UKIP - ON THE UP

From 48 votes for the first UKIP candidate standing in a British election, to second in the last EU elections, second in the last parliamentary {by}election, and now with candidates standing across all local areas in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

It has become the party of the people - the ignored, the disaffected, the disadvantaged, the fed up, and the free. The above video tells the story of how UKIP has grown from a single issue fringe party to one that is gaining more popular support as the LibLabCon continues to let us down in all sorts of ways.

THE HEIR TO FARAGE?

UKIP Young Independence chairman Harry Aldridge on the future of UKIP.

UKIP PARTY POLITICAL BROADCAST

Definitely worth a watch where you will hear policy on the smoking ban, why UKIP wants out of the EU, and a call for real services to be saved while focussing less on propaganda issues.

Ye Olde Smoking Shelter

For a change, here are a couple of photos of a pub that is actually open, Robinson’s recently refurbished Tatton Arms at Moss Nook near Manchester Airport. In general, they’ve done a pretty good job of it, although as always a little of the former character has to be sacrificed to the demands of the modern world. However, the feature that really stands out is the elaborate, timber-framed smoking shelter tacked on to the south end of the pub, shown on the first picture.

No surprise there

Dunham Massey Vintage White, a 9.2% ABV barley wine in a 275ml bottle that I won in a raffle. Bottle-conditioned, so I let it stand in a dark cupboard for a full two weeks until it had cleared. Despite this, and exercising great care, it didn’t pour remotely clear. It was cloudy, flat and sour. Really, it should have gone straight down the sink, but I struggled through it, hoping to find some redeeming features. However, I didn’t. Yet another reinforcement of the principle that bottle-conditioned beers from micro breweries should be avoided like the plague. On the other hand, Dunham Massey do produce some excellent cask beers - perhaps they should stick to what they're good at.

PRE ELECTION HUSTINGS DEBATE

Oh dear. My photography skills are getting no better but these are the Lincoln City Council candidates who took part in the TUC against Cuts' hustings held in the city last night with the chairman sitting second from right, next to UKIP Birchwood candidate Tony Wells.

The chap at the end from the TUC against cuts spoke about nationalising everything, having more public sector workers, and cutting nothing. The lady next to him for the Greens used all the words and phrases that confound and annoy me like "Transition Town, Resilience," and of course "Diversity and Sustainability".

Both ideologies scared me because, in my opinion, too many public sector workers leads to further loss of individual freedom through over bureaucratisation, regulation, enforcement, criminalisation, and ultimately Sovietisation of the public whose lives they are meant to improve. I felt the Green's view was idealistic and not realistic and even if we all moved towards this fluffy environmentalists' view, it would be too costly and too exclusive of those who couldn't afford it.

They all ridiculed genuine UKIP concerns about the undemocratic EU influence and control over our economic and social policies and every day lives. The Human Rights Act came up but I never got to say that I was against it because of how it discriminates against who can have rights and who can't. As humans, we are all entitled to that right at birth. A lengthy and costly piece of paper, interpreted variously by different judges in different courts, doesn't prevent abuses of that birth right.

I also had a view on prisoner voting rights which I didn't get to put forward. On that one I'm torn. Nick Hogan was a political prisoner and I can see how denying prisoners votes could be abused by the state. However, when I think of those prisoners that I've seen go through courts after having done some of the worst kind of degradation and humiliation to other human beings, I'm drawn to denying them the rights their victims have been denied by their direct action.

The panel and audience stopped short of calling us racist or little englanders although the socialist used the word to describe the Daily Express. The Green lady pontificated about how the country was very insular before joining the EU. How Nationalism - or being proud of your own culture - was wrong and how we needed membership of the EU to be more integrated with European cultures and respect them more.

She didn't mention that we had the Common Wealth long before we had the EU and since our inception as a Nation we have always integrated, adapted to new cultures from Saxon to Norman, to Dane and Asian to the myriad of cultures that we respect in Britain today without the EU telling us how to - and creating the paperwork to go with it.

I also found it patronising as the daughter of an Italian who taught me to love Europe. I am anti EU because I love the diversity of different European nations and I fear that under the EU they will become one converged blob of blandness with miserable citizens being told how to be "happy" - with the relevant paperwork of course. The EU is just the middle man between Britain and her friends and neighbours in Europe and we don't need it.

Tony Wells came across as the most mature, practical, common sense and logical to me but then he probably would as we stand for the same Party. I agreed mostly with what he said. The audience was mostly hostile but then that was expected as they were made up of about 20 mostly young left wing students and public sector workers.

I went to give Tony support and add a bit of balance to the debates. My throat was dry and my voice was shaky but I hope that what I said came across comprehensibly. My other half - who tends to chunter on but won't get involved in politics - even had his say and quite enjoyed it.

The event was held in a local church hall. I don't know why the LibLabCon wasn't there but maybe it's representatives didn't think the public that important if it was only worth a potential handful of votes.

I'd promised to give one of the organisers a copy of my book about the working class riots in 1911. He was rolling a fag as I approached and so I thought I'd make him aware of our campaign. He didn't feel denormalised as a smoker but he certainly didn't want to be.

I was still in a bad mood after having a row with my other half in the car over a traffic issue so I may have ranted on a bit, and, well, everyone knows that once I get started on that issue ...

My other half has forthright views and swears but not as much as Obnoxio because it's the language that he knows and expresses himself in best. He was accused of being "aggressive" and "offensive" because he used the word "shit" in a church.

I think that today we can get too upset and offended when in heated debate but the answer is not to cry foul but throw back.

Angela Eaglen felt patronised in Parliament but she'd have come out of the spat with Cameron with more public respect if she had retaliated and put him in his place with a few well chosen words. Just imagine what Margaret Thatcher would have said and probably did when she entered the male dominated world of her chosen profession. Women who hide behind their gender are doing none of us any favours.

As for the Lincoln Hustings, the TUC against Cuts did a sterling job of organisation and I really enjoyed it. It was thought provoking, confidence building, and great experience. Perhaps our branch should set up the next one.

Some of the local candidates including yours truly were featured in the local paper today.

It'll be interesting to see what happens on May 5th.

TORIES SET THE BULLIES LOOSE

NuConservatism may be responsible for the new brand of bullying that the Govt is proposing for smokers but none of it is based on fact rather misinformation, propaganda and prejudice by a Govt that chooses to hate.

We know that the passive smoking fraud is fake and hyped up to achieve the ideological aim of a smoke free world and that third hand smoke is currently being invented to push further that fascist cause that has no basis in science but hatred of people who do something that others dislike or disapprove of.

Even alleged "respectable" and "caring" (ahem) "professional" organisations like Action on Smoking and Health have jumped aboard the third hand smoke bandwaggon in a bid to terrify ordinary people into thinking their neighbour's house is more harmful than the fall out from a nuclear explosion

And our Govt is happily taking these ideologically inspired frauds onboard with its plan to further isolate, denormalise and socially exclude smokers without bothering to listen to what we have to say about it in response or how it will affect our lives.

The report says :

"The evidence is clear that smokefree legislation has had beneficial effects on health. We also know that levels of compliance and public support for the law are high. The government believes that the aims of the legislation continue to be effectively achieved."

But what it omits is that the miracle drop post ban heart attack study was manipulated to order and has since been found to be false and dismissed as junk science by proper epidemiologists who are fed up at their work being misrepresented and manipulated by those who know nothing about correlation and causation.

Coun Carl Mimms is a humanist but no scientist and if he can get it, I fail to see how the Govt can't.

Carl, quoting his former science teacher, said :

"I can correlate the number of storks flying over Sweden to the number of births. That does not mean they caused the births."

So with no basis in science to further persecute life long smokers who choose not to quit, while boasting about a smoke free law that everyone loves and complies with, the Govt fails to mention it has only been achieved by threat, force, bankupting and jailing those "unbelievers" who questioned their democratic right to choose to exercise their own personal property rights.

Since the Govt effectively nationalised our pubs, cafes, bars, restuarants, it is no wonder that it now feels confident enough to go further and dictate to all of us what we can and can't do in our own homes:

"We will encourage local areas to create networks of local smokefree ambassadors at a community level to encourage people to make their homes and family cars smokefree. We will support local efforts to raise awareness and use behavioural change insights, for example around building positive social norms and through positively recognising people who protect their families and other people from secondhand smoke in their homes and family cars.

To support local efforts, we will work with national media to raise awareness of the risks in exposing children to secondhand smoke. The department of Health’s new marketing strategy for tobacco control will set out further details of how we will support efforts by local areas to encourage smokefree homes and family cars."

We all know what the word "support" means in this context. It means measures will be introduced to "enforce" this ideological aim by using an army of busybodies only too willing to door knock and harras smokers at home - especially if they get paid to do it.

Enforcement will not be immediate. They've started on the propaganda already. In five years time when Lansley forces us down to 18.5% of the population, it will be done by a drip feed effect of making ordinary people equate sexually abusing or beating a child with smoking within a mile of their presence which means neighbours will consider it their public duty to report smoking neighbours as smokers become more dehumanised and separated from the rest of society.

Hitler said something about how no woman would take the risk of her child’s life for freedom for someone else, and it makes me depressed that today's younger people, far removed from those times, are falling into the same kind of ideological propaganda trap which is using their children to get them on side.

One wonders how they'll feel when the Govt starts taxing chocolate and putting it in a plain pack covered with gross images of diseased, obese hearts, or the wine 'o clocks who will panic at every knock on the door when the time comes to equate parents who like an alcoholic drink to Joseph Fritzl.

Both of the above are a domino fall away now that the first on smoking and free choice has been pushed well and truly over.

Sales decline eases

There’s some consolation for the British brewing industry in the latest beer sales figures from the BBPA, which show that in the first quarter of 2011, the decline compared with the equivalent quarter last year had eased from 5.0% to 3.8%, with both on- and off-trade showing a similar reduction.

However, looking at the annualised figures, on-trade sales are still 6.5% down on the previous year and annual on-trade volumes are now only just above 14 million barrels. Let us see if April’s good weather and the run of four bank holidays give the pub trade a boost, or if the duty hikes in the Budget lead to a further downward spiral.

FASCISM GAINS GROUND

Australia's plain packaging punishment for lifelong smokers

I was a bit hasty the other day when I wrote the post further down criticising tobacco companies and Imperial Tobacco specifically for abandoning smokers.

Fellow leper ban fighter David Atherton emailed to say tobacco companies have been silenced by quango and self interest charities which have made the law preventing them from listening to smokers while ensuring they do as they are told by the anti-smoker industry.

This was confirmed, in softer language, by the representative from Imperial Tobacco who says he will submit a blog post here when he can.

He said :

"A lot of the work we do to support our consumers goes largely unnoticed because we don’t tend to talk about it. Of course, there are numerous rules and regulations that prevent us from communicating with our consumers effectively."

Perhaps I should be more patient but when you look at how fascism has gained such popular ground in Australia, where the smoker is the shit at the bottom of a "decent" society's shoe, it's no wonder that I'm getting frustrated at the lack of perceived action.

I still stand by my claim that all political parties - except UKIP - have abandoned the smoker and it terrifies me that mainstream politicians take such sadistic pleasure in punishing smokers and watching us squirm in the face of anti-smoker bigots who are lapping it all up.

Today I was outside an area of the local magistrates court that I hadn't been to before. Outside of the main entrance was a walkway with a wall along it. No Smoking swastikas littered it all the way along but it was completely in the open air. A patio area with trees was on one side and a wall was on the other. I got to the end and sat down well away from the door and not near enough to bother anyone walking past.

A security guard coming on duty approached me and told me it was against the law to smoke there and I had to go off the grounds completely. I told him it was not against the law because the Health Act 2006 relates to indoor areas and outdoor areas where cover is less than 50%.

He insisted it was The Law because a sign in the wide open air at the front of the building said so. I told him I was active in this field and it may be court imposed policy but it certainly was not The Law but I would not argue with him. I said for the sake of politeness I would move but I would be writing to the Clerk of the Court to ask under what section of that spiteful act allows for law abiding smokers in the open air to be bullied by officialdom.

I guess that's a natural progression if you legalise harassment against one minority group and use tax funded agencies to create new offensive words to describe them. The latest one that gets me is "hardcore". I think they have to equate us with the sex industry by using the sort of word usually associated with porn. Perhaps we are perverse now as well. They certainly think we are diseased. There can be no other explanation because since the Health Act 2006 gave licence to open abuse, smokers wanting to quit now have to go to combined anti-smoker and sexually transmitted infections walk-in centres to get their tax payer funded NRT.

Low life antis who have brains about as big as a cockroach also feel licensed to be abusive and throw words about like "pathetic addicts who can't control their addiction so we have to decide what's best for them". They generally know nothing about smoking and they certainly can't have any idea about real addictions, but David Atherton does. He spoke at a conference sponsored by Pfizer and its lackeys in the anti-smoker industry who, surprise, surprise, wanted smoking to be declared not only an "addiction" but a "disease". Dave won the debate and at least those with an open mind learned some truth about smoking although the lie will still be spread because it brings in profit and allows bigots a free hand.

As a lifelong moderate smoker of 43 years I know that for someone like me who has smoked from the age of 8 years old I am more likely to die if I quit now than continue to smoke moderately.

The amount of years I've smoked appears to qualify me for the abusive term of "hardcore" but using that term for lifelong smokers is like calling people in wheelchairs spastics.

The ratcheting up of state backed abuse over the last five years is all part of the now open hate campaign to punish smokers who will not quit because we are ruining the wet dream of these so-called "progressives" to eradicate smoking in future. The last quarter of my life is being made thoroughly miserable by these bigots and liars and my very real fear is that it will get worse yet.

QUITTING CAN KILL TOO

While Pfizer encourages relatives, friends, and colleagues of smokers to bully them into quitting for their own good it doesn't shout so loudly about how its product Champix can kill those they care about

Despite this danger, and world wide awareness of it, the Australian government paid for 368,924 prescriptions in January and maybe doesn't mind how many people of that number it has sentenced to death in the long term aim to rid the country of smoking and smokers by any means.

This is the same Govt which intends to criminalise smokers in their own homes and is going all out to make their lives miserable as it hurtles towards the final solution.

Hounding them out of society, marginalising them, making people fear and hate them, is all for their own good and that of others, based on the Govt's pompous, naive, misled and ill-informed desire to believe what it has been force fed by self interest charities in coalition with their funders in Big Pharma companies.

The latest authoritative study confirms all previous studies that show PASSIVE SMOKE KILLS NO ONE and is no more than an irritant to overly sensitive people and certainly not to neighbours in apartment blocks who are frankly lying if they say it is.

The scientists say :

“Among never smokers in our population, we observed no association between either exposure to ETS at home or at the workplace and lung cancer risk (Table 2). In general, the effect estimates for ETS exposure were similar between the total population and only among never smokers.”

The only truth about smoking is that The Lie hurts smokers and those around them when the health truth is not that clear cut. Govts should not be taking sides on the issue because it is backing prejudice and tyranny with unreasonable and unnecessary smoking bans and restrictions tailored to punish a minority who don't want to quit enjoying a legal product.

Some smokers die young but most live to old age and some even to ripe old age as centenarians. Big Pharma and self interest anti-smoker charities say smokers are weaklings who can barely breathe never mind run and yet the real life anecdotal evidence always seem to prove something different.

Luckily the smoker runner linked above hasn't had any bad side effects from Champix but I know - as someone who likes to run but not in a competitive sense - that I'd much prefer to smoke a natural product moderately than take a man-made chemical alternative which has a shady reputation.

Quitting is better done without any Pharma quit aid. It will make smokers, their relatives, friends and colleagues believe that smokers are addicts and that products are the cure because Big P wants money and lots of profit. If it was true that tobacco is addictive, and passive smoking is harmful, then everyone would be smokers today and not less than in any other age.

All smokers need is to want to stop smoking and the rest is easy An age-old truth that still stands up to scrutiny.

Held up for the last time?

Here are a couple of sad pictures, taken in today’s Spring sunshine, of the closed and boarded Highwayman at Rainow in the Cheshire part of the Peak District. Originally called the Blacksmith’s Arms, and locally known as “The Patch”, this was one of England’s classic inns, the interior a warren of small, low-ceilinged, thick-walled rooms warmed by real fires. Despite its isolated location, it was once busy, lively and characterful. In the late 1980s I remember it serving, amongst other fare, the now very rare pub pizzas. Recently it seems to have struggled, and the last reports were of it falling victim to the dreaded gastropub craze.

I would be amazed if it ever reopens as a pub now, even more so if it was anything like it once was. So let us salute the passing of a once superb pub, like so many others killed by political correctness. This was probably, in its day, the best pub I ever knew that has now closed.

It is still shown as open, and looking very inviting, on Google StreetView.

WHY I'M VOTING NO

I've been schizophrenic about my vote on the AV referendum. Electoral reform is a good move but when I look at those saying yes like Alan Johnson (shudder) and Nick Clegg (vomit) I wonder whether voting with my heart rather than my head is a good idea after all.

Then I look at those who I coouldn't disagree with more on all sorts of issues like Diane Abbott, Caroline Flint, or David Cameron who are urging a no vote and I'm swinging back towards yes again.

Cleggie was right when he said AV was "a miserable little compromise" and I think he should be ashamed that he's let his party become Tory underdogs. When offered the titbit of AV he grabbed it rather than hold out for something better like PR - the only fair solution to our unfair voting system.

If we vote yes on may 5 then we'll be stuck with it. We won't do it again so I'm rather persuaded by the devil you know rather than the devil you don't argument.

Others are saying no because of the cost and I agree with that too. Actually it's obscene that Cameron has allowed this folly to happen when he's cutting back on services further than a neighbour with conifer trees under a court order.

It's not that I don't want electoral reform but we should have been offered PR and Clegg should have fought for that or not bothered at all. Cameron shouldn't be wasting our time or our money on keeping Cleggie off his back.

Take it back

From my earliest pubgoing days, I was always brought up to take my glass back to the bar after I had finished my pint. It’s basic good manners really, and you only don’t if there’s a crush at the bar or if you want to make a point about sub-standard beer. So it often dismays me when I see people on CAMRA pub crawls leave their cluster of empty half-pints on the tables. Isn’t this likely to add to the image of CAMRA as a bunch of patronising beer snobs who only condescend to visit someone’s local pub once a year and then leave their glasses for the skivvy to clear up?

Yet one member - of my sort of age - said that he had never come across the idea of taking your glass back until he had joined CAMRA. Did they not believe in manners where he was brought up, I wonder?

ABANDONED!

I've given up waiting for the response from the tobacco company Imperial and I'm fed up of giving them the benefit of the doubt. I've always said the industry is not our friend but it is not our enemy unlike the anti-smoker industry. I was wrong.

They have abandoned us, the antis have won, the tobacco companies have let them. Choice is consigned to history for those of us who want the natural product and not some man made alternative. I guess growing our own tobacco is the only way forward for those of us lifelong smokers who enjoy the old fashioned way of smoking.

When I did speak to Imperial, their representative banged on about how they were trying to get a smoking shelter. Wow! (not) and they were watching the Philip Morris I deserve to be heard campaign but seem to be doing nothing more than that. Whatever the tobacco companies are doing for us to stop this hateful persecution, they doing it through Forest. I won't criticise Forest because it is our only friend and our only hope. However Government doesn't listen to Forest anymore - because it hates smokers and will purge us from society by any means and it looks like Big T will help them.

I believe our only hope of getting Govt to sit up and take notice is to shift our support to UKIP. Sadly, too many who say they care about this issue and it really does matter prefer to vote Tory for fear of getting Labour back. I think they deserve all they get but we don't.

I have been really busy as the local election gets nearer but as I'm relatively skint, election leaflets and time to deliver them is something I don't have. We have a local paper here that tends not to give us coverage but I am confident that UKIP is winning broader support even though the academics still don't get what UKIP is about and are just looking for a new political "villain" with the demise of the BNP.

Even arrogant Labour is beginning to see UKIP as a threat. What did they expect when they turned their back on their core support and ignored them thinking we would have no where else to go?

I've found somewhere and so have many others. I'm still beating back "UKIP is racist" allegations from far left socialists but then I've come to the conclusion that they are just a different set of bigots who brand anyone that doesn't agree with them.

Then they came for the white cider drinkers

A report commissioned by Alcohol Concern has called for the withdrawal of superstrength white cider from the market “because of the harm it causes to homeless people and other vulnerable groups”. Not exactly a surprise conclusion there, then.

Now, you may well think white cider is a load of crap, and it may well be true that it is disproportionately consumed by problem drinkers. But it would be setting a worrying precedent for government to seek to dictate the types of alcoholic drinks that can be legally sold and indeed to exclude a whole category from the market. Is it really going to stop there? Some of the recommendations, in particular that duty should be increased for all ciders over 5%, also have much wider implications.

If the homeless are deprived of white cider, they’re just going to turn to something else instead – they’re not going to miraculously give up drink overnight.

And hasn’t the tax on white cider been increased recently anyway because it would typically have a juice content well below 35% and thus would be taxed as “made-wine” rather than enjoying the lower cider duty rate?

Pull it through

Holts have recently introduced a very good new beer called Holts IPA, which sells alongside their standard bitter in a number of their pubs. But it’s effectively a different form of “bitter” – slightly less strong, paler and hoppier – and it will have the result of dividing “bitter” sales in two. Much of my discretionary pubgoing takes place at weekend lunchtimes, which for many pubs are nowadays a fairly slack time. At lunchtime today I went in my local Holts pub and had a couple of pints of IPA. It wasn’t bad, but it was a bit warm and a bit dull. I suspect the first was the first to be drawn through the pump that session, and the second one had been lingering in the pipe for half an hour.

We seem to be in a paradoxical situation where the number of cask beers on bars is steadily expanding, but overall sales are at best flat, so slow turnover becomes more and more of a problem. When going into a multi-beer pub, often my choice of which beer to drink is influenced by what I have seen someone else just buying a pint of. If a pump is not dispensing beer at least every quarter of an hour, you’re likely to end up with a lacklustre pint. It’s no good saying the beer is fine when it’s busy, if it isn’t when it’s quiet.

It may be a controversial opinion, but I firmly believe that nowadays most mainstream pubs only have sufficient turnover to keep one cask beer well, which to maximise sales and throughput should be a well-known “premium bitter” in the 4.0-4.5% range of the likes of Jennings Cumberland Ale, Taylors Landlord, Marstons Pedigree and Wadworths 6X. You can see this in some “dining” pubs which sensibly only have one cask beer on the bar.

Pigging out

To some, they’re the ideal pub snack, tasty, crunchy, savoury, salty and home-produced in the West Midlands from our most versatile farm animal. To others, they’re disgusting chunks of pure fat that make your gorge rise. Yes, they’re pork scratchings.

I initially contemplated doing a poll on which of the usual range of pub snacks people liked eating, but decided that would be a bit dull, and it would be better to ask what you thought of the King of Snacks. There were 56 responses, and the result was a decisive 3 to 1:

Yum: 42 (75%)
Yeuk: 14 (25%)

Interesting how they often now feel the need to have a disclaimer: “Only suitable for those with strong healthy teeth.” In my experience, the best ones are those you find in clear plastic bags with only minimal information about who made them.

And a quick Google search reveals that scratchings have a website dedicated to them. Despite their reputation as being loaded with fat, it’s worth remembering that, unlike crisps and nuts, scratchings contain no carbohydrates whatsoever.

TOBACCO CHAT

Apologies to those of you have been revisiting all week to find an update on my planned chat with a tobacco company representative and found nothing but silence.

The representative was going to write a post for this blog about several things that are being done by the industry to help the consumer but was then told to hold back because of certain things that are happening. Letting the cat out of the bag could well prove to be counter productive and I wouldn't want to be responsible for that.

I am assured, however, that as soon as something can be said, it will be said. The chat in general perked me up a bit and I felt a bit more positive that the latest assault on smokers - the tobacco display ban and plain packaging - can be fought and won.

The other reason for the lack of blogging has been my painful arm and needing it for use during a very busy working time which has meant resting it in my own time. I did ring my GP and was offered an appointment I couldn't take because of work. I asked for today when I'm free but was then told the computer didn't go that far ahead in the diary but if I rang today then the doctor would asses if I needed an appointment or not.

I hadn't even told the receptionist was what was wrong with me. I was flabbergasted and an involuntary mock snigger was given in response. I just said I'd get in touch another day. My cynical level then shot up about 100 notches of disbelief.

Dontcha just love the NHS that, here at least, has got to the point that they don't think we're even bright enough to know when we are ill or that we do actually need to see our doctor.

I hear our local A&E pretty much throws you out unless you're on the brink of immediate death these days but there is a walk in centre in town. I'll have to check if I can go because I live out of town and then just grin and bear the four hours or so waiting time to be seen.

That will have to wait until I'm free again which won't be anytime soon. I am covering full time at a local paper for, hopefully, not much more than another month. I can't take time off because if the cover is off then where does that leave the paper that needs the cover, and where would it leave a freelance like me that has no employee rights to be off sick?

In addition, our local election campaign for UKIP has been launched and as official press secretary, it has taken up a lot of my time which would normally be spent here and there is so much more to do yet.

Please do keep visiting the blog because at some point there will be a post from the tobacco company representative - don't expect the earth because this fight now is little bit by little bit but every move we make is going the right way - and there will be times when painful arm or not, a good old rant cannot be suppressed.

If anyone wants to post articles, links, news, or any other item of interest on this blog during my intermittent absences, then let me know.

Blowing hot and cold

A problem with drinking bottled ales at home is getting them at the right temperature. Ideally, ales are meant to be served at around 10-12°C (50-55°F), which equates to a natural cellar temperature, but certainly isn’t fridge-cold. But that can be very difficult to recreate in the home, especially in the summer, something that the recent warm spell has underlined. Room temperature is much too warm, but if you put the bottles in the fridge for too long, they get lager-cold and lose much of their appeal. Ideally, you need to put them in the fridge for 60-90 minutes, but that demands a lot of forward planning.

The other day I drank a bottle of Samuel Smith’s Old Brewery Pale Ale which had been in the fridge too long, and the flavour didn’t really come out until I got near the bottom of the glass. Maybe this is the kind of rich, malty beer that most loses character from being too warm, but even so it wouldn’t be right at room temperature. Is this a deterrent to ale drinking at home? Should fridges maybe be equipped with a “cellar cool” section maintaining 50°F?

How important is size for you?

Well, the bottle size poll has now closed. The question was “At what strength do you prefer beers in 330ml bottles rather than 500ml?” There were 79 responses, broken down as follows:

5.0% or lower: 10 (13%)
5.5%: 11 (14%)
6.0% : 12 (15%)
6.5% : 4 (5%)
7.0% : 14 (18%)
7.5% : 8 (10%)
8.0% : 2 (2%)
8.5% or higher: 18 (23%)

So a long way from a “normal” distribution there – as Phil said in the comments, “the spread of answers to this one *really* surprised me - you could get pretty much the same thing by rolling a dice.” Basically, there seem to be three groups:

1. People who think 330ml is an acceptable bottle size for beers of quite moderate strength that you might well drink a pint of in the pub
   
2. Those who think there should be a clear cut-off point around the 7.0% or 7.5% mark, above which increasing strength does make the smaller bottle size sensible. I went for 7.5%, by the way
   
3. Those who think that everything should be available in pints, or near pints, and possibly dismiss all those who disagree as wimps. These formed the biggest single group - and I know included both The Hearty Goodfellow and Tyson

Discuss...

Bear in mind this was intended to refer to British or German beers that you might reasonably expect to find in both sizes, not those that by tradition are always sold in the smaller size.

WE ALL DESERVE TO BE HEARD

The I Deserve to be Heard campaign by Philip Morris in Australia has attracted support from thousands of smokers.

If my arm wasn't giving me trouble again I'd have a lot more to say about this. I can't write much because it hurts so I'll try not to tax it too much for while.

Meanwhile I'll leave you with a couple of quotes from smokers who say how awful they're being treated in Aus and with the thought that I'll be talking to a tobacco company on Monday about what exactly they are doing to support their consumers in the UK.

Jason, QLD
"Royal Brisbane Hospital…Myself and another father were attacked and abused by the security staff there for being 3 feet inside the hospital grounds. All complaints were heard by the management and they brushed us off because we were smokers. WE ARE NOT CRIMINALS. I served the Military, Queensland fire service and do a lot of community work in our local area and to be treated like an animal after everything I have given this country is appalling."

Justin, NSW
"Waiting for a train in the city one day and decided that I had my coffee so I wanted a smoke. I walked almost 200m to the end of the platform, just to be polite to those around me that weren’t smoking. There was no cover, it was cold and windy, and I was at least 30m away from the nearest person. No sooner had I lit my cigarette than a platform attendant guy came cruising over to me and promptly stated ‘There is no smoking on the platform, sir, you’re going to have to leave or I will contact the authorities.’ Needless to say, I was dumbfounded…absolutely gob-smacked. I had gone out of my way (out of courtesy) not to bother any of the other people on the platform, braved the cold and the wind, only to be told (basically) that the only open area where no one would be harmed was an inappropriate place to smoke. Where is the logic? Where is the justice?"

Life is fatal

Apparently it has now been “scientifically proven” that having more than one drink a day increases your risk of getting cancer. However, given that the article doesn’t say by how much it increases the risk, it’s not something I’m going to spend much time worrying about. As one commenter says, “If it goes from 1 chance in 1010 up to 1 in 1000 I think most people wouldn't care.” Even a 50% increase in a minuscule risk is still minuscule.

If you listened to all the scare stories, you’d never eat anything, as apparently everything from salt through salami to sardines is going to give you cancer. Of course, if you take it all to heart, you run the risk of suffering from orthorexia, which is just as bad for you, and far less fun. If you wrap yourself in cottonwool all the time you will live a very dull and circumscribed life.

Leg-iron has it right when he says that all these increasingly shrill and hysterical health claims are likely to just make people sceptical about all scientific claims, even those that are entirely valid. If you take it all at face value, you end up like his Mr Plastic:

Plastic Man is the Government's vision of the future. Married, two drone kids (hey, a beehive would reject these two as being too droney), follows the Life Plan to the letter, no smoking, no drinking, meals on time, work on time, home on time, in the garden at set times, lawn trimmed to perfection, car parked within inches of the target, washed and rust-free (I never owned a rust-free one. I was Hammerite's best customer for years). In bed by ten, television watched and assimilated, the News is True, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength... is that a fun life or is that just living for the sake of it?

This study will, though, inevitably be used as ammunition to call for even higher duties and more curbs on alcohol consumption. Of course, the Holy Grail of “alcohol science” is proof that any quantity whatsoever is dangerous, which would strip away the figleaf of “safe levels” and open up a whole new field of restriction and demonisation. Even this report is being used to suggest that the current “safe drinking guidelines” – which are absurdly low and completely without scientific foundation – are actually too high! You can just visualise Professor Ian Gilmore polishing his jackboots when he says “If we really want to see preventable deaths coming down in the next decade or so, I think there will have to be some form of tougher regulation by government.”

Bargain of the year so far

Tesco’s beer offers seem to vary unpredictably week by week, so you never quite know what you’re going to find. This week, they are offering four bottles for £5 across a wide range, including many of the popular premium ales such as Directors, Tanglefoot and Bishop’s Finger, plus the excellent bottle-conditioned Fullers’ Bengal Lancer and local favourite Robinson’s Unicorn Premium which rarely seems to be included in any offers. Given that, post-Budget, they seem to have raised their standard PBA price to £1.89, this is a very worthwhile discount. Punk IPA is in there too, although as the normal price is £1.49 the saving is not as great.

However, standing head and shoulders above everything else is Morland Old Crafty Hen, a superb, complex 6.5% vintage ale which Tesco normally sell for a somewhat prohibitive £2.79 for 500ml. At £5 for four, that’s less than half price, so if it’s to your taste it makes sense to fill your boots while the offer lasts.

Lost in translation?

Over the past year, CAMRA has been carrying out a strategic review under the chairmanship of former MP John Grogan. The results of this have now been published on the CAMRA website here (members only, unfortunately). It has to be said that, while a lot of effort has clearly been put into the document, and it is sensible enough as far as it goes, it isn’t quite what many people were expecting. The hope was that it would involve a fundamental review of exactly what “campaigning for real ale” means in 2011, as opposed to 1971. However, what we have got is a much more narrowly-focused exercise of examining how CAMRA goes about its campaigning, not of what it should (and shouldn’t) stand for and champion.

Indeed, that kind of root-and-branch re-examination is specifically ruled out:

It was no part of the Strategic Review Group's remit given to it by last year's Conference to second guess that democracy and pronounce on minimum pricing, the debate over the distinction between craft beers and real ales and the role CAMRA should play in combating the anti-alcohol lobby. Rather, our role was to identify ways in which CAMRA could sharpen up its act and campaigning activity.

This is, however, somewhat disingenuous. In practice, the campaigning priorities of the organisation, and its general tone, are set by the actions and words of its National Executive and professional officers, not by AGM motions, which only act to give a nudge once in a while. Somehow, the mission statement seems to have become lost in translation, and what we have is a review of tactics, not strategy.

Since CAMRA was formed in 1971, the environment in which it operates has dramatically changed. In particular, there are three major developments of recent years to which it has not yet formulated any kind of coherent response:

1. The rise of off-trade beer consumption and the decline of pubs. At some time during 2012 the off-trade is likely to overtake the on-trade. This is closely linked with the startling rate of pub closures in recent years.
   
2. The growth in the appreciation of “craft beer” which has wide areas where it does not overlap with real ale – and equally, most “real ale” is never going to be “craft beer”.
   
3. The increased influence of the anti-drink lobby which has led to a much less favourable fiscal and regulatory environment for the beer and pub trade and has made consumption of alcohol, especially outside the home, markedly less socially acceptable.

The world has moved on, and you can’t go on campaigning like it was still the mid-Seventies. I’m not touting for any specific response to these trends, but if CAMRA continues to stick its collective head in the sand and says “nothing to do with us, mate”, then it risks being rendered a declining, nostalgic irrelevance.

CULTURED AND NON-CULTURED

I was busy working at my desk yesterday when a foul smell permeated towards me, so bad it made my throat burn and I got that watery mouth feeling which is symptomatic of an impending desire to vomit.



With nostrils flared I looked to my colleague sitting next to me and wondered if it was him but as he is a very dapper and a smart sort of chap who cares about his appearance, and I hadn't noticed it before, I doubted it. Almost immediately my attention was drawn to a man at the front desk who had come into the office to place an advert.



He was dressed casually and looked a bit like Foggy of Last of the Summer Wine. His breath was foul like he was rotting inside and as he spoke I could smell it a few feet away. There was also a bitter musty smell, like putrid garlic mixed with decayed socks, urine soaked underpants, and a year's worth of dry sweat.



He was about to turn and leave after handing in a piece of paper when he turned back towards the receptionist.



"Oh, does it say non-smoker? It must be a non-smoker and is it going to cost any more?"



He was advised it would be an extra quid or two depending on how the lineage worked out. He decided his prejudice was worth it.



When he left, everyone in the office was relieved and I'm told he is quite a regular so they will have to put up with him again. I asked the lady at the desk what he wanted. She said he was advertising a property to rent. I am the only smoker in the office but not the only one to see the irony.



I'd been working on the big story of the day that a planning application in the paper's historic market town - that had been previously refused because it was out of character - had now been approved on appeal by a Govt inspector who didn't give a damn about how it would affect the local area or local people.



I was sent out to talk to this intensely interesting and cultured chap who will be adversely affected by it and other residents in the street who fought against it, won, and then saw local democracy in action overturned by Big Govt institutions who have decided what the town needs and not the local council or the people who live there.



As I arrived at Mr Wyatt's house, jazz music blared out and I wondered if he'd hear me knocking. I pushed two door bells and banged the old iron knocker on the huge door. My Wyatt appeared in his wheelchair and graciously invited me in. As I followed him into the kitchen there was the trace of an aroma of fresh tobacco and I found myself involuntarily smiling. I felt immediately at ease.



He was cutting onions in a special way that causes no tears and reduced smell - one when strong that I find quite unbearable but this was even mildly pleasant. There was one stump in the ashtray with the onion skins he'd removed and I smiled again but said nothing.



We chatted for while about why I was there and when all was said that needed to be said for my story, I couldn't help myself.



"I see you are a fellow friend," I said and nodded towards his ashtray.



He looked surprised for half a second and then smiled back.



"Oh yes, do feel free," he said. "And if you don't mind, do you have one spare?" He offered me a cup of tea, but then I'd have had two reasons to stay longer than I should have done so I politely declined.



I got out my elegant cigarette case with my ready rolled cigs inside, handed one to him, lit mine and then his as he didn't have a lighter handy. I apologised that they weren't tipped and he said that's how he liked them best.



We spent the next three quarters of an hour in perfect civility before he took me round to speak to others in the neighbourhod who were unhappy. I was sad to leave him as I'd had quite an enjoyable time and I felt connected in a way that I don't with people like Mr Stinky who came into the office earlier that day.



Mr Wyatt shared my dismay at the smoking ban which he dismissed as silly. As for the new development, he said it was indicative of how we were going backwards as a society from recognising and valuing local heritage to the bad old days of the 1960s. That was when many UK towns and cities unaffected by the bombings of World War 2 lost a lot of their history to aluminium and asbestos flat-topped buildings because "the future" was suddenly deemed more important. Vandalism of local heritage seemed a worthy price to pay back then in the name of "progress."



I could have said the same thing about the healthists who are ruining many aspects of our social lives and culture with their hysterical view of the "progressive" smoking ban but I didn't. I thanked him for his hospitality and help and left feeling comforted that there is still some semblance of normality in this bad, sad, uncultured modern world.

Little and large

The current poll on bottle sizes was prompted by this post on The Bottled Beer Year complaining about the 4.5% Meantime London Lager being sold in a 330ml bottle:

The children's-sized bottle, however, quickly becomes a right old pain in the proverbial, especially when you realise that the happy event is pretty much over after around three average mouthfuls. If this were an act of love making, it would trigger a very awkward argument. No question about it.

Obviously, in general, there’s a broad correlation between strength and bottle size, with the stronger the beer, the more likely it is to appear in the smaller bottle. However, there’s a wide overlap with, for example, the 4.9% Hoegaarden coming in a 330ml, whereas 500ml is standard for all the 5%-ish British premium bottled ales.

The cut-off point may also vary depending on the beer type. Beers like Leffe and Innis & Gunn, which are both around 6.6%, seem right in a 330ml bottle, whereas Pedigree VSOP, which has a similar strength, is more of a traditional British ale and seems more suited to 500ml.

BrewDog, wanting to be different, put all of their beers in 330ml bottles, even down to the 4.1% Trashy Blonde. And Tesco are stocking 330ml bottles of many of the well-known PBAs such as Old Speckled Hen and London Pride, usually at well over two-thirds the price of the 500ml equivalents. I’m not sure how many they sell, though, and the other major supermarkets don’t seem to have followed suit.

The bigger the measure, the more time it will take to drink it, thus giving it more time to warm up. This isn’t likely to matter much with ales, but it has been advanced as a reason for preferring lagers in small bottles (and even in 250ml “stubbies”) rather than 500ml.

It’s interesting how at this early stage there’s such a wide spread in responses to the poll – clearly, some people prefer 330ml bottles across the strength range, and others actively dislike them except for very strong beers.

COUNTER PRODUCTIVE

This sort of thing really winds me up. It's not as if we haven't got enough enemies that we have to start squabbling in public. I'll bet Debs Arnott and Martrin Dockrell at ASH are wetting themselves with laughter. They don't even have to earn the money we pay them to discredit us - we can do that all by ourselves.

This damn unbalanced, one-sided battle by little David smokers who can't even afford slingshots to bring down the Goliath of anti-smoker prejudice, is one of the most frustrating things in my life and I am sure many other smokers too in what has become something of a "Movement" however disorganised or disjointed it is.

We should not fight or wash our dirty laundry in public when we disagree. We could avoid this is in future if we get organised, hold regular meetings where we can bash out ideas, understand everyone's limits and view points, nominate our own individual qualities and specialisms and how to use them in unison, discuss how and where we can get funding from, and work together in a proactive way to make Govt listen to our side of the debate which is by no means over just because Debs and co say it is.

I first spoke to Simon Clark in 2001 when there was no such Movement - just me - a pissed off smoker who saw things heading into depressing territory and there was only Forest to turn to. I had an issue in my home town with a bigoted councillor. I honestly, but naively, thought that once he learned the truth about SHS, he would back down on not introducing ventilated facilities for smokers when his council imposed a pre-2007 smoking ban on a community venue that smokers had helped to pay for.

I found Simon's advice useful but I also felt that he didn't seem to believe that this kind of move was indicative of what was to come just six years later. Many other smokers did not at the time either. I even recall telling Simon back then that one day they'd be taking children from smokers.

I think Simon was sceptical and probably thought I was a nutter. I'll admit, this sort of fear seemed a bit paranoid at the time but as a lifelong smoker who has watched this one sided "debate" develop over 40 years, it seemed an obvious future move and we've seen it happen in denying smoker fosterers and adopters the chance to become parents. Can this set a precedent for biological smoker parents next? It is terrifying thought. This issue can hardly get any more serious. We cannot afford to be complacent and we can't afford to fall out over trivialities.

I recognise that what we have created over the last four and a half years is very special, exciting and it can be effective. There are some damn good people in our Movement, each with their own special skills and most do it in their own time at their own cost. What we are doing is vitally important. We have moral right on our side but I can also see all our hard work to date will fall apart if we continue to squabble about who gets paid and who doesn't, who should be doing what, but doesn't, and who we voted for, but shouldn't.

We need to get organised and we cannot expect Simon to do everything for us. As a lobbier to politicians, and a representative to industry such as tobacco, shops, pubs, clubs, and smokers, he juggles enough plates in the air and he is trying not drop a single one. Any loss of support from industry is more than we can afford and as smokers we must stick together and back our recognised representatives who should all work together.

F2C, F2C Scotland, and Smokers4Justice are examples of three great organisations but how often do they work with Forest in unison? I really don't know. I do know that we have some great individual warriors too including Smoking Hot whose fighting spirit and knowledge of buying abroad has been inspirational to me and others. Through both SH and Simon I have actually had something tangible to reach smokers who are not part of our Movement. Both were carried useful but different messages. Both hit a chord.

Through Simon have I come face to face with politicians I never would have met, through TICAP I've seen the global picture and heard experts on our side, and through F2C with the help of the Blogosphere, I have seen enough support gathered en masse to help those who fall foul of this spiteful law like Nick Hogan.

The row on Simon's blog developed into whether or not we should buy abroad which starves Govt funds of our tax to ASH and the whole denormalisation programme. I think we should if we can because I wonder how else we can make Govt take any of notice of us - but I'm also wary of withdrawing support from small shops who are in this with us. It is their business and their livelihoods that Govt is killing by it's desire to punish smokers and make us pay for our own hell.

I don't think Simon as Forest director should help us with this and we would be better off if he lobbies for a fairer tax with our friends in the Tobacco Retail Alliance for us and those who can't afford to go abroad. I wonder if we had some sort of alliance ourselves, people designated to work in certain areas, more effective joint working of all the individuals, groups, scientific and medical specialists in this Movement of ours, whether we would actually get anywhere in securing the future of truth, fairness, tolerance, justice, fair play and common sense that we all seem to want.

We all have our part to play and instead of criticising, perhaps encouragement would get us further.

Weak interest

With the government planning to halve duty from October for beers of 2.8% ABV or lower, I asked the question “Would 20p off a pint encourage you to buy 2.8% ABV beers?”. It can’t be said there was much enthusiasm about the idea, as the 84 responses broke down as follows:

Very likely: 3 (4%)
I’ll see what they taste like: 28 (33%)
Highly unlikely: 53 (63%)

This cut will provide a significant saving of duty plus VAT of 16p on a 500ml can, and 18p on a pint. The problem is that one of the key reasons people drink beer is that it actually does contain alcohol, and at this kind of strength level the alcoholic content becomes so low that it is little more than a distress purchase. Also, especially in pubs, drinkers don’t tend to choose their drinks primarily on the grounds of cost.

I can’t honestly see much demand at all for cask beers of this strength, especially given the fact that the weaker a beer is, the shorter the time it keeps. The chief beneficiaries will be the big lager brewers. Paradoxically, it will make the supermarket “value” lagers that are supposedly sold “cheaper than water” even cheaper, and I can see the major brands like Carling, Fosters and Carlsberg bringing out 2.8% “light” versions to take advantage of the duty cut. And, of course, the concern is that this, combined with the extra duty on beers above 7.5%, will lead over time to a tiered duty structure in the UK that penalises stronger beers.

The Great Western

I am a member of a non-beer-related organisation that each year in April holds its AGM in the Great Western pub in Wolverhampton, which is a good central location for people travelling from all around the country. This is a Holden’s tied house that they saved from demolition a couple of decades ago. It’s in an out-of-the-way location round the back of the station, although the local area has seen a fair bit of new development in recent years, and the pub has the advantage of having its own spacious car park, rare for somewhere so near to a city centre.

It has a main bar area with bench seating facing the bar, a snug to the rear on the right, then a long area to the left with more bench seating along the left-hand side, leading to a conservatory eating area with separate tables, and then some trestle tables out at the back next to the car park. The entire pub is packed with railway memorabilia.

The beer range on my most recent visit was Holden’s Bitter, Golden Glow and Special, Batham’s Bitter, and a trio of guest beers including the superb Thornbridge Jaipur IPA. All the beers I tried were in excellent form, the pick of the bunch being the Batham’s. Even though this was considerably more expensive than the Holden’s, it seemed to be the fastest-shifting beer. Holden’s Bitter was £2.25 a pint, Special £2.60, Batham’s £2.80 and Jaipur £3.20. Maybe surprisingly, in what is still regarded as a stronghold of mild drinking, there was no Holden’s Mild on sale.

There was a good mix of customers throughout the day, and it noticeably livened up approaching 8.00 pm when I left to get my train home. There were old boys reading the paper on the long bench to the left, and groups of young people clustering around the bar. It has a superb, buzzing, lively atmosphere.

Hidden away behind the station in an area with no nearby housing, by any rational calculation this pub should be long dead. But, here it is, thriving, and with customers beating a path to its door. It serves good beer and offers good crack. It’s a true classic and, although I only visit it once a year, one of my very favourite pubs. But I do like Batham’s Bitter...

I also called in the nearby Wetherspoon’s, the Moon Under Water. My pint was fine, but the police were going in as I arrived (at around 12.45 pm), and there was a slightly edgy atmosphere, with kids who were obviously not dining running around and causing mayhem. Another customer got up and moved elsewhere because of the kids – “I'm not f***king putting up with this!” he said. Plus it took me well over five minutes to be served.

SMOKER HYPOCRISY

There is an interesting piece in the "Observer about smoking, fashion and film which would be OK if the writer Euan Ferguson wasn't so obviously ashamed of being a smoker.

He says some things I totally agree with like the anti-smoker industry doesn't have to rely on evidence anymore to push through even more bans - even on our privately owned properties - but then goes and spoils it by saying things like even smokers don't like the smell of smoke and would take to task other smokers smoking in restaurant doorways. I think he should quit. Denormalisation has obviously got to him and hypocritical smokers like that are "friends" we could do without.

I've never stood outside of anywhere with other smokers without having mutual angry conversations about the way we are being treated.

Euan Ferguson talks about John Wayne who died aged 72 and how he supported the anti-smoking industry after formerly supporting the tobacco industry because he got cancer. The writer then goes on to say it was "because (smoking) does kill" and it killed John Wayne. I disagree. Cancer killed John Wayne in old age. 72 would do for me. I don't want to live to be 100. If this hatred continues, I don't want to live to be 60.

There has also been talk about how Wayne appeared on location somewhere as a younger man where nuclear tests had been done and many of those who appeared alongside him also died younger and later from cancer as well.

I truly believe that not enough research has been done, because of the waste of resources on one lucrative health issue, to determine what other polluting factors that we are in contact with daily also cause cancer. As my son says when I warn him about fizzy drinks with aspartame in them : "Mum, EVERYTHING causes cancer these days."

I did admire the spirit of artist Maggi Hambling in the above linked article and smokers like that I can relate to.

She said : "... I don't even go out to a dinner party unless there's a guaranteed ashtray. I hate anti-smokers. I did three, three, sculptures of Oscar Wilde. Bronze, steel and then hardened steel. In each case some lunatic anti-smoker managed to saw the cigarette off the end of the hand. The last one must have taken a real effort."

Maggi, apparently, quit five years ago but said : "...I started again the Thursday before last. I have to tell you – cigarettes have never tasted better!"

Taking a break to fully enjoy the taste again would be the only reason I'd ever consider quitting. I admire those smokers who are proud to be smokers. I hate those too cowardly to stand up for their beliefs. Smokers who hate smoking are just as much our enemy as those rabid anti-smokers who made them feel that way.

AUS BACKS TYRANNY

I really feel for our Australian smoking cousins as the country proudly boasts about how tyrannical it has become.

When people are prevented from living peacefully and contentedly in their own homes then it matters not how it's dressed up or spun, it is oppression of the very worst kind and when lawyers become involved, then it is simply the weight of wealth and industry against the weakest members of society.

There is no scientific evidence at all to support this kind of Australian bigotry which has occurred because of a phobic fear encouraged by the billion pound anti-smoker industry which pushes hatred, prejudice and discrimination. If this home ban is "making history" then it indicates a future that we should all fear whether smoker or non-smoker.

If we are not free to live our lives how we wish in our own homes when IT DOES NOT HARM ANYONE ELSE, then I, for one, would have no wish to live at all. As a lifelong smoker, if I lived in Australia with no means of emigrating from that county, then I would kill myself. I will not live in the land of oppression. I will not. If it happens here, I would rather go to prison where people are far more free than those smokers who live law abiding lives.

At least, finally, smokers are getting some support and not before time. It's just a shame that tobacco companies who got them into this mess have taken so long to stand up for them.

Such is the bigotry of the Australian establishment that only fellow tyrants like Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini would think it an outrage that someone was standing up for the oppressed.

Australia should hang it's head in shame for advocating the slavery of a nation and backing tyranny of the worst kind. It used to be a country I admired. I have family there. Now it's about as welcoming to smokers as Nazi Germany was to Jews and others it deemed undesirable and a danger to others based on nothing more than prejudicial hatred.

JOE BROWN ROCKS

The post below is a quick write up of an interview I did with the legendary Joe Brown which was posted rather hastily just before I dashed out to watch his live show.

It was supposed to have appeared in the paper that I'm currently contracted to but for various reasons such as working across two offices, staff shortages, pressing deadlines, and space, it never got written up in time or used online when it was submitted.

I was disappointed because I'd wanted to do a good job and show the reader just what a lovely down to earth bloke Joe is. I immediately warmed to him when he told me he was a "fellow leper" although I didn't discuss my lifestyle politics with him because it would have been "inappropriate" given the circumstances and I didn't think he would be that interested. Music is his greatest love and that was obviously evident when he played and the interview was about him not me.

I did, however, print off a copy of the interview from this blog and asked for it to be delivered to him. I hope he got it and I hope he liked it but judging from something he'd said, I guessed he wasn't a great computer fan.

We had a very nice chat and he said he'd enjoyed the interview with me and then invited me to get tickets for the show from his agent so I couldn't possibly refuse.

Try as I might I couldn't remember one Joe brown song although I knew he was an artist with an illustrious career behind him. At his concert in Skeg last Thursday evening, it all came back to me but more than that I realised he was one of the true greats and probably vastly under rated as a musician and song writer and better known as an all round entertainer.

Joe ceratinly knows how to put on a great show. It is very much a relationship between his music, his personality and an audience that has grown up with him. He did tell me that the older generation probably drag the younger ones along with them but they enjoy the concert so much that they tend to return on their own accord because they enjoyed it so much.

I know now what he meant because as one of the relatively young 'uns, I had what was the best time I've had in years.

Joe appeared with a great backing band which included his immensely talented son Pete who is also a record producer. Joe was obviously very proud of him and he had good reason to be.

The show began with the roots of Joe's music - a tribute to Skiffle and the legendary Lonnie Donnegan.

The first half was an intimate affair and musical feast with Joe and the band seated under a spotlight and playing old songs including a 1930s piece from Hawaii, drummer Phil Capaldi’s softer rendition of the Elvis Presley track Mystery Train, and Joe’s cover of Chris Smither’s Leave the Light On. A gentle and acoustic ballad that kept the audience transfixed as he plucked skillfully on an acoustic guitar.

There were 12 guitars lined up around Joe and his band, plus a Ukulele that was brought out from backstage each time it was required, in all shapes and sizes, all gleaming and all obviously well loved. Joe made particular mention of a new guitar he was given by Danny Harrison, former Beatle George’s son. It was a replica of one owned by Eddie Cochrane. “It has the same cigarette burns, and rusty pick as when he played it,” Joe joked. Comedy that made the audience belly laugh was peppered throughout the show.

Pete did a brilliant version of Crosby Stills Nash and Young’s "Helpless". A natural guitar player, he made that thing weep in harmony to his gritty voice which had the depth of a harderned rocker. Pete’s influence on his father’s music means that new sounds have been introduced to the shows and appear on Joe's latest album. As the second half got underway, Joe did a cover and new arrangement of U2’s "I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For" and it got the audience jigging in their seat. Fantastic.

Joe then launched into some of his own hits for nostalgia value including "Picture of You", "Henery VIII I am" and "Sea of Heartache". I was bowled over by a charming instrumental Italian wedding waltz.

The veteran performer has been at the top of his game for 50 years. He is one of the nicest people in the music industry and one of the most talented musicians around. He doesn’t so much play and sing as live and breathe through the fun of his music and the interaction with the audience.

Joe has a few more dates on this tour and I heartily recommend you catch his show when it comes to your town. If you didn’t manage to see him at Skegness, then check out his tour dates HERE and do yourself a favour. You will so glad that you did and you’ll be smiling for a good long time after Joe has moved on.

I tried to find a link to Joe's U2 cover but couldn't find one so instead for your pleasure, "Sea of Heartache" is posted below. Enjoy.



A final point of interest to those of you who come here to find news and views on the smoking issue, during the half time break I stood outside with a handful of smokers and listened as one man told his friend that almost everyone he knows has quit. The friend with him said he was on his last packet. Thanks to the Govt's latest assault on the poor, it is only the rich and privileged that can now afford to pay the high tax on their cigarettes. Those who can't afford to smoke, and those who can't afford to go abroad to buy cheaper tobacco, simply have no choice.

And a final point of interest about Joe is that he is the only Cockney to be born in Lincolnshire - a village called Swaby which in 2001 had a population of 111. His mum and dad moved to the East End of London when Joe was 2 to run a pub.