Bolton Smokers Club

A short post tonight.

The United States of America comprises some 50 countries, just as Europe is divided into similar different countries. What is odd is that the difference between US countries is rarely revealed. In fact, it would seem that there is no difference at all between US countries. Individual ‘States’/Countries might well as not exist, and those States might as well be ‘regions’ of the USA Empire. In fact, when you think about it, the USA is a far bigger Empire than the Roman Empire ever was. The ‘United States of America’ is an Empire.

What is important about that is that the US Empire will NEVER allow itself to be dictated to by the UN, WHO, World Bank, IMF, or anyone. Rather, it will dictate to those bodies.

That is why Obama has interfered in England’s decision about Brexit. For be in no doubt – the only important thing about Brexit is England. I do not decry the Scots of the Welsh. They decided that they wanted assemblies and parliaments. Thus, they separated themselves from England. That was their decision, and they must accept their decision.

We need to be rid of the likes of Cameron et al. WE ARE ENGLISH and must not forget it for one moment. Our friends and acquaintances from other ‘states’, such as Wales, Ireland and Scotland, have their own ideas. Their decisions are up to them. Their decisions have nothing to do with us ENGLISH.

For decades, the phrase “Made in England” was synonymous with quality. What went wrong? How did cars made by Japanese companies come to be seen as superior to cars made by English companies? I personally was conned in that way. I bought a Datsun car. It was OK, but it rotted something awful. The body steel was thin and there were lots of rain-traps (sealed units which were not impenetrable).

ENGLAND has been derided by Cameron et al. As far as they are concerned, only Wales, Ireland and Scotland are ‘states’. ENGLAND is nothing. It does not exist – well, apart from sport, bread and circuses.

If the ‘State’ of Scotland wants to go its own way, then it is reasonable that the ‘State’ of Wales should go its own way. Those States can do what they wish. They can have border controls and customs, if they wish.

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The weird thing is that Cameron et al want to render the UK as ‘regions’ within a USEU – The United States of Europe. That sounds lovely, except that these lovely groups have a habit of explosively disintegrating. It is not beyond imagination that the USA might break up.

We may have a false image of the USA as a unity, when the truth might well be that it is a group of very different ‘States’, which have different priorities, similar to Germany and Italy or Greece.

Smoking cessation might be more important in Germany than in Greece, or not important at all. Only in ENGLAND, the source of ‘magna carta’ and freedom, is superstitious prohibition promoted by politicians. ASH ET AL, are irrelevant. They are not much different from ‘Items for sale’ in local newspapers.

In reality, ASH ET AL ceased to exist as scientific entities after the McTear Case (see sidebar). It is taking a long time for politicians to accept that. The McTear Case blew ASH, Doll and Tobacco Control away into the cosmos. Only the excuse for taxation, imposed upon the unworthy masses, matters.

Smokers must rebel, but it is a matter of fact that most smokers are almost illiterate. That is because they are mostly from ‘the lesser sort’, as King James said. I have no doubt that there are still aristocrats who have influence, and regard the poorer people as ‘the lesser sort’.

But we will win eventually. Eventually, it will become obvious that the cost of anti-smoking far exceeds the real savings in health and social costs.

Think about it. All these ‘tobacco directives’ rely upon one thing and only one thing – compliance. The existence of ASH ET AL relies absolutely totally upon compliance. The vast cost of ASH ET AL is consequent upon compliance. The ‘vast cost’ is not just ASH as such, but the knock-on costs, such as Local Government costs. Everyone except ASH ET AL groupies bears the cost. ASH ET AL groupies are happy, even if they are on the minimum wage, or on no wage at all. They ‘GLOW’ with righteousness.

The solution is perfectly obvious, but not clear. That is a contradiction, isn’t it? Either the solution is clear, or it is not clear.

The solution is that Local Authority politicians must reverse the diktats of previous, now ‘ex’, persons who deliberately sought election in order to persecute smokers. In my ward, the person who was most Nazi in his attitude has moved out of our ward and got himself elected elsewhere. And he was a Conservative. But he was cruel and vindictive, since he was instrumental in cruelly denying smokers shelters at Bolton Hospital.

It is the Mengele type people who ruin our English happiness. For the most part, the English people are reasonably content. I suspect that the English people would be quite happy to see Scotland separate. That might also be true of Wales. Go your own way, but do not expect us English to bale you out when you mess up.

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So what is the simple solution?

It is not possible to specify. It demands simplicity and clarity. 10,000 page reports and decisions are worse than nothing. The cost of those reports are prohibitive, and yet those costs are seen as ‘normal’ in the EU. That can only be because Cameron et al do not give a shit.

Politicians are the weakness. It is horrific that the people who decide (pass laws), conform. That, in itself, is a contradiction.

Dick Puddlecote has the detail here:

http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-fix-is-in-for-e-cigs-in-oz.html

The trouble is that the ‘consultation’ is nothing of the sort. Well, not as we understand the word ‘consultation’. As we understand that word with reference to Government decision making, we understand it to mean that anyone with an interest, however minute in importance, can state his/her case. Who knows? Perhaps some individual somewhere might produce an argument which is important, and which no one else has thought of. These things happen. But the ‘consultation’ in OZ, about ecigs, is a stitch-up. The people who have been put in charge of ‘consulting’ are out and out anti-ecig zealots.

It is all a bit weird. We are used to consultations being rigged, as was the case with Plain Packaging, where the opinions of ordinary people who were against it, were ignored. But we are seeing a new phenomenon. Rather than a two stage consultation, we are seeing a three stage one. It used to be that Government put out an invitation to comment on various aspects of a proposed policy initiative. That was two staged. Now, in Oz, the Gov has set up an organisation, with money and power, which does the inviting. That organisation can invite who it wants to invite, and can exclude the general population. That organisation is stacked with anti-ecig zealots. Oh …. it will go through the motions, but it will inevitably condemn ecigs. That is, condemn easy availability and hand ecigs over to ‘The Tobacco Control Industry’, to be converted into just another medicinalised (Big Pharma exclusive) ‘nicotine delivery system’.

What is important about this?

It is that politicians, once again, have derelicted their duty. They are doing the precise opposite. They are not able to decide who should be on these committees because they are ignorant, and so they off-load that duty to someone else. Who? It can only be to health department officials, who are biased. For politicians, that is lovely because it relieves them of personal responsibility. It is a blatant abdication of power.

Politicians have brought this upon themselves by permitting micro-management inside Government. Now, they are lost. Tory and Labour are essentially the same. Well, that was the case before the rise of Corbyn. Will he make any difference? Probably not. Why? Because he does not have the imagination. At least, he seems not to have it. Some European countries have a flat level of income tax – say, above a minimum ‘living’ income, 25%. They seem to have done all right, since there is less incentive to avoid the excess tax. And, it reduces the burden on taxpayers of tax collectors. Why could that principle not also apply to ‘purchase tax’, for that, essentially, is what VAT is. It is a ‘purchase tax’. Why should certain ‘luxuries’, such as motor car fuel, be picked out for excessive tax over VAT? What is the rationalisation? There is none. Fuel tax reduces out competitive advantage in the world. It reduces our advantage of compact location of trade and industry. The USA is under-populated in the sense that its population is no where near as ‘compact’ as the UK, for example. The distance between Manchester and Liverpool is some 50 miles, whereas the distance between Washington and New York is some 2000 miles. Words can fly back and forth between those places in an instant, but goods and people cannot. Thus, the UK economy is very different from the USA.

What happened to “Made In England”? That used to be a mark of quality. Now it seems that we need a 10,000 page EU report to decide upon quality.

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New Zealand seems to be going the same way. You might like to read this:

http://nzinitiative.org.nz/site/nzinitiative/files/The%20Health%20of%20the%20State.pdf

It is about the economics of life-style interference. No need to talk about it in detail. Essentially, it says that people decide for themselves what is best for them, and that The State cannot make such decisions for people since the number of decisions and the type of decisions are too varied and too complex. It seems that NZ is determined to have a ‘smoke-free’ NZ by 2025. The definition of ‘smoke-free’ is less that 5% tobacco smokers. And yet the Gov wants to outlaw ecigs. Weird or what? Are they mad? Or have they calculated how tobacco tax income will be re-distributed over non-smokers in the next ten years? How will that re-distribution take place? Will those taxes go to sugar, salt and alcohol? Something like that will have to happen.

But it never works and never will. For example, smokers can be divided into three groups – 1) those who are well-off enough not to be bothered about the cost; 2) those who smoke only a little, so that the cost is trivial, despite taxes; 3) those who can afford to buy their tobacco products elsewhere than the UK. Only 1) and 2) pay the exorbitant taxes. I suspect that 2) is the main contributor over the whole population. Even the poorest of people tend to be able to afford ten cigs per day at a cost of some £3.50 per day. It is those folk who maintain tobacco control. Are they stupid? Perhaps, but they have worked out what is the easiest way for themselves. I have a decent sized garden and can grow plants. I remember watching a video of a guy who grew tobacco plants on the balcony of his flat. Right, except that he could only grow half a dozen plants. The produce from those plants is negligible and hardly worth the effort. I have sixty plantlets ready to go outside in May, but they will still not produce enough, nor will they be of a sufficient quality. I grow the plants as a hobby.

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It is going to be difficult to persuade our politicians to that it is more important and more cost effective to vastly simplify tax laws than persecute smokers. Cameron et al do not seem to understand that.

But there is another argument. Tobacco Companies have the financial clout to intervene, and not just by going to court. The FCTC denunciation of tobacco companies is old hat. And it was biased. Tobacco Company research is genuine since it looks for, and seeks to eradicate, toxins from tobacco smoke. Also, it seeks to reduce the pong. Maybe those companies are waiting for their time, which is not yet. But they still fail to protect their customers here and now. In fact, they have never attempted to do so.

We smokers have a perfect right, individually, to enjoy tobacco if we wish to do so. There is no such thing as ‘A State’ right to persecute us. Politicians who take the easy way and promote Academics who wish to persecute smokers, even indirectly, are tyrants. Only politicians can be tyrants.

No one knows. What we can surmise is that there are several hundreds/several thousands/several hundreds of thousands of them, spread out in ‘the institutions’. The clever thing is that these people have arranged that the costs are paid by taxpayers, students and industry. They have got away with it because politicians are unaware of the waste of a few million pounds. For example, a person who earns a million pounds a year would hardly be likely to notice that servant is pinching sugar, tea, etc, from the kitchen.

My point is that it only takes a few millions of pounds per an to create mayhem. Is it not true that every press release by ASH et al, and every TV appearance by Arnott et al, is designed to produce mayhem? When ASH says, “We are worried….”, is it not true that these people are not in the least bit ‘worried’, but that they are just using words to frighten people?

But what is really, really important is not the monetary cost. It is the WASTE. For example, how, in the morass of really important things that Parliament needed to discuss, did plain packaging of cigs become important enough to require parliamentary time? It makes no sense. Not did ‘smoking in cars with kids present’.

WHO provided the parliamentary time for consideration of these pointless projects?

Our political system is sick.

Since both political parties are essentially the same, and cannot be otherwise due to externalities, then we voters must stop voting. That is the only way to worry the Elite in the sense that they have no mandate, even if they have the majority.

I got tired last night and went to bed.

‘The what’, ‘the who’ and the ‘why’.

People like Simon Clarke, Chris Snowdon, and others (God bless them!) are very much involved in ‘the what’. Simon has been going on TV and responding to newspaper requests for his views as a representative for smokers, for years. But nothing he has said has made the slightest bit of difference. It is clear therefore that he and the IEA can do nothing about what is happening. There is no real point in talking about the detail of what ASH et al propose.

I’m not quite sure what really IS important, but I am pretty sure, in my own mind, that arguing about whether or not tobacco smoke in cars with children present, harms those children does not matter a toss. Even if you were able to provide evidence that it does not harm them, the ban would still have been proposed and accepted, and passed into law.

I remember, not too long ago, coming home from Manchester airport. I remember sitting in the back of the cab and observing that my good friend and taximan was surreptitiously smoking. You tell me – which is more dangerous? Is it the tobacco smoke or is it his surreptitious smoking? Is it the tobacco smoke, or is it the attempt to hide the smoking? My taximan is a Muslim. He does not drink alcohol, about which we jest sometimes, but he enjoys tobacco. I brought him a couple of sleeves of cigs back.

So I ask again: “WHY?”

Go back to first principles and ask, “Why?” are so many people, like Arnott and Duffy, spending their working lives on forcing people to end a trivial pleasure which might just shorten their lives a tad? Why? I do not understand. Why do they think that it is wonderful that people might live longer in their decrepitude, ‘sans teeth, sans eyes, sans everything’? Why?

In England, ecigs have received a certain amount of approval from the Healthists, but only as a smoking cessation aid. In Scotland and Wales, there is violent revulsion. Why? In the USA, the situation is even worse. There, the Healthists have no compunction whatsoever in lying, again and again, to stop ecigs. Why? The EU TPD aims to cripple ecigs by the equivalent of medicinal regulations. What else can ‘a measured dose’ mean other than much the same thing as a pill?

And yet, that directive will become UK laws in a few days time, and very few UK politicians will object. The directive will be nodded through because the UK is committed to pass whatever laws the EU Parliament does not block.

And that is where we come to ‘the who’. Who are these EU Parliamentary individuals who can block or not block EU directives? Who are they? How do they come to have only negative powers?

I have read tomes about Brexit, and what it will entail. But the reality is emotional. None of us can weigh up the pros and cons with any accuracy. We can only judge using what we can see. What I hate most of all is the absolute inability to reverse any directive. There is no such thing. Weirdly, though, it seems that the EU Elite have decided to ‘suspend’ Shenighan (however it is spelt) so that countries being invaded by arab malcontents and jihadists can block the invasion. Erm… Who gave the EU Elite the power to block Shenighan? How can the Elite do that without amending the treaties?

There’s the rub. And that is tyranny. The laws are absolute – unless the tyrant decides otherwise.

Why is Cameron so insistent that the EU Elite is always right? Why do so many Labour MPs also believe that irreversible laws are wonderful?

Had I been asked, a decade or so ago, if I would like to adopt the Euro, I would have said, “Yes”. But that was when I thought that the Euro was just a common currency. That was when I did not know that the Euro was political in its nature. That was when I did not realise that the Euro was intended to be a weapon. That is when I realised that he World Bank is also a weapon.

It can only be that Cameron and Osborn are either ‘in the know’ or are ignorant. They are either involved in World Government or stupid. I would not mind if they were in favour of world government if they would just come out and say so. There may be solid arguments which support that view.

But the EU project is not the way. The reason is the inability to reverse processes and EU laws. They are set in stone, and only revolution can change them. That is not our way. That is communism. The PEOPLE cannot change the rules, but the ELITE can, and they can do so without notice at any time. That is tyranny.

Cameron, Osborn et al support that tyranny. Why?

I now becomes clear why these people allowed plain packaging of cigs. The decision was taken because, from their point of view, it does not matter at all. It temporarily got the ‘Doctors’ off their backs. What politician wants to be accused of being a baby killer?

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Enough for tonight. We have not really looked at ‘the who’ yet.  Who created the FCTC? Enjoying tobacco, which is said to curtail the pains of old age by causing ‘premature’ death,  is such a trivial thing compared with, say, Ebola or AIDS, which decimate young people.

But we should expect nothing else while our PM is in thrall to The Elite. He may not even have realised that he is so in thrall.

I detest them.

But we have not really examined ‘the who’. Perhaps tomorrow.

Simon Clarke has highlighted a plan in Scotland to ban smoking and ecig use in or on any council property. See here:

http://taking-liberties.squarespace.com/blog/2016/4/18/scottish-council-wants-to-ban-smoking-and-vaping-on-local-au.html

Simon says:

Aberdeenshire Council has drafted a revised smoking policy that aims to ensure non-puffers are prevented from inhaling toxic tobacco fumes [my emphasis] in car parks.

Under the proposed new rules, smoking – including electronic vaporizers or ‘e-cigs’ [my emphasis] – will face a blanket ban on any premises or site owned by the council even if someone lights up in a private vehicle [my emphasis].

Simon points out the nonsense of such an idea.

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But I think that we should go much further.

Most bus stations are owned by local authorities. Anyone who has used a bus station knows that buses keep their engines running while they are in position at a bus station. I do not know precisely why that is so, but I can imagine that the bus needs to be kept warm, and that the way to keep the bus warm is to keep the diesel engine running. So, all around the bus station, there are buses with their diesel engines running. So, all around the council property, there are engines pumping out fumes which the WHO has said are carcinogenic. And these fumes are pumped out all day long.

I hope that readers can see the reason for my heading of this post. We have reached a point where the the ‘what’ does not matter. The ‘what’ (banning toxic tobacco smoke in places like bus stations, which are enclosed within a cloud of toxic diesel fumes) is irrelevant.

The REALLY IMPORTANT QUESTION is Who and Why? ‘What’ is no longer of any importance. The banning of smoking and ecigs in places like like bus stations, which are full of buses running their diesel engines all the time and flooding the air with masses of toxic fumes, is the ‘what’. Those ideas are too stupid to contemplate, and yet people on the Aberdeenshire Council are determined to remove 0.001% of tobacco ‘fumes’ while leaving 99.999% of diesel fumes in place.

That is the reason that ‘what’ (smoking bans in bus stations and such) is not at all important.

So what actually IS important?

This is where we come down to the nitty-gritty. The important questions are “‘Why’ have these proposals been put the council, and ‘Who’ put proposed them?

What this means is that the ‘What’ is not important. That may be a strange idea when you think about smoking bans in pubs, and yet it is the most important idea of all. The ‘What’ has never been that important. ‘Who’ and ‘Why’ have always been much, much, much more important, but we did not know, and neither did politicians. You would think that politicians would be especially aware of ‘Who’ and ‘Why’ since they swim in that sort of swamp, but it is easier to be concerned with ‘What’, and vote for the easy option. That is how the smoking ban became enacted.

Contrary to what many people think, the smoking ban is very weak. It is founded upon MPs who did not know about the ‘Who’ and the ‘Why’. Sooner or later, it will be overturned on the grounds that citizens are not state zombies and tax fodder. Human Rights have their place, and one ‘human right’ is to survive, whatever it takes. Even if you have to thieve to survive, you can do so, provided that it is the only way. You might be arrested and jailed, but you did what you had to do.

An investigative journalist might seek to know ‘who’ the Aberdeenshire Councillors were who welcomed that idea, and ask ‘why’ they did so.

My serious point is that these Councillors are zombies. They ‘become alert’ when there is something that that they can actually DO. BAN SMOKING – and then they can go home.

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But  there is a rebellion in the offing,  regardless of the EU vote. The EU vote does not mean that Cameron et al can say, “Sorry, but the EU directive says that…” Brexit is only the beginning.

Another quick post.

What is/are the arguments for or against the EU? As a matter of fact, as a voter, I have no idea. I think that I am reasonably intelligent, but I must admit that I have no idea what is the best thing.

I use the word ‘thing’ advisedly, because, when it comes down to it, the EU is no more than a ‘thing’. It is not like an octopus, because an octopus is a living entity. The EU is a ‘thing’ with no morality or empathy. The latest ‘tobacco products directive’ shows that clearly. MEPs voted to deny choice.

Cutting to the quick, what MEPs did was go crackers. Absolutely mad. They allowed the Elite to circumvent proper procedure. Further, in a few days time, Cameron et al will pass the TPD into law in the UK, despite the fraudulent processes in the EU. Let us be clear. When the Elite ignore proper procedures, they commit fraud. They are no different to the Mafia. The Elite is Mafia.

Cameron et al support Mafia.

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Our politics must change from the bottom upwards. That is very hard to do. The odd thing is that we need a Trump-like person to break the mould. But how can such  a person ’emerge’ in UK power politics? It is all very depressing. There are simple examples of institutional assertiveness, which were manifestations of political laziness, such as tobacco product displays. And now, we will have exacerbated protocols which cover cig packets with medical porn.

Do we smokers care? Not one iota!  Nor do ‘the youth’. The reality is that people like Cameron et al are mentally ill. They cannot function without the equivalent of a cattle prod.

I detest them.

I still haven’t fully recovered from an almost sleepless night on Wednesday/Thursday prior to my flight home, so I have yet to get my brain in gear. So tonight, I’ll just keep it simple.

Readers might remember that I germinated my baccy plant seeds several weeks ago. Here is how the plants look now:

The pots are only 2″ (about 5 cm) so you can see that the plants are doing very well. But the roots are still not extensive (I took one plant out of its pot to check). All that foliage is deceptive. It is all water. Beneath the surface of the compost, there are lots of small roots which occupy only around a quarter of the pot, but they soak up lots of water.

I was planning to plant them out around 1st May – in a fortnight’s time – but I think that I can delay that intention. Rose would remind me that there is still the possibility of frost in early May, but I have a means of countering a mild frost by covering the plants with 2 litre pop bottles like this:

But there is not much point in planting out if the roots of the plants are not well developed. In any case, delaying for another couple of weeks will allow the soil to warm up a little – not as much ‘transplant shock’. So I am planning on planting out mid May. What is wonderful is that the plants in a much, much better condition than last year, when I made lots of mistakes.

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I said that I was intent upon trying a hookah while I was away. The particular bar which had hookah paraphernalia last time that I went still had the pipes on the tables outside. I enquired about costs, and was told that a pipe cost €20 for up to four smokers, and more than €20 if there were more than four smokers. Much as I love to experiment, there is a line. I can get 100 cigs for €20, and the idea of consuming the equivalent of 100 cigs, in cost terms,  in about 40 minutes did not fill me with enthusiasm. Also, I saw only one group of youths using a pipe during the week that I was there. That is not surprising because, although sunny, there was a chill wind all week. It was fine to walk around in the sun in tee-shirt and shorts, but not so much so to sit for an hour. Not many people seemed to appreciate the value of a jersey. I donned my jersey when I got cold, and watched others shiver. At night, I marvelled at the youth’s ability to sit outside bars in the cold in skimpy clothing. Good for them. Personally, I wore a tee-shirt, a shirt, a jersey and my coat. I was warm. I would have been happy to wear long-johns, but I did not think to pack such apparel.

Of course, the only reason for wearing warm clothes is the smoking ban. A few years ago, I would have moved indoors rather than sit outside. At my favourite bar, there were a couple of women who sat inside and came out for a smoke, much as people do in the UK. I fail to see the point of going to sunnier climes if you do exactly the same on holiday that you do at home. The only difference for them was that they did not need to wear overcoats when then sat outside for their ten minutes of smoking.

Have I suggested a miserable week of coldness? If so, I apologise. Apart from the first full day, last Friday, when it rained all day and was jolly cold, the week was blue skies and sunny. But there are always ‘work arounds’. Just in case I was ‘confined to quarters’ by the weather, I bought a litre of grouse whiskey and a 2 litre bottle of lemonade. In the event, I was not confined, but a tot of whiskey before going down to dinner was quite nice.

I made my meals into banquets. My evening meal especially, at which I has seven courses – two bowls of different soups, a snack of shrimps and coleslaw and such, lamb cutlets or whatever and some vegetation, a piece of cake smothered in runny chocolate, a few pieces of melon, and cheese and biscuits. Half a bottle of red wine added to the serendipity.

I read my thick book. It was a good story. And I played lots of games of chess on my electronic chess set. One night, sitting outside the best disco in town around 2 am, a group of youths invited me to join them. One guy challenged me to a game of chess. I accepted, but challenged all four of his group, provided that I could play the white pieces. I won easily. But that is not important. What is important is that we integrated easily and became good friends, if only for an hour or so.

While on my solitary trips, I observe. I noticed especially that there are lots of older people still smoking. At home, you do not see them because they no longer go to pubs, but they sit outside bars in sunnier climes. But there are also lots and lots of youths smoking.

I think that smoking is becoming heroic. Smokers are becoming heroes, because they they epitomise rebellion. The Tobacco Control Empire wants legislators to quash the rebellion, but resistance mounts. Smokers are heroes just like the French Resistance in WW2, but in a different way and to a different degree. We defy ‘political correctness’, which is just another phrase which is a cover for eugenics. Fat politicians decry smoking and thin politicians decry fatness. Both groups are corrupt. I detest them. I detest the weak Cameron who defers to the the EU apparatchiks. Cameron et al find it easy to decide to drop bombs on civilians in Syria, and to persecute smokers. But they find it impossible to defeat a few Zealots in the Medical Profession.

Only smokers are heroes who defy the Medical Profession. Vapers are not. In a few days time, the Tobacco Products Directive will come into effect. Cameron et al do not give a shit. Vaper shops will have to rebel, but they will not become heroes. They will act as publicans did, and go out of business. They will be cowards, and not heroes.

Only smokers are heroes.

I forgot, last week, to say specifically that I was going to be away on my jollies. I returned home today with much gold in the form of half-price cigs. But equations concerning prices are only part of the story. The holiday in itself was priceless, in my circumstances vis a vis my wife’s health – the break was very beneficial.

So, in addition to enjoying a week of freedom from chores, I also acquired some £2,100 worth of cigs for some £1,100. It is important not to ‘factor in’ the cost of the holiday, even though it could be done. I would have ‘done’the holiday anyway.

But what is even more important is that the Tobacco Control Industry has been deprived of resources to my simple extent. Since I have personally cut my contribution to zero, then non-smokers will have to pick up the rest of the tab. It amuses me to consider how much non-smokers are contributing to the persecution (not the health of) smokers. The more that it costs non-smokers to pay for the persecution of smokers, the better.

You see, the reality is that the revenue to the Exchequer from tobacco products is roughly stable, but the cost of maintaining that stability becomes bigger and bigger. When you see the publicity around some big confiscation of illicit cigs, you can be sure that the cost of the operation has been immense. But there is no material gain from the operation. Confiscated cigs are destroyed. Should they be sold to the trade?

What trade?

But that is not important. What is important is that the Government cannot be seen to ‘encouraging’ smoking by putting confiscated cigs into circulation.

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The Tobacco Control Empire is shrinking. The cost of my imports from the EU State in question has not increased for a couple of years. I have been pleasantly surprised by that as a person, but it does not surprise me when you consider that the tobacco tax income to such States is essential.

The less that smokers contribute to State coffers, the more that non-smokers have to contribute. Would non-smokers be so dedicated if they knew that their demands for ‘smoke-free’ air would cost them lots of money in taxes to replace tobacco taxes?

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Masses of tax monies are wasted because there is no ‘commercial imperative’, meaning that there is no discipline

Enough for tonight.

I haven’t given this post a title yet, and I might forget to do so. It is likely to ramble a bit.

Last time I went to Mallorca on holiday (and I shall be there again in a few days time), I noticed that a few bars had hookah paraphernalia on some tables outdoors. You need to think about that phenomenon a little. Mostly, they just sat there unused, but I saw some youths using them. When I say youths, I mean 20 0r 30 year-olds. And they were doing so in the full view of children. Had the law permitted the hookahs indoors, rather than forcing them to be outdoors, children would not normally see them. It is a bit like passing a law which permits the indulgence in sex only in the full view of children or in totally private, indoor places. Either or. Either indoors in private, or outdoors in the full view of children. Is that not a reasonable précis of smoking bans indoors? If the sighting of smoking by children was so important, would it not make more sense to ban smoking outdoors rather than indoors? Ventilation of indoor smoking places does not have to be ferocious. My favourite bar in Mallorca has a small extractor fan near the door. Before the smoking ban, there was a no smoking area at the far end of the pub away from the extractor fan. Thus, the fan drew any smoke in the air away from non-smokers. In any case, no one who went into that pub ever complained about smoking. Why should they? The smoke rose up into the air and was extracted from near the ceiling. Frankly, I think that pubs in the UK have extractor fans which are far too powerful. They can suck out all the warm air in a giffy and replace it with cold air. Then the central heating cannot cope. It would make sense for such places to have several fans of different powers.

But why should we expect such invention and sense? We do not even have bidets normally, to wash our bums after shitting. That is SO European. Even the Romans in Britain, 2000 years ago, had the means for the soldiers to wash their bums after shitting. They used sponges on sticks.

Has any reader ever heard of ‘golfers arse’? The phrase refers to horrible pain in the anus area due to chapping as a result of walking some four or five miles. The bum does not have to be shitty. It is enough for sufferers to a bit sweaty and hot. The rubbing together of bum cheeks create friction, which becomes especially painful in the presence of sweat.

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Erm… That was an aside.

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What has been happening in Magalluf recently is that more and more bars have hookah paraphernalia in open display on tables outdoors. I have not seen them being used very often, but I have seen them being used occasionally by groups of youths. By ‘youths’ I mean 20 or 30 year olds.

‘Unintended Consequences’.

The Tobacco Control Industry/Empire has successfully changed smoking from an every-day experience to an esoteric pleasure which might be associated with harems and brothels of old. Personally, I would love to frequent such a place of pleasure, but it is frowned upon and almost certainly illicit and taxed to the n-th degree. In any case, I am far too old. But I really must have a go at this hookah thing. I shall have to be brave and ask a group of these youths if I can indulge at their expense. I suppose that, if I give them €5 for their trouble, they would not object. I hate being ignorant. I need to know.

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So the enjoyment of hookah tobacco is becoming specific to time and place. Most youths might not smoke cigs daily, but might indulge in hookah at their leisure. I suppose that it is like enjoying a meal, or a sexual encounter or a pint of beer.

What is important is that The People are announcing their displeasure with authoritarianism.  They do so by inventing other ways of circumventing the rules and regulations. They assert their individuality and thereby reject totalitarian, fascist agendas.

It is completely beyond my comprehension that Tories can accept EU tyranny, or that Labour is happy with such blatant corruption.

It blows my mind.