The "Wheelbarrowing" husband got nothing, regardless of the fact that he was trying to benefit from the trumped up charge as well, which I am now convinced they had arranged between them for sheer financial profit.

So I ask you, was justice served in this instance?

I think not, but this my dear readers is just one such case of many more in our day and age. Injustice it seems continues to prevail and the victims of people that, let's face it are little more than money grabbing bastards themselves, continue to suffer in the name of so called justice.

Guilty M'Ludd

Bollocks!!! The Law IS an ass.

Don't let the Bastards get ya down

Hi, it's me again...

Well who did you expect? Another dose of mindless irreverence and mildly philosophical rambling ensues....

So what have I been up to? Well, last week I had to go to the hospital for some check-ups in regards pain throughout my body that I've been experiencing for many years now, with no real answers as to the cause of it. The usual spiel from the Doc has always been the same, well your getting older, wear n tear, all those years riding bikes in the cold n wet finally catching up with you etc etc.....

I'm 45 for christ sakes, I feel like I'm 75 but that's neither here nor there as the Doc continues to insist that I continue to take the painkillers and just get on with it. Phhbt!

Why is it that the medical profession knows more about my illness than I myself do? Something just doesn't seem right there, this is my body after all and yet they profess to know how I'm feeling better than I do myself! It's all bollocks and yet amidst all this bollocks there is something that I should feel rightly relieved about in all this and that's that I am fortunate enough to live in the UK.

OK I know that I've griped about the UK in past posts and my thoughts still stand on all the points I made earlier, in this one case however I must confess that I am truly blessed for here we have a healthcare system that is the envy of the world.

*Gripe warning*

OK so it's under constant threat of being turned into yet another money spinning business by our fat cat, corrupt and greedy governmental masters, but at least for the moment anyway, my healthcare is still free, so that IS a big plus. If for example I lived in the US of A, their fat cat, corrupt and greedy governmental masters would be fleecing me for every single penny I have in my quest for an answer to my continuing pain, here however I don't have to face that. YET!

So anyway, where was I.....

I went to the hospital for some checks, blood tests, X-rays, you know the stuff. I felt like a bloody pincushion (pardon the pun) whilst I underwent this and by the time they had finished I swear there seemed to be more blood outside of me than within me. To make matters worse, the Phlebotomist (person who takes blood) actually bore an uncanny likeness to Morticia from the Adams family!

 Pale skin, long black hair, blood red lipstick, thin and gangly, the works. Makes ya wonder Uh?

Horror chicks aside though, I can only assume that my claret actually got to the labs and didn't end up somewhere it shouldn't have, for the test results were duly received for evaluation by the consultant that was now tasked with dealing with me.

So I now have something called Fibromyalgia. Apparently there is no cure, you just deal with it. Same ol same ol uh....

Oh well, at least now I have a name for this pain, after all these years of being told it's just me getting older, I do have a recognized ailment. Kinda reminds me of ol Spike Milligan's gravestone epitaph.

"See, I told you I was ill"