THE BRITISH THREAD II

Mac wrote-



So that's why your boring old fartihood has been unremitting. Some of us might think that you did need converting but that would, I know, be selfish.

no such word as fartihood

did you mean hardiwood?

I have been reliably informed that non-smokers have a superior sense of taste and smell than smokers.

Which presumably causes non-smokers to wash their bedsheets every week, possible even more often, rather than every now and again. This obviously creates a heavier carbon footprint and more onerous water charges and the population of the first low lying island to go under the waves may be be said to have been traduced by passive aesthetic taste and delicacy. Passive non-smoking in other words.

My personal opinion, from all I have read, is that passive non-smoking will make the scenes you have seen on the TV of passive smoking, assuming you believe them authentic, as I do, look like a vicarage tea-party so to speak.

One can easily imagine non smokers having to have a hole, a large one, cut into the shithouse door so they can stick their head out for No 2s and purchasing great volumes of artificially scented sprays engineered by expert organic chemists to mimic Alpine valleys on Sunday mornings in springtime with the tinkling bells of the heavily uddered cows as they move from one lush patch of dewladen grass to the next one.

Driven mad by the smell of bacon and eggs, the most attractive odour on earth Paulette Goddard called it, and there were no flies on her, non-smokers will be unable to prevent themselves from clogging their arteries up and getting fat or even obese.

But arteries can be rebored. $50 grand a time it seems plus car park charges.

If lungs could be rebored and arteries not I would expect the medical profession to be extolling the virtues and benefits of 80 a day. As it is, lungs defeating their technology, the old man's friend, what else can one expect. It is a business after all. The biggest. Saving lives is top of the bill.

Another problem with an enhanced sense of taste and smell is that it tends (I can use words like that as good as the next man) to restrict the number of ladies who meet with one's wholehearted approval.

Perhaps to vanishing point.

Lookig at it the other way, a habitual smoker might find it increasingly problematical finding a partner who did not mind them smelling like a smouldering refuse tip.

I read recently a comment from a surgeon who described the difficulty of closing up a wound after major surgery on a heavy smoker. The flesh is not robust enough to take the stitches.
So doesn't cause premature aging only on the face.

So there you go, Spendy, you might qualify for a lung transplant, but need a Velcro fastener up the front afterwards.

Do you know guys what you are talking about?

Do I have to remind you that Flaubert and Baudelaire where "odour fetishists"?

Yes, you do.

I've heard the story about Napoleon and Josephine, but that was in a restricted sense I think.

Straight to the point...

Francis, I hope not, for Josephine's sake. :wink:

Mac wrote-



That is underhand, Goebell's style lying. The shredded leaf of the magical herb, tobacco, is grown and processed with tender loving care. Smokers will put up with no less. It is as pure a gift from the gods to his divine creations as any bed of flowers at the Chelsea show. Nay- purer.

It is in no way "refuse". Refuse is what is emitted from jet planes and motor vehicles and bourgeoise breeding hutches.

And further to that- nobody is discoursing on here regarding "heavy" smokers. Substance abuse takes many forms and presents severe medical problems wherever it is encountered. If passive smoking kills people one would reasonable expect "heavy" smokers to not last five years. Or even one.

Is there any chance of you answering the points Mac instead of trotting out the distorted, tired and washed out garbage you have rote learned from the telly and the papers.

What evidence have you that passive smoking ever killed anybody or even did them the slightest harm. It's just a religious belief you have picked up off the high priests of the Paperwork Party which seeks to take power over your every waking moment and will do with the likes of you lending a hand.

A writer would be in some difficulty if he attempted to convey to his readers just how much those men and women who we remember on Nov 11 would have despised these lower middle class troublemakers and power seekers who tremble with fearful trepidation when the comforting aroma of tobacco fragrance enters their suspicious and over-sensitised nasal passages and is utilised to draw attention to themselves and their virtuous (that's a laugh) nature. I don't think appropriate words could be found. A snort of utter contempt is quite insufficient.

As the sage wrote

Cigarettes are a blight on the whole human race.
A man is a monkey with one in his face.
Take warning, dear friend. Take warning, dear brother:
A fire on one end a fool on the t'other...

What points? That you do not value your sense of smell? I accept that. You are nuts.

The literature on this (and the tobacco industry's attempts to block same) go back many decades and if you do not want to pay heed, that is entirely your affair. Res ipse loquitur. Remain unconvinced, but please obey the law.

please dont give him any encouragement.

Mac wrote-



1- The equating a cigarette with a smouldering refuse tip was underhand and a lie.

2- That you abuse our trust by finding an incident involving a "heavy" smoker and even then blithely assuming that the problem reported by a member of the claque was caused by that and not something else just on his/her sayso.

3- That you have no proof that passive smoking does anybody any harm and that it is a lie to assert, on no scientific evidence, that it does.

4- That '14-'18 soldiers, airmen and sailors would have despised these fear-raddled do-gooders freaking out at the aroma of tobacco smoke.

5- That this fear is often faked in order to gain power to officiously order everybody about in humiliating circumstances.

6- That they won't go away now they have this victory.

7- That smoking deaths, through abuse mainly, are much cheaper for the NHS than the long drawn out declines of people into their 80s and 90s.

8- That non smokers get fat and obese and present the NHS with another set of difficulties.

9- That non-smokers are crap company.

10- That nicotine inhibits degenerative brain disease and stimulates creativity which we need to prosper.

11- That candlelit dining out should be outlawed on your own arguments along with a lot of other stuff.

12- That passive driving has killed and maimed millions of people for sure and thus unauthorised driving should be banned forthwith.

13- That your excessive concern for our health is a club to beat us with and actually you don't give a shite and that if you do give a shite but not for victims of passive bargain hunting in the sweatshops of the world then you are objectively a dyed-in-the-wool racist and value human life on a sliding scale with yours at 100 and a coolie on zero.

14- That the ban is an attack on freedom.

There are others but that will do for now.


And this-



is not an argument but Goebells type propaganda which could be done to any subject- marriage say- and thus insults the intelligence of fellow posters as is often to be found with solipsistic non-smoking thickies.

Does that answer your question about what points?

I told you

Spendy

On another thread Setanta gave me a ceegar. You can have it.

Actually this-



Is ridiculous verse. Smoking a cigarette is a profound qualitative differentiation from all non-human life so how could such a man be a monkey when smoking. Maybe when eating or shagging or scratching his balls but never with smoking.

And if the men on the historical list of smokers are to be classed as "fools" one might say after perusing it that anyone classifying them as such is a monumental fool.

But one wouldn't expect non-smokers to have a proper grasp of the rules of creative writing where the facts are No 1 priority.

Spendi, the world isn't broken into smokers and non-smokers. There's a vast overlap of:

1. Those who have never smoked (non-creative writers)
2. Those who quit and never smoke again (no longer a creative writer)
3. Serial quitters (intermittant creative writer)
4. Social smokers who can smoke one or two cigarettes a week (occasional creative writers)

Tarah-

And it isn't just creative writing. It is creativity in general to which we owe so,so,so much and which these virtue flouncers are just tossing away on the strength of a couple of assertions, blown out of all proportion by repetition, the standard Goebells technique, to such an extent that they have forgotten they are foundationless assertions and now believe them as truths which conveniently save them paying a lot of tax which they then use to blow their kerosene and petrol emissions into everybody's garden without a thought of what that is doing. They admitted that when the took the lead out of petrol.

The two best photographs from Iraq both showed a soldier with a fag in his mouth and here's this lot calling them fools.

Obviously media is in favour of this policy. It makes no money out of smoking. It makes money out of alternative uses for money and causes the shite to pile up ever higher as non-smokers thrutch around the shops looking for some novelty to assuage their boredom. We smokers just light up and send the exchequer our money so they can put it to good use like hiring advertising firms at great expense to tell us lies and treat us as pariahs and provide heath care round the clock for the ever growing army of geriatrics for decades and when their cash runs out they take their houses off them.

It's a big issue alright. And the biggest one of all is why the countervailing arguments never got a look in.

Had there been a demand for smoke free pubs there would have been smoke free pubs. The fact that there hasn't been proves there was no demand and proves that smoke-free pubs was not their objective. Annoying people was their objective. Envy and bloodymindedness.

Spendi, I went into a pub for lunch the other day and it was a pleasure, no smoking. Unfortunately it was a bit of a minefield getting into the pub as there were smokers outside. The landlord told me that they were meant to be a certain distance from the door, don't know whether that's right.

However, we should celebrate that all isn't equal in our fair land as I believe they can still smoke in the bar in the House of Commons.

Yes- it's a palace you see. Palaces are exempt. I don't know about military bases yet. I think the cops still need permission to enter those. Even if they had permission I'd like to see them doing their enforcing in the N.A.F.F.I. in Basra or Kabul.

It's so bloody common is being obsessed with one's health and well being.

That's why they banned hunting. Envy again. The idea that they were concerned with the suffering of the fox is laughable. Only a baby would believe that sort of stuff. And they eat chicken. They have bragged about it on here. That's how desperate they are to find subjects for conversation.

And chickens suffer from hatching to despatching in order that they are cheap enough to allow money left over for big time pollution. And they are pumped up with all sorts of stuff. A proper chicken is £10.

There should be a sign up at all the ports saying "Baby On Board".