Monday, February 28, 2011

ZIONIST LISA SIMPSON



It's quite unfortunate that the London Olympics 2012 logo so resembles Lisa Simpson giving the city a blowjob. I guess once they realised it was a bit of a boob, they still had to continue because of the cost. Perhaps they hoped no one would notice.

Well, the logo has now upset the Iranians who are threatening to pull out of the games if the "offensive" logo is not changed. But not for reason you'd think

Sunday, February 27, 2011

MAKE THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION HAPPEN



It looks like the lost core support from the LiblabCon is starting to make itself felt in the Barnsley By-election. Political pundits say UKIP candidate Jane Collins could take second place behind Labour when the votes are in - especially as the Party is planning a final push after a favourable survey showed them in third place.

I'm told weighted data excluding don't knows shows the miner's daughter neck-and-neck with the Conservative on 11%. That matches what is coming up from the ground. Whenever UKIP knocks doors and talk to people they gain votes and support in droves.

Disgruntled angry voters ignored by the LibLabCon are finding UKIP an alternative in place of their traditional support. They're shunning the bigoted BNP because they know that socially backward party can't affect the change they so desperately want.

The voter can see that UKIP has common sense policies and it puts the UK's interests first. The best alternative these people had before to the main two party alliance was the Lib Dems. It now looks likely to get pushed into fourth place.

Barnsley can make the political revolution happen. More canvassers are needed for the final push to get UKIP high in the polls and show the LibLabCon that that we've had it with their lies, false promises and downright incompetence.

If you can get there and help go to the UKIP Shop at 6 Regent Street South, Barnsley S70 2HT and make yourself known.

I'll be in Scarborough on Friday and Saturday for the UKIP Spring Conference and I'll be updating my blog from there during the two days. I'm sure there will be loads of news to report and plenty to celebrate as well.

Crystal ball gazing

Following my predictions for what would happen to the beer and pub industry in the next 20 years, I asked the question “What will happen to UK on-trade beer sales in 2011?” There were 59 responses, broken down as follows:

Grow slightly: 2 (3%)
Stay about flat: 11 (19%)
Fall by up to 5%: 12 (20%)
Fall by 5-10%: 20 (34%)
Fall by over 10%: 14 (24%)

On-trade beer sales fell by an average of 7.3% over the past three years, and I can’t see anything much different happening this year. Over half of all respondents thought it would be at least as bad, if not worse.

But, as I said in the comments to the previous post, the fact that the overall market is contracting doesn’t mean there aren’t still opportunities for specialist pubs appealing to enthusiasts. The closure of the Four Heatons has no relevance to the opening of the Port Street Beer House. The risk is, of course, that the general contraction ultimately bites the specialist operators on the bum. You can only sustain a strategy of a rising share of a shrinking market for so long.

Who’d have thought it?

Cue howls of Righteous indignation at the news that pregnant women have used NHS fruit and vegetable vouchers to buy cigarettes and alcohol. I can’t say it remotely surprises me that, given a near-cash equivalent, people will seek to turn it into the most readily saleable commodities. And it shows that ordinary people remain very resourceful at evading the tentacles of political correctness.

THS and SMOKER MONEY





Apologies to Dick Puddlecote and Leg Iron because I can't remember the post that carried a conversation between the two about smoker's money.



I do recall that Dick said he used to write SMOKER'S MONEY across his notes in the early days of persecution when the anti-smoking industry put out the myth that only Non-smoker's money was worth having in pubs.



He thought it would be particularly useful given the push to further outcast smokers from civil society, make them homeless, unemployable, and devalue their own private properties with the invention that is third hand smoke - THS.



Well, I'm up for that. It was my intention to scan in my very first Smoker's note and post a photo here but the purse is empty until I get to the bank tomorrow. I also thought that if it involved money, and technically the copying of that money, it was bound to be illegal somehow. Hence I used another image to illustrate the point I'm trying to make.



I can't find The Smoker's Arms in Grimsby on the Lost Pubs site so it must still be open. I'd go there just because of the name and in spite of the ban if I lived locally. I wonder how long it will be allowed to keep it in this current climate.



Even though the anti-smoking industry is still lying about the effect of the loss of Smoker Money, and Govt is in denial about it, most normal people and those pub owners made bankrupt by the blanket ban do recognise there is a valuable link.



The Angry Exile makes a good point about smoker to smoker services in the comments section of Chris Snowdon's post on the dangerous delusion of anti-smoker quango ASH It's a great idea and one worthy of organising. A reference list by profession or service, with contacts of smokers and tolerant non-smokers, would be handy.



AE said : I mentioned a bloke in Ireland who refuses to hire smokers because he thinks they're all lazy, stupid, smelly and sickly. Fella who commented today said he was considering using that company for a £50K project but has decided against because, in his own words:



"...anyone stupid enough to make comments like he did is obviously not bright enough to handle our needs.

Please pass the word so others are not tempted to employ a company led by such a cerebrally challenged individual."



An accountant who posted a comment on this blog once told me that he is being constructively bullied out of work because he is a smoker. Despite the fact that he does not take breaks, nor smokes at work because it's illegal, his employer demands that he doesn't smoke in his own time "because he doesn't want clients to see employees smoking out of work."



I am sure that there are plenty of self employed smokers who would rather commission the services of this tax expert than his pious boss's company which is happy to take their Smoker Money while he bullies smoker employees who may handle their account.



And now that Tobacco Control is discussing how best to put padding on the invention of THS (thanks Dave Atherton for the link) it may well be that society will be encouraged to refuse Smoker Money in future for fear of catching something awful.



In the TC discussion, they concede that nicotine and "other harmful substances" can be found in a variety of other everyday products and they need to be sure that they can single out the smoker as living in an "infected" property.



It seems the only language that Govt listens to is financial and so perhaps the use of SMOKER MONEY may speak greater volumes than the common sense and reasonable arguments we have used to date to stop our persecution.



UPDATE My other half just came back with a tenner from the ATM so what the hell. I made my mark in the blank bits around the note for fear of devaluing it by writing over something important like the number which I have erased because it seemed wise.











Saturday, February 26, 2011

Who wants customers?

A few weeks I reported on the massive decline in on-trade beer sales over the past thirty years. Now, it is my belief that this is overwhelmingly due to social and legislative changes affecting the pub trade, and that indeed the average standard of service, food and drink in pubs is considerably higher now than it was thirty years ago. When pubs were thriving, there were plenty of poor pubs about.

But, the other night in the pub, this subject was being discussed and the point was made that maybe a substantial part of the decline was due to the fact that pubs had failed to move with the times and weren’t giving customers what they wanted. You can point to the example of Wetherspoon’s, who are doing very well and opening new pubs in an overall declining market. That’s undoubtedly true, and maybe without Spoons the trade as a whole would be in even more difficulty. But the Wetherspoon formula only works in particular urban locations with heavy footfall, and wouldn’t be appropriate for the vast majority of closed sites. The Four Heatons, for example, would never work as a Spoons. Wetherspoons have also burnt their fingers in a number of locations where they have misjudged the local market, so it’s clearly not a magic formula for all pubs.

A slightly different example is The Greystones, an inter-wars Enterprise Inns pub in suburban Sheffield where the lease has been taken over by up-and-coming microbrewery Thornbridge. Looking at it on Google StreetView, in its previous incarnation as The Highcliffe, it looks like any number of pubs up and down the country that have closed. The surrounding area looks like typical C1C2 mixed suburbia, not some yuppie enclave. Yet, apparently, having been taken on by people who really care about what they’re doing, it’s now going great guns. Read about it on Pete Brown’s blog here.

I’ve never been there, so can’t offer my own judgment, but from the sound of it I’d be more than happy to have it as my local. But, on the other hand, there are large sections of the pubgoing community that it probably wouldn’t appeal to. I’d like to think that pubs like our recently-demolished Greyhound could have been revitalised by the Greystones treatment. But to what extent is it really generating new business, as opposed to simply redistributing it from other pubs?

At the end of the day, a pub is still a pub, and its fundamental raison d’ être remains the same. It can’t “move with the times” by turning itself into something else. If people no longer want to go to pubs, no amount of wine dispensers, crèches, coffee-makers and wi-fi hotspots will make any difference. Even if every pub in an area was a Spoons or a Greystones, I doubt whether overall trade would increase by more than a couple of percentage points. And one of the oft-advanced examples of “moving with the times” – the general admission of children – is to many longstanding pubgoers excruciatingly offputting.

Oh, and what a pity they had to take the pic of the Greystones while it was still in primer...

I told you so

Shown to the right are four pictures of the Four Heatons (the former Moss Rose) in its current sorry closed and boarded state. This was the second-nearest pub to me and, while I never thought it was the best pub in Stockport, or even the best of the two, over the years I have spent a fair bit of time in there and drunk plenty of beer. I also carried out the surveys for its inclusion in the Good Beer Guide for six consecutive years from 1995 to 2000, although it didn’t go in solely, or even primarily, on my say-so.

And now, it’s gone for ever, obviously battered by the general long-term decline in pubgoing, but undoubtedly to my mind kicked over the edge by the smoking ban. For a while in the mid-2000s, after its refurbishment, it seemed to do OK, but since July 2007 it has clearly been in a downward spiral. It may not look at all promising now, but in its day it was a very decent pub with a healthy trade and a strong community following.

Obviously sad news, but am I entitled to feel a twinge of self-satisfaction in saying “See? I told you this was going to happen, and you wouldn’t believe me!”?

The banner on the third picture advertises “Kält Lager £1.99 all day every day; Hydes Original Bitter £1.99 Mon-Thu”.

The fourth picture, taken through the fence, shows the abandoned smoking shelter.

A bolt from the blue

Following my somewhat underwhelming experience of bottle-conditioned ales from local micro-breweries, as a contrast I thought I would sample one of the long-established favourites of the genre.

Brewed by the long-established Hop Back micro brewery in Salisbury, Summer Lightning was one of the first of the new wave of “golden ales”. It is now, I think, the only bottle-conditioned beer available in Morrisons’ 4 for £5.50 offer.

It comes in a square-shouldered brown bottle with a distinctive label featuring a carved head from the brewery’s original pub, the Wyndham Arms in Salisbury. I always think square-shouldered bottles are not the best for BCAs as they tend to create an airlock when pouring which can disturb the yeast. The ideal shape is the smooth, tapered one used for Taylor’s Landlord and many German beers.

However, this sample poured crystal clear without any difficulty after having been stored for about 48 hours. I left a few drops of beer in the bottom of the bottle but it gave the impression of now using “sticky” yeast so I didn’t really need to.

It forms a solid but not excessive head that persists to some extent all the way down the glass, and shows the distinctive rising spires of carbonation associated with bottle conditioning. The colour is a bright pale gold, maybe towards the darker end of the lager spectrum.

It’s fairly light to drink and doesn’t really give the impression of being 5.0% ABV. Side by side, you would not think it was any stronger than the 4.4% Hawkshead Lakeland Gold. The hop certainly dominates over the malt, but it’s a soft, restrained hoppiness overlaying a sweet note coming from the malt. It’s an earthy, Southern English hoppiness, though, not an insipid floral one.

In summary, this is a well-made beer that would make an ideal refreshing summer ale. It meets the three basic requirements of BCAs – clarity, condition and pourability. It’s much more distinctive than the broadly similar Young’s London Gold, but perhaps in the years since it was launched the spread of more assertively hoppy golden ales has, relatively speaking, made it seem more subtle than it once was. Nevertheless, it’s still something I’d happily drink a few of.

Friday, February 25, 2011

NASTY WORDS HURT - NICE WORDS HELP



It looks like poor old Carl Minns is getting it in the neck from left leaning political supporters who appear happy to slag him off for not doing something about a fellow councillor who said a nasty word that hurt.

I don't know who these sanctimonious posters are on his blog, and I don't know much about Hull but I was shocked when I saw those aggressive protesters on regional TV last night.

They acted like a bunch of screaming banshees if you watch the video linked here and a thought occurred to me.

Lefty supporters are happy to see NuLabour when in power crush any kind of dissent or disagreement with oppressive and restrictive laws, but as soon as they get a Tory led Govt in power, riots begin to break out everywhere as they fit and sulk - organised by NuLabour activists no doubt.

We saw it with students and now we're seeing it with council workers. Times are hard for all of us and for some of us the NuLabour years have been the hardest ever. NuLabour caused it although I'm sure the NuToryLimpDumps are making things worse. The banal support of the NuLabour financial backing of ASH and other fake smokefree charities is stealing the food out of these protester's mouths.

What would these people prefer? Cash that could save their jobs being chucked at the fake smoke free "charities" in a world that is now smoke free? Or the cash going to fund some of those "vulnerable" people they say will lose out because of forced Tory led cuts on councils across the country?

And as the obvious stares left wing supporters in the face, all they can do in response to the mess of their own making is to start shouting how "offended" they are by the use of a nasty word.

Lord. Give me strength. Carl, don't let 'em get you down.

INSPIRED!


Former NYC police officer Audrey Silk is so pissed off with the harassment of smokers she has decided to stick two fingers up to the system that is beating us down.

She's taken to growing her own and it looks as if she can manage to sustain her supply to stop her tax being used against her.

It's not so much the amount of cash she'll save as the message she is giving to those who just will not listen :

In the state with the highest cigarette taxes in the country, in a city that has become one of the hardest places in America to find a place to smoke, Ms. Silk has gone off the grid, growing, processing and smoking her own tax-free cigarettes from packets of seeds she buys online for about $2. She expects to produce a total of 45 cartons after planting two crops — the first in the summer of 2009, the second last summer — and estimates that she will have saved more than $5,000.

“It’ll make the antismokers apoplectic,” said Ms. Silk. “They’re using the power of taxation to coerce behavior. That’s not what taxation is supposed to be for.

“The only way we’re going to win now, since you can’t reason with the irrational, which is the City Council or any lawmakers,” Ms. Silk said, “is you have to take the position of giving them the finger.”


She's also named her tobacco garden in honour of the stupid prick led blind by the anti-smoking industry - Bloomberg. Nice touch.

ASH's latest hysterical tantrum fit screaming at the UK govt to increase taxes to stop people smoking sounds a bit hollow in the face of Audrey's defiance. She's shown us the way to go.

ASH of course is scaremongering again and the Govt is either in with the lie or its ministers are just plain stupid enough to believe it when it's obvious that we've already found a better way to avoid paying Deb's wages and the inhumane public health programme of Denormalisation.

Now where can I buy my seeds ...

THE BIG SOCIETY?



If you see Dr Geebers in your town or on your travels than give him a bit of support. He deserves it.

I caught up with him in Skegness. He's already walked 4,800 miles on his mission to show what it's like to be homeless and how charities can be less than charitable to "his sort". He's been around for a couple of weeks and he built a formula one racing car out of pebbles on the beach and damn fine it looked too.

Local people, businesses and tourists have been looking out for him, bringing him coffee, and making donations in appreciation of his art. He does not claim benefits and he does not beg.

Help from places that have allowed him to use their facilities, people who have done his washing and supported him, cafes that have given him free food and drink might be what Cameron means when he talks about "The Big Society". But all is not well.

Dr Geebers has nothing but the clothes on his back, a pop up tent, and basic cooking facilities. While he was working in perishing temperatures on the beach, some arsehole or other found his tent, piled all of his stuff in it and burned the lot.

We got a call at our office next morning saying he'd slept in the rain all night. Luckily when a local business heard about what happened, they gave him a very basic tent. He was really grateful to have it.

Dr Geebers went back to finishing his work but someone trashed his art as soon as he turned his back again. He didn't have the heart to go back to the beginning with it so he packed up and is now headed for Norfolk. Local people were sad to see him go.

Of his general experience as a homeless person "trying to do something" he says :

We all have problems in life and I as a homless person knows this. I decided it was time to do something to get my life back together and started writing, creating pebble art etc.
Now I am walking the whole of the U.K. coast doing this on a homeless awearness mission. This is in fact to write a book to aid homeless charities in the U.K. and help 3rd world countries.
On this mission so far I have been robbed, things stolen, councils throw my sleeping bags away, peoplle phone the police on me and been arrested.
No one trust a homeless person not even homeless charities which in my eyes is a disgrace.
If you do not go to church then you cannot do good in this world. Well I even had churchs throw me out of their grounds for sleeping in their doorway, not want to charge phones for me and one even run me down in front of a bunch of school children coming to visit their church.
No much wonder so many homeless people stay homeless and become drink and drug addicts.


If you're on Facebook you can check out where he's likely to be.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

GOVT BACKED HATE



After writing THIS post, I thought I'd pop over to Dick Puddlecote's Anti-Smoker Psycho spot because I hadn't been for ages. I wish I hadn't ater I read this.

JFW,
03/02/2011 16:43:30
"I do hope never to be treated by an NHS worker who is stupid enough to be a smoker; it's worrying that some people that you might be forced to rely on in an emergency have such limited brain-power."
7 February 2011 14:58


As Dick says, anti-smokers now feel justified in terming smokers like a sub-human species. I'm not surprised. Govt backing of intolerance by it's blanket ban and refusal to listen to smokers could only result in giving the wrong message and encouraging such hatred and discrimination. I said it before the ban came out. It was why I was against it. I believe politicians either realise this and hate smokers enough to let the dogs loose - or they are completely naive and swallow without question the "confidence Trick" that Deborah Arnott from ASH UK admitted she had pulled on the Govt to enforce the ban in 2007.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say they are naive given that they were also stupid enough to believe Tony Bliar's claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and could kill us all within 45 minutes - and the Libyan Lockerbie Bomber really deserved to be freed.

Over at the Devils in the Detail blog is tobacco control's new policy as promoting smokers as violent types who call for violence and death to politicians. The article also links to a disgusting poll calling for the final solution for smokers.

The above kind of talk, backed up with state discrimination and enforcement, and the lack of legislative protection for smokers in employment really frightens me but I'm relieved to see that this sort of blatant prejudice based on Govt-backed ideology has not gone unnoticed

Writing about the NICE quango, Simon Hills from the Times Magazine acknowledges outrageous claims began When the government decided they were entitled to vilify smokers

I've also written before about the treatment of smokers, and outcasting them as sub human species of less intelligence, to the years before WW2 and the persecution of German citizens who were Jewish. I've been heavily criticised for that but I'm not the only one to find sinister comparisions.

The Angry Exile wrote an incisive piece about that HERE

He also blames state-backed legislation for allowing this to happen with public support.

It's not just legislative attacks specifically targeting them that they need to worry about, but also this foaming hatred whipped up by the constant process of denormalising, demonising and dehumanising smokers. What should give all of us pause for thought is that if you change just the last word of that sentence to Slavs or Jews or Poles it could have come from a history book on the 1930s, and if those times are any guide we haven't seen the end of this. Wikipedia notes that "The Holocaust was accomplished in stages. Legislation to remove the Jews from civil society was enacted years before the outbreak of World War II.

Old people who fought in that war, people who have embraced fair restrictions over the years, mothers, fathers, grandparents, other people's adult children, business owners, pub landlords, nurses, doctors, journalists, office workers, land workers, the rich and the poor all smoke. They do not deserve to be to be cut off from their fellow citizens

If the Govt is serious about equality and cementing community relations, and it wants people to take it's Big Society ideology seriously, then it could begin by encouraging inclusion rather than exclusion of people who smoke.

It should also recognise that smokers are voters too and turn back this prejudicial and bigoted tide of hatred that it's anti-smoker laws encourage.

According to Forest Eireann spokesman, John Mallon, tobacco control policies should be amended so they “are fair for everyone, smokers and non-smokers alike”.

Who can fail to agree with that if they truly believe that prejudice, hate and discrimination, are bad for the health of cohesive and fair societies?

FOR ROBERT

Robert S - I was going to write a post on this for clarification but as you are here ... and as I've now found the comments section won't let me post this much, I have to post it here anyway.

I really do know that we won't agree. Every debate I've ever had with people who feel as strongly as you against smokers and tobacco and people like me who feel strongly about my right to be left alone in peace to smoke if I choose - without being outcast - has just gone on and on.

Someone with your views used to post here a lot and it just wore me down to the point where I didn't want to blog anymore.

I felt under siege, even though the person hadn't intended to make me feel like that but no matter what we discussed, it ended up coming back to the same point. I thought he was an intolerant anti who wanted to world to himself - he thought I was a selfish smoker who had no social rights at all.

I found endless debates to endless comments took far too much time out of my day and it wasn't good for my health.

Inevitably, I've also found, that two very strong opposing views will end up as a slanging match. I'm as guilty as anyone for that.

Your own personal experiences of tobacco do not mirror my own. I guess we're all different. I would not trust Big Tobacco. It is not my friend nor the friend of any smoker. It has done nothing for us in this battle. My guess is that because smoking bans show more people take up smoking.

(I suggest for stats and figures on this sort of claim you should visit
the Velvet Glove, Iron Fist blog linked on the blogroll to the left)

Big T, however, is not the smoker's enemy like the anti-smoking industry which actively works to cause smokers to be shunned and avoided in their communities. I am not the only one who says this "war" has moved from the industry to the consumer.

The anti-smoker industry - made up of fake charities like ASH and Smoke Free, businesses that make No Smoking signs, and Big Pharma also commission false studies, and tell lies (look up how deceptive ASH was about the cost of the tobacco display ban which was gained by an FoI request.)

The anti-smoker industry now competes directly with Big T to supply the smoker with nicotine - which btw, you can find in everyday vegetables as well but this is never promoted because it would detract from the "Smoker as addict" aspect of "Denormalisation". A tool about as ethical in use for Public Health as water boarding is to interrogation.

I too have done my research over a lifetime, and more particularly the last 10 years, and based more on what I think from my own experiences as a lifelong, third generation tobacco consumer. I hate Big T so much, I am investigating the possibility of growing my own.

The reason I write here about intolerance and the danger of following such anti-smoker ideology so blindly, is because no matter what you or I believe about tobacco, our views or rights, can both be accommodated by choice - separate venues, segregation etc...

I've never argued to be "allowed to smoke where ever I like" but I do ask for tolerance and a place to go with other smokers. I really fail to see how this is "wrong" or "selfish" unless as I suspect, this is not about health but hatred of smokers, enforced ideology, social engineering, and the death of a culture that has been with us for thousands of years.

Tobacco is a herb. It is used in many medicinal treatments - There is a post further down below this one about some of the ailments which moderate tobacco use can help which includes endimetriosis (I'm sure that's spelled wrongly for an MA but I tend to leave these things to show that I am not perfect nor pretend to be) and irritable bowel syndrome - and tobacco as an ingredient in travel sickness pills.

Incidentally, the reason I carry insulting tag lines like "twat, lying twat," or "bastards" is because that is usually my first thought when I read the latest piece of anti-smoker propaganda.

It's also in honour of the sweary bloggers like the now finished Mr Eugenides and Obnoxio The Clown, and the Devil's Kitchen - all of whom are far more creatively profane that I could ever hope to be.

And thanks for thinking that someone might listen to me but for those sort of tags - I actually think no one is listening at all to any smoker and there is the reason I keep shouting even though no one pays me, I lose work because of it, and I am not following my ambitions because this very acrimonious political issue bogs me down.

When the anti-smoker industry backs off with its junk science, daily abusive propaganda calling for more smoker exclusion, and its generalisation that tobacco kills and smokers harm others, then I hope I'll be able to get my life back and stop blogging.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The Emperor’s new beer

I’ve argued before that bottled ales of sub-5% strength gain nothing in practice from bottle-conditioning, and that the quality control of those produced by micro-breweries is so inconsistent that buying them is an unacceptable lottery. This was certainly the recent experience reported by Paul Bailey here. A couple of years ago I won a bottle of Marble Lagonda IPA at a CAMRA raffle which hadn’t cleared after two weeks’ storage and ended up being poured down the sink, which rather illustrates the problem.

To put this to the test, I recently bought three bottle-conditioned beers from local micro-breweries for sampling. I thought I should give the Lagonda IPA (5.0% ABV) another chance, and also went for Bollington Best and Wincle Sir Philip (both 4.2%).

Now, it must be said that none of these proved to be a disaster – they didn’t fob uncontrollably, and I was able to pour all three and get the beer in the glass either crystal clear or with only a slight haze. However, none exhibited the lively natural carbonation that I would expect if a beer had actually conditioned in the bottle, and all had a somewhat yeasty flavour that I find offputting in a beer. Although the haziest of the three, the Lagonda IPA was the best, with a strong hop flavour trying to get out as well, whereas the Sir Philip was very lacklustre and forgettable.

So personally, the idea of getting a bottle of flattish, slightly murky beer with a yeasty flavour that I have to be very careful pouring doesn’t really appeal, and so to me such beers are actually inferior to the better brewery-conditioned ones. This reinforces my view that, in seeking to promote bottle-conditioning as a superior option for everyday drinking beers, CAMRA is very much barking up the wrong tree. Even to the discerning customer, it’s just not worthwhile. It’s a case of the Emperor’s new clothes. It does, though, work better for stronger special beers over 5%.

In comparison, I recently had a bottle of Worthington White Shield which, while still a bit sweeter than I would like, had the yeast stay stuck to the bottom of the bottle and demonstrated good carbonation and a dense, rocky head. The same was true of the two from Wells & Youngs that I tried last year, although regrettably I’ve not seen the Special London Ale in local outlets recently.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

HERE COME THE FOOD POLICE



Oh dear. It looks like the Food Police are not far away because according to the Devil's Kitchen, NuToryLimpDump health persecutor, Andrew Lansley, is now ordering us to eat what we're told.

I said ages ago - before the blanket smoking ban - that if they got away with that, then next they would be telling restaurants and cafes what they can and cannot put on their menus.

I had no idea that we already had some food classed as "illegal".

Personally, I've never fancied haggis nor blow fish, but each to his or her own.

It looks like the NuConservatives are showing themselves up to be the same as Nulabour when it comes to controlling every aspect of our lives.

I can only hope people vote more wisely next time and abandon them. One place to show them you've had enough is at the ballot box for the council elections in May - if the AV system of voting doesn't screw us up and further cement the British Dictatorship.

I'm not sure about that. I need to do a lot more research before I make my mind up about whether I'm yes or a no. My instinct urges me to say no because AV is neither here nor there.

If the Limp Dumps were serious about electoral reform they should have pushed for PR as they always have done until getting to power. I'm suspicious of their motives so I'm rather persuaded by the "better the devil you know that the devil you don't" stance.

Anyways, Bon Apetite, I'm off to enjoy my Sunday lunch full of all kinds of stuff that would give Lansley's Bully Nudge a heart attack - while I still can of course.

I know that one day I'll have to get used to Tofu and water. That's all that will be allowed to consume if this constant assault on our own personal freedom of choice does not end soon.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Old Mudge’s Almanack

Following Pete Robinson’s gloomy but all-too-realistic prognostications I thought I would peer into my own crystal ball and see what it revealed for the British pub and beer scene in twenty years’ time…
  • In 2010 there were 14.2 million on-trade barrels sold in the UK, and 12.7 million off-trade barrels. By 2030 that has declined to 5 million on-trade barrels, whereas the off-trade has increased to 15 million barrels, an overall decline in beer volume of about 25%.
  • The pub stock has not quite halved, from 50,000 to 26,000, but many of those that remain concentrate overwhelmingly on food and in practice sell little beer. (Pete Robinson underestimates the ability of pubs to metamorphose into things that aren’t really pubs)
  • Most traditional “all-purpose” pubs in suburbs, small towns, villages and the countryside have disappeared. The “pubs” that remain are mostly town centre canteens of the Wetherspoon type, urban style bars and suburban and rural dining pubs that are restaurants in all but name.
  • Specialist beer pubs continue to do well in some locations, but there aren’t really many more than there are today, and attempts to jump on that particular bandwagon by chain operators usually end in failure.
  • Pubs continue to do quite well in central London and middle-class urban enclaves, which means that the catastrophic decline across the country at large remains largely unheeded by journalists.
  • Wetherspoons have 2,000 pubs in the UK, and account for almost 20% of total on-trade drink sales. They are hailed as one of the great continuing success stories of British business.
  • The smoking ban is never rescinded, and indeed further restrictions are imposed which prevent smoking within 20 feet of external doors, and ban roofs on smoking areas. This effectively makes pubs complete no-go areas for smokers except when they need to eat a meal when out of the house.
  • A few years into the future, although not immediately, a 50mg drink-driving limit is introduced. Although widely predicted to only have a marginal effect, this results in a one-off 10% fall in the wet sales of pubs outside central London.
  • At some stage, something approximating to a 50p/unit minimum alcohol price is introduced. This causes a short-term 2% downward blip in off-trade sales, but no discernible increase in sales in pubs. In the following years, there is a marked increase in the involvement of organised crime in the alcohol trade. High-profile government “crackdowns” have no effect.
  • A “progressive beer tax” is brought in that increases duty per alcohol unit for every 1% strength increment above 3.5% ABV. This means there is very little beer sold above 4.5% ABV. All of the recognised “premium brands” from Abbot to Stella have been reformulated at 4.5%.
  • Half of the current regional and family brewers have left the business, and those that remain concentrate on premium packaged ales (usually, for environmental reasons, now sold in cans) with small pub estates as a sideline and showcase.
  • The international brewers still have no significant stake in cask or premium packaged ales.
  • The sheer scale of the decline of pub beer sales reverses the growth of micro breweries, but some of the stronger new/micro breweries become successful, enduring businesses and account for a third of remaining cask sales.
  • CAMRA has recently recruited its 200,000th member. Within the total of 5 million on-trade barrels, cask ale has exceeded a 20% market share for the first time in a generation. This is hailed as a great success.
A gloomy forecast? Undoubtedly, and I sincerely hope I’m wrong. But if you think I’m being far too pessimistic, then tell me what you think will happen, and let’s see who’s proved right. You could start by having a go at the current poll on what will happen to on-trade beer sales in 2011.

Of course, it should also be noted that forecasts based on an extrapolation of current trends invariably fall foul of a flock of black swans.

A crafty pint

Well, my not entirely serious poll asking what people thought of “craft beer” has come to an end. There were 68 responses, broken down as follows:

A useful term for quality beer made with care: 22 (32%)
A pretentious concept invented by beer snobs: 46 (68%)

So pretty much a 2:1 split there. The subject has been done to death on various blogs, so all I’ll add is my definition given in the comments to a previous post that craft beer is “beer brewed with the deliberate intention of appealing to beer enthusiasts.” And, putting my traditionalist hat on, “craft beer” as currently understood excludes pretty much everything that CAMRA was set up to defend in 1971.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

PASSION DISMISSED BY INTOLERANCE



Simon Clark reports today that the push for outdoor smoking bans in the UK has begun in earnest after Mayor Bloomsberg's announcement that all smokers are to be barred from everywhere - including the wide open air in New York.

Most people think this is a step too far to take from civil liberties, others are outraged at the sheer misrepresentation of YouGov's bigoted study by anti-smoker Peter Kellner. I'm a mixture of sad, suicidal and scared - but heartened by the calls for direct action at last.

I wait to hear when the march is and where. Those better at organising than I am might be able to sort this out. I hope so. I'm there with as many people as I can muster and I feel there will be many. This is a threat too far.

I've tried to explain here why I'm so passionate about choice and the current war on people who chose to smoke which is leading societies into dangerous places and, in my view, backwards socially.

This issue - which I have now been involved with politically for 10 years - six before the blanket ban - has made me question everything I've ever believed about this country, fairnesss, equality, discrimination, justice, tolerance and socialism.

It has taken everything that was instilled in me as a member of the post war generation, that was absolutely adamant that it did not want fascism to rear it's ugly head again, and shown me that socially moral right and wrong have got all mixed up in a whiplash of propaganda enforced trend and fashion.

I remember my old headteacher, a former RAF WW2 pilot, and the assemblies we used to have. He told us that Britain was great because we were a free country where no one could tell us what to eat or drink or when we should go to the toilet. He said ours was the greatest nation on earth because we had free choice. He pointed to bad examples of other countries like Russia, Poland, Hungary, and said they were ruled by Govts that told them what to do all the time. Govts have no place in people's lives, he said.

I know my children's generation was the first to have the anti-smoking message so firmly implanted in their psyche and I always supported education about the health risks associated with smoking. My children, at least, got balance in the home and saw and experienced that smoking was nothing to fear. Balanced information about the health risks and the reasons people choose to smoke didn't result in any of my children taking up the habit before they were legally old enough to do so. Only one is a smoker of four.

I doubt balance on this issue would occur to never smokers, or ex-smokers, or anyone 20 years ago when the one sided propaganda nature of this issue began to trouble me a lot. I think the generation of school children after mine was the first to be taught how "filthy, selfish and unhealthy" smokers are and how they are to be feared - like the plague.

That's when it began to turn from health education to nasty slander and abuse. Some people appear to have no interest in this debate other than to dive in and goad smokers for fun. They throw insults like daggers but then get all indignant and innocent when smokers answer back in kind.

They call passionate debate "foaming at the mouth" because they either don't have any passion or they are so inward looking they cannot believe people can be passionate about something they dislike. Equating passion for a cause with ranting is also a good way of undermining reasonable debate. Perhaps they go in there to have fun at our expense which is just plain mean and infantile - perhaps they work for anti-smoker lobby groups and aim to negate what we say just in case someone in Govt is listening.

It feels as if our lives are about as worthless to that sort of person as women campaiging for the vote was to those anti-suffragette's who thought women's right's activists had no reason to complain



As the anti-smoker of modern day life gains some sort of sadistic pleasure from insulting smokers, so did those anti-women voters of 1908. Just look at how they glorified and giggled at images of women being force fed in jail. I am sure the "majority" of people of that time scoffed at these women campaigning for the vote as "silly" too.



This issue in the 21st Century is as important to me as the issue of women's rights in the 20th Century, Civil Rights in the USA in the 1960s, and gay rights in the 1980s. Those who allege to "care" about injustice languish in this sort of history believing it can never happen again in enlightened society. They really should take a long hard look in the mirror to make sure they are not staring bigotry and intolerance in the face.

Govts are ignoring our modern social tragedy by encouraging discrimination, exclusion and isolation of a minority group which is passionate about its beliefs while holding it up for public contempt with the full backing of the law.

Smokers need not "harm" anyone else with choice and that is the bottom line if you believe the scam about SHS. Personally, I believe F2C because there is no money in it for them when they say that their survey showed only 7% of people believed SHS was a threat.

Whatever my beliefs or anti-smoker's beliefs, the fact is both sides of what has become a very acrimonious debate can be accommodated through choice, balance and fairness. In a modern tolerant society there is no place for hysterical propaganda designed to promote exclusion. That should have been left behind last century once and for all. We cannot call ourselves "progressive" otherwise.

More restrictions if they come will cause further isolation but they won't make one lifelong smoker quit. This blanket ban is not about health. It is about hate and profit and it depends for its income on some of the most vulnerable people in this country - the easy to get at - the poor and the old.

It may take the same kind of drastic action as throwing myself under the Queen's horse at Ascot to make this ignorant Govt finally sit up and just listen to the other side of this debate - and there are always two. If the outdoor ban and the rest follow, frankly, this is not a country I would want to live in nor a society I would want to live among.

Decline and fall

As usual, Pete Robinson, writing in The Publican, pulls no punches in a trenchant and sadly all too realistic analysis of the parlous state of the British pub trade.

There never was any demand for non-smoking pubs so the industry will never find it possible to replace it's dwindling customer base. Nor is there sufficient demand to support 40-odd thousand food-led pubs. It's market forces, plain as.

So with the trade not even campaigning for any amendment to the law we'll see our once-great pub culture wither and die over the next 10 years. At best we'll be left with a few chains of managed, town-centre food pubs-come-coffee-houses, basically Wetherspoon-clones, totaling around 12,000 in all.


Sure we'll attempt to rebuild and one day in the distant future new pubs will again be built and old one's converted back from flats, shops and Indian restaurants. But they'll just be bars and food halls, a mere parody of what once was, like those 'English Pubs' that litter the streets of Benedorm.

We'll never recapture that quintessential time-honoured character that made British pubs unique - the envy of the world. Much of that's already gone, ever since we threw open our doors to the forces of political correctness. We lost something very special the day when we allowed the State behind the bar. It's one reason why the customers have been drifting away.

Countless previous generations have cherished this trade before handing it safely down to the next. To our shame we may be the last generation to remember what a real pub was like. In years to come your own son may be writing a dissertation on how the Great British pub disappeared into the pages of history.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Another one bites the dust

I was taken aback, although not entirely surprised, to see the Four Heatons pub on Didsbury Road in Heaton Norris boarded up during the course of yesterday. In the morning, going to work, it still looked open. In the evening, returning home, the boards had gone up.

It is (or was) one of two pubs within easy walking distance of my house, although not the one I tended to frequent. It was built in 1971 as the Moss Rose to replace an old pub of the same name further down towards Stockport town centre. Despite the unprepossessing modernist exterior inside it was more congenial and comfortable than you might have expected.

It was built with separate cellars for mild and bitter, and I remember many years ago being taken down into the cellars by the licensee and being shown the impressive rows of barrels (and I mean barrels) on the stillages. Twenty years ago it was thriving and shifting large quantities of Hydes Light and Bitter through electric meters. More Light than Bitter too in those days. Unfortunately after that it started to go downhill, not helped by one or two licensees who struggled to get a grip on it.

In the early 2000s, in an attempt to revitalise its fortunes, it was renamed the Four Heatons and given a surprisingly smart refurbishment, although the exterior still didn’t give a proper impression of what was inside. However, this didn’t seem to do much to stem its long-term decline, and recently it always seemed very quiet, so its final closure in hindsight looks inevitable. There comes a point where you start to sense the “smell of death” about a pub. Note the smoking shelter on the right-hand side which was added post-2007.

Apparently the site is now to be redeveloped as flats. This now means that for a substantial area of housing, much of which is quite prosperous, there is now no pub within half a mile.

JOIN THE RESISTANCE








The Ash Hotel in Manchester has been murdered by the smoking ban and had one last act of defiance on it's last night of opening.

It's a real shame that pubs were manipulated to believe the lies from the anti-smoker industry and terrified into submission by bullying Govt threats of prosecution after the Nationalisation of pubs in July 2007.

It's also tragic that an alleged "free market" party like the Conservatives have continued state ownership of private property after the Communist NuLabour Party was booted out because people didn't like it's sanctimonious stance on health and it's horrendous waste of NHS cash on misleading advertising designed to incite hatred against smokers.

The champagne socialists used the patronising excuse that it was "for The Poor" when the "The Poor" frankly want to be left alone.

Life in poverty is difficult enough without the rich telling you what you can spend that limited amount on. They want "The Poor" to be sat at home, as miserable as sin, spending their pittance income - sometimes as little as £50 a week - on food when it doesn't even cover that. The poor are not even allowed to watch TV for fear of prison for not having a licence to fund misinformation and Govt propaganda on the BBC

NuLabour made "The Poor" the enemy with more than 3000 new laws designed to keep them in their place, stopped them from doing whatever they could to make money, bureaucratised them out of job opportunities, stopped them from having any fun possible, while they excluded them from pubs - the one release from the hell that is having nothing - through a blanket smoking ban that no one wanted and just to be sure that the "The Poor" would be excluded, they hiked up tax on beer to ensure that only the rich could enjoy them.

A comment from Xopher on the post about how the bigots are pushing for smokers to be banned from employment explains better than I could about how smoking bans and other lifestyle restrictions are prohibition of "The Poor".

... Dave says he wants us to get together save our local pubs BUT with Government demanding so much tax from drink sales, how can we support a venture that are denied the opportunity to cater for the whole community and only the wealthy can afford. Pubs were an essential for the whole community but now appear to be exclusively for the rich who can afford Government's imposed inflated taxes/prices.

There is something, just a little thing, but something we can do. We can all join the Resistance. Go over to the Nothing2Declare blog and see about getting some stickers or posters and put them out and around where you live next to No Smoking signs - the ones that are as ugly as a Nazi swastika - or on smoking bins, noticeboards, where ever you can reach those who are feeling isolated and alone, maybe because they are too poor to even afford a computer to go online and link up with other like-minded people fighting UK state oppression.

It is time there was some balance in this debate and maybe when enough of these stickers begin to appear, even the main stream media will no longer be able to ignore us, commercial enterprises will see they are backing the wrong cause, and local councils will learn that we will not take any more restrictions.

If you've had enough of this nonsense, then show it. Join The Resistance!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Going out in a blaze of glory

A big local pub, the Ash Hotel on Manchester Road in Heaton Norris, closed its doors for the last time on Sunday 16 January. I’m reliably informed that on the final night the air inside was thick with tobacco smoke. Good to see such an act of defiance, and it shows the demand is still there. And I bet more than half the customers were non-smokers who weren’t bothered by it. Hopefully the local Tobacco Control Officer wouldn’t be so vindictive as to attempt a prosecution, but if he had no doubt the former licensee could have snapped back “and what are you going to do about it? Close me down?”

Indeed, given the current local council cutbacks, shouldn’t all the Tobacco Control Officers be signing on by now? Is that really more important than libraries, swimming pools and public toilets?

Fake fury

The BBC reports that there is a growing problem of “fake alcohol” being sold in off-licences. Apparently up to a quarter of licensed premises in some parts of the UK have been found to have counterfeit alcohol for sale. It rather jars, though, to hear this described as “fake alcohol”, when in reality it is mostly fake vodka, with some fake whisky and wine. Nobody ever goes into a shop and asks for “alcohol” – is this an example of a subtle campaign to paint alcohol as a generic drug rather than a vast spectrum of different beverages?

The report also ignores a rather large elephant in the room – why, do you think, is it so lucrative to sell fake alcoholic drinks in the UK? Here’s a clue: “Alcohol fraud costs the UK around £1bn a year in lost revenue, according to government estimates.” High taxes inevitably create an incentive for fraud.

And I heard someone saying on the radio this morning that one of the main problems with fake vodka was that it had a higher ethanol level than normal vodka. Given that ethanol=alcohol, it’s not really a problem for the purchaser. Anyway, if you want to avoid being hoodwinked, maybe the best way is to stick to beer. Or just don’t buy any wine or spirits from dodgy corner shops.

Monday, February 14, 2011

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY



The day for lovers doesn't always inspire romance in me. Yet again I've forgotten to get my other half a card which is pretty embarrassing as he's got me one and it's quite sweet.

This happened at Christmas as well, when he got me a card but I didn't get him one, and we decided on a solution then which saved Valentine's Day for us now. He signed one side of the card he bought and I signed the other - so one card between both us. What better way to show love than by sharing.

SMOKER DISCRIMINATION AT WORK



SAD Ireland thinks smoker job discrimination is a huge social step backwards and so do most right thinking people except those blinded by anti-smoker hatred.

I heard about the legal discrimination of smokers at work reported in the New York Times but the Stand FAST blog has taken a deeper look into the problem of discrimination in the workplace against smokers.

It seems that many "healthcare" (I use that word loosely because although these zealots may work in health, they certainly don't care) employers have moved from attacking smoking to smokers themselves. It's all part of the wider "Denormalisation" plan that promotes "Smokers as employer liabilities".

Not only have they refused to hire smokers - who may only smoke in their own time - but they are also threatening to sack any smoker who doesn't quit and force them to take urine tests to detect traces of a legal product:

...the “No Smokers Need Apply” policies are not restricted to new hires. In some instances, employers are demanding that smokers quit their habit or face the prospect of unemployment. In some cases, employers are demanding urine tests, intended to detect traces of nicotine, a perfectly legal substance, from those seeking employment and, in some cases, from those who may already be employed who want to keep their job.

These employers, which include the American Lung Association, the American Cancer Society and a growing number of hospital and health care facilities, believe they have a right to dictate what activities employees may indulge in their free time.

The anti-smoker zealots justify these gross intrusions into the personal lives of potential employees (and existing employees) by pointing out the need to “increase worker productivity, reduce health care costs and encourage healthier living.”

The (New York) Times article insinuates that the shift from smoke-free workplaces to smoker free workplaces is a new phenomena. “The policies reflect a frustration that softer efforts — like banning smoking on company grounds, offering cessation programs and increasing health care premiums for smokers — have not been powerful-enough incentives to quit.”

But, in fact, the uncompromising vindictiveness of the zealots has been characteristic of the euphemistically named “tobacco control” movement from the very beginning. They have carefully crafted a propaganda campaign which portrays smokers as social misfits - addicts, aggressively spreading their contagion to a non-smoking population and jeopardizing the lives of children.

Offering jobs to non-smokers only is increasing in the UK as well and the Govt is doing nothing to protect smokers from such blatant discrimination. I'd like to know if they really think we are incapable of doing our jobs because we are smokers. After all, who the hell won two world wars, built the first tank, and engineered just about every great thing this country has ever been known for? Smokers of course because back in our glory days most people did it.

In The UK, things have moved further towards "quit or jail". The first piece of the plan is likely to be put in place in a couple of days when a bigoted council in Suffolk decides whether to impose a "fine or quit" policy on those it harasses in the street or at work.

None of this is ultimately about health - it's about hate. For me and many other smokers, it's not about smoking - it's about the right to be left alone to live in peace without fear or prejudice.

Is there no Govt that will give us that at least?

UPDATE - StandFAST reports that non-smoking employee spouses of smokers are also contagious. I think the aim is to break up marriages by such covert means so that smokers will be isolated further. Divorce or quit is also a strong quit motivator to some.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

THE SHAME OF OLD EUROPEANS



The video above sent shivers down my spine as it recounts the memories of an old man from the Lakota Sioux Tribe talking about the Old Europeans who stole Native American land.

It appears they are making those from another tribe just as unhappy today as they did all those years ago. They want to enforce different cultural values on the Seneca Nation of Indians who don't want them and want to be left alone to decide their own policies for their own land and the people who inhabit it.

I often wonder what sort of place the US would be today if our former ancestors had not gone over there. I'm sure this modern paranoia and anti-smoker zealotry wouldn't exist because the Indians discovered the herb and used it to their advantage. They knew how to gain beneficial qualities from it.

Had the old Europeans not invaded the Indian Nations and claimed the land as their own, then there would have been no meeting of white men back in the 1960s with this vision of a smoke free America by the year 2000. There would have been no Surgeon General's Report kicking the whole thing off, and no scare-mongering campaigns to back it up and get the wider public onside while forcing smokers into a minority where they could be legally abused.

We can't go back in time but I honestly feel the Native Americans got a very raw deal out of it. I feel for those people of America whose lives are still affected by what happened to their ancestors and I wish that "fairness" "equality" and "justice" would stop being bandied about as "important" by those who actively work in the opposite.

Race to the bottom

Yesterday, the Manchester football Derby was screened on Sky TV at 12.45 pm. So I avoided going to the pub at all that lunchtime, as I expected them all to be full of raucous football supporters. I actually poked my nose around the door of one local pub at about 3.45, and it still was.

I have written before about how so many local pubs seem to be competing with each other in promoting live football and karaoke. I don’t deny that televised football has a strong following and draws many customers in, but on the other hand plenty of others have little or no interest in it. Licensees seem to take the view that if they don’t have it, they will lose trade, but across pubs as a whole many potential customers will be deterred, and of course Sky Sports costs pubs a huge amount of money. It’s a case of waiting for the other guy to blink first. As with many other things, surely a diversity in offer is in the interests of the pub trade as a whole, rather than everyone trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

It’s also very noticeable that most of the pubs that have closed recently have made increasingly desperate attempts to draw in customers by promoting cheap meals, karaoke and live footie.

Going to the pub is expensive compared with drinking at home, and if anything that differential is going to widen in the future. So, while it might seem a good idea in the short term, in the long run pitching your appeal at downmarket customers doesn’t look like a very sound business strategy.

(awaits tirade of faux laddery from Cooking Lager...)

Saturday, February 12, 2011

SHOULD PRISONERS HAVE THE VOTE?

Fancy a can?

Well, it seems that most readers don’t very much. I asked the question “Do you drink canned beer?” and the 76 responses broke down as follows:

No, never: 16 (21%)
Only when it's free: 18 (24%)
Yes, occasionally: 32 (42%)
Yes, regularly: 10 (13%)

Not a huge wave of enthusiasm there, although 55% were at least occasionally willing to fork out their own money for canned beer, and only 21% would refuse a can if offered one at a friend’s house or party.

I’m not trying to be a cheerleader for cans – and my answer was “occasionally” – but it is worth pointing out that cans do have advantages over bottles in terms of better recyclability, lower weight (thus reducing transport costs), more space-efficient storage and protecting beer from light.

If the taste issue can be overcome, which my recent sampling of Courage Directors suggests is possible, then I can see an increasing number of “quality” beers appearing in can in the future, although there are still a lot of preconceptions to overcome. As on other issues, BrewDog are putting their nose out in front – it will be interesting to see how many readers will be trying canned Punk IPA once it hits the shops.

WEAK LEADER BULLIED TO QUIT



So Barak Obama has given into his wife's henpecking and decided to quit smoking. I don't know about anyone else but I think the world is in danger from a man who has shown himself to be thoroughly gutless and weak.

If he can't stand up to his own wife, and if he abandons his pleasures because of being bullied, then it begs the question who the hell is in charge of the US at present?

I'll bet Iran is tittering now it has evidence that this world leader is a pathetic coward incapable of making his own decisions. He's proved himself to be an easy target in a cissy country that's terrified of a wisp of smoke.

Americans should be very afraid. Obama can't stand up for himself so what hope that he can make the right decisions for his nation. Perhaps he has to ask his wife first if she approves.

Encouragement of bullying as a tool to beat smokers is featured here in the Independent

The sound of scolding and tut-tutting from the ranks of the concerned has become tedious. We know that smoking is bad for the health, but it is also true that people make choices in their lives involving the balance between risk and pleasure. It is not obligatory to put safety and longevity before all other considerations in daily life. These people are not lesser citizens, only different from the majority.

I agree. Lesser citizens are those too terrified to stand on their own two feet, make their own decisions, or are easily nagged into submission.

I fear for the state and safety of the world.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Market daze

A feature of the old-style licensing laws was that they gave leeway for towns to permit extended lunchtime opening on market days. Leafing through the 1979 edition of the Good Beer Guide, I found a number of examples of this – all in the South Midlands, with a particular concentration in Herefordshire. In Banbury, Kington and Ross-on-Wye, pubs could open until 4 pm instead of 2.30 on Thursdays, in Ledbury until 4 pm on Tuesdays, in Leominster until 5 pm on Fridays, and in sleepy Bromyard all day on Thursdays. I remember as a student in Birmingham making a Thursday expedition by train to Banbury to take advantage of their extended hours, but I wonder to what extent these extensions were really used back then, as opposed to being a hangover from a bygone age. I doubt whether the streets of Bromyard were full of drunks at 6 pm on a Thursday.

It’s also interesting that – broadly speaking – lunchtime closing was 2.30 pm in the South and Midlands, and 3.00 pm in London and the North. A few towns such as Northampton and Worcester even had 2 pm lunchtime closing. Around here, Rochdale was unusual in still having 2.30 pm closing, whereas a few places in the South Lancs coalfield such as Atherton and Westhoughton were 3.30 pm. 3.30 or 4 pm closing seems to have been common in South Wales. Across much of the South and West of England, morning opening was 10 pm. Nowadays, few people would contemplate going in a pub for a drink before 11.30, and many pubs don’t open until noon, if that. So what was the difference in social conditions ninety years ago that meant 10 am opening would be considered reasonable or necessary as part of a measure whose overall effect was to restrict access to alcohol?

Craft beer

“Craft beer” is a label given by beer snobs to beer that they feel entitled to be snobbish about. Discuss...

Thursday, February 10, 2011

PREJUDICES PROVED WRONG



I guess the anti-smokers would look at Ignacio Cubilla Banos and say he is living proof that smoking add years to your skin. I'm just as sure that they would conveniently omit that he's just celebrated his 111th birthday.

I found this piece of news on the F2C blog included in the chairman's newsletter.

F2C reports that while a tobacco company supports a real charity - the Leonard Cheshire Foundation - ASH the fake charity is throwing it's dummhy out of the pram because it can't get a ban on the display and ultimate ban on sales of tobacco. They have to get one first before they can move forward to the next stage - and there will be a next stage.

I was also intrigued to read that "smokers as arsonists" is the next part of the Denormalisation plan as Fire Safe Cigarettes are pushed forward. Odd that as it seems chip fires are at least a major cause of most fires in Hull at least but this has been overlooked.

Thanks are due to Coun Carl Minns (I love that man) who challenged the local fire brigade about this and said :

In addition, and unfortunately, the release seems to downplay the main causes of accidental fires to highlight the dangers of smoking.

Yes indeed. This one sided war against first smoking and now smokers could well teach the next generation to fear nothing but tobacco and it's consumers while dismissing all other health and safety dangers in their lives.

Frankly, balance on this issue seriously needs to be addressed for the good of everyone.

Only the other day I wrote about how the BBC infuriates me for its inability to give both sides on this issue. I said the New York outdoor ban was an example. The state propaganda organ said everybody loved it and the public would enforce it but it didn't report how it would affect people who didn't agree with it.

It's a good job that someone did (H/T JRedhead Girl)

I could write a lot about this but maybe I'll revisit it another day. It's late.

ANTI-SMOKER PREJUDICE



Anti-smoker prejudice is littered in the comments section of this article in the Daily Mail about women, apparently, smoking to lose weight.

The rise in obesity with the decline in smoking rates is probably worthy of debate but it's degenerated into open season on smokers. Prejudicial antis who haven't got a clue and make ridiculous statements like only smoking causes lung cancer can only add "stupid, inconsiderate, smelly, selfish, pathetic addict ..." into the mix.

It gets so tiresome and I can't be bothered to respond these days. It's like trying to teach algebra to toddlers. Smokers who do know what they are talking about certainly come out as the more rational side of the argument.

Another anti thinks we should all go out jogging everyday, like her no doubt, and she feels justified in her suggestion that smokers are "ugly."

I haven't read them all but I did flag up one comment for abuse - the first I saw. There is more verbal thuggery in there and perhaps some contenders for Dick Puddlecote's anti-smoker psycho page. I could have picked my way through the 42 comments but for being busy today and to absorb such hate gets quite exhausting and upsetting after a while.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

BIGOTRY TO RULE LINCOLN?




According to Big Brother Watch NuToryLimpDump junior health minister Ann Milton is giving local councils the power to further socially exclude smokers which is really bad news in my bigoted city.

pRick Metcalfe - former NuLabour council leader and now in the minority since his prejudicial party got booted into touch - is bound to push for this. He's a real nasty piece of work who hates smokers.

About five years before the blanket ban, there was much unhappiness here when a local hall was refurbished - because PRick's council had let it get to such a bad state following a lack of investment - and the council decided to ban smoking in it once it was done up.

One of the reasons they gave for this move was one of the most ridiculous I've ever heard. One councillor - a stupid woman whose name escapes me - said the council had done this to protect the chiiiildren. She said because the hall would be used at night for live acts, and for school workshop groups by day, then it was too much of a risk to their health when people had been smoking the night before.

Many people were furious about this including me. I wrote to PRick Metcalfe and he never even bothered to reply. I wrote again. Again nothing. I was so incensed by his lack of response that I wrote to my council chief executive and said as a local council tax payer I was entitled to a response.

I wanted to know why smoker tax payers' needs had been ignored. After all, our tax also helped to pay for this refurbishment and it seemed to me that the least they could do for us was to create a designated place somewhere inside. We'd paid for that right.

PRick's response was that if I was such an addict and couldn't do without a smoke for the length of a performance then I had no business complaining. Charming. I sent him loads of stuff from Forest about the fraud that is SHS plus the actual ONS survey which showed that the majority preferred choice to an outright blanket public smoking ban. You may recall that the thoroughly corrupt Nulabour party turned these figures around to suit it's own ideology to enforce the ban upon a public that didn't want it.

PRick dismissed this by saying only Forest was saying this and they were liars. Charming. A real fair and unbiased man of the people this one.

For me professionally this exclusion was disastrous. My political beliefs about choice meant I had to withdraw when a local "community" group wanted to use my book Devils Let Loose about the Lincoln riots of 1911. I had given them permission to use my copyright (thanks NB) on condition that I could be involved in the writing of the play they planned to base on it.

At this time there was nothing in the pipeline for the hall and it was decided the play would be staged at the local University. It was non-smoking but I had no problem with a private building setting its own policy. When it was announced that the hall would be finished in time for the play, the group decided to hold it there and I had a problem. It was a public hall that I had helped to pay for and I asked the group if they would hold a ballot of members to see how they felt about it.

I was told not to be "so silly". They said : "Everyone knows the hall is non-smoking and if they had a problem they'd say." I still asked for a vote to be held and if they all agreed the place was suitable even as a non-smoking public venue, then I'd accept it and carry on. At least they had been given the choice.

The idiots in the group said no. I had no choice but to back off and disassociate myself. They stole my work, changed the title to Devils Let Loose? and decided the question mark after the title made it their own work and they did not have to credit me or my work as the basis of the play thereafter.

They proved that "community" includes everyone - except smokers and those to whom choice is important. I had grounds to sue them for copyright theft, and I could have gained an injunction to stop the production in its tracks, but in England you can only use the law if you are rich and I am not so I lost out while they claimed all the credit for my work.

Of course I accept that they used my book as the basis and did a lot of their own work, but without it and without my title they would have had no starting point.

Of course we in Lincoln kicked out our former bigoted MP St Gillian of Merron because of Nulabour's stance on smoker exclusion and we hoped we might just get a fairer Govt instead. People were conned into thinking that the Tories were not nannies nor did they think it their business to tell people how to live their lives.

What we got was NuLabour in a different colour and a health department in bed with the fake charity ASH. Milton and her boss Andrew Lansley are so tucked up with Deborah Arnott one must ask if they are running a prostitution racket



Uuurrgghh - sorry - this pic makes my stomach churn too but it's necessary to show how corrupt this current health department is. Milton and Arnott couldn't be any closer unless they were snogging.

This despicable and fraudulent group's lies and propaganda - based on junk science paid for by Big Pharma corporations who compete with the tobacco industry to supply smokers with nicotine - has not only excluded people who don't want to quit, it is working furiously to criminalise them as well.

So I was completely uplifted today when I went to my doctors for a routine check up. I hadn't been in years because last time I got a bigoted nurse who told me I was a serial killer as well as a suicidal maniac because I smoked. The new nurse I saw was great. She told me the last one no longer worked in the practice after being asked to leave.

When the new nurse asked if I was still smoking I told her I smoked moderately for my health because as a lifelong smoker from the age of 8, I was scared to quit because the prognosis for lifelong smokers is worse if they quit than if they conitnue to smoke moderately. She agreed and completely understood how I feel as one who started smoking in childhood - when there was no protection for children - and who now resents being treated as an outcast as an adult when I could never have envisaged more than 40 years ago when I started what would happen when I was grown up.

Bigots like PRick, Lansley and Milton could never understand or empathise. They have no intellect and therefore have no business in positions of authority.

The only hope we have of getting these people out is in elections. Local council elections are coming up in May and we can show the LibLabCon that we have had enough by voting alternatively. For me it's UKIP - for many others in Lincoln too as I explained previously how many new members we have. That indicates to me that many more votes will also come our way and to help with that, I will be standing for anyone who supports choice, fairness and equality and is against corrupt and fraudulent institutions and quangos.

The day PRick loses his privileged position the better and the sooner fairness will return locally. The sooner we have a general election and the NuToryLimpDumps lose their seats because of their corrupt association with a fake charity, the better this country will be. Ours is the land of tolerance and fair play. It's such a shame that these bigots are working to erode our once decent society.