MORE MEDIA BIAS

I see my local paper has shown it's bias again as far as the smoking issue is concerned but I suppose I should be a bit grateful that it did at least invite me to comment.

I was told by the reporter that the story was about how people in Lincoln are not living much beyond the age of 75. I gave him a few ideas of what other things might be responsible for that including traffic and I directed the reporter to this quote from minister Tim Yeo :

“Air pollution probably causes more deaths than passive smoking, traffic accidents or obesity, yet it receives very little attention from Government or the media.”

The reporter chose to skim over that as an irrelevance and instead homed in on smoking as the ONLY cause. Strewth. Such obvious bias is one reason why it's circulation is dropping heavier than a brick thrown from the top of it's former high rise building.

The reporter also failed to mention how the NHS - and Lincoln County Hospital specifically - kill old people through neglect. For sure my mother would have lived longer than 75 had she had the care she needed at Lincoln instead of being ignored to death.

And she isn't the only one to have received death instead of care in a NHS hospital although granted this woman lived some 10 years longer than my mum.

As my mum was an ex-smoker - who gave up 30 years before she died - like her sister who is almost 90 and her father who died aged 98 - I think she would have lived but for NHS cruelty and it's obsession with wasting cash on anti-smokerism that could be spent on direct patient care.

Many people have told me they no longer buy the local paper and it's easy to see why. It does not write for all of its readership in a fair, balanced and impartial way. It writes for the authorities and the lifestyle bigots and I guess to it's own prejudices.

A debate has started on the article - as inevitably there always is when this subject is mentioned. So please feel free to visit the Lincolnshire Echo at the link above and knock yourself out in educating the stupid who won't a learn a thing from reading such tripe otherwise.

WHY I WON'T BE THERE

The Voices of Freedom events begin tomorrow but I won't be going because I really couldn't bear to hear this pompous prick spouting his vile prejudices.

Just who the hell does Peter Hitchens think he is and what right has he to believe that I'd want a selfish prat like that saving me anyway? If that's a voice of "freedom" frankly, it undermines the whole debate from the outset.

I'd really rather hear true of voices of freedom and not those calling for oppression of one minority group because of some sanctimonious belief that they know better. Hitchens is right not to use the phrase Nanny State though. We now live in the Bully State but he wouldn't recognise it as a bully himself.

Hitchens says that tobacco use has only been in the civilised world for two world wars. How can such an ignorant columinist be allowed to write such a blatant falsehood? Tobacco use is at least 500 years old and has been used across Europe in civilised society for that long and in the Native Americas for much longer as it was used as a medicinal herb. It still is, actually, and can be found as an ingredient in many Big Pharma over the counter products like travel sickness pills and facepacks.

It has only become something else in the FOUR years since the blanket smoking ban legalised the hate and harassment against one lifestyle group. No amount of idiots like Hitchens can change history as much as they would like to fit their own ideological aims.

I had looked forward to the so called Freedom events and I did consider going to the next in the series but it isn't an event I can take seriously because of Hitchens in the same way I couldn't take last year's event seriously after the illiberal Demotwat Mark Pack was invited soon after telling me his irrelevant Party had no plans to give freedoms back to smokers in it's much lauded ... erm ... Freedom Bill that isn't worth the bog paper it's written on.

I see that Dick Puddlecote's going and that is a good thing. At least there will be one true voice of freedom and I hope he is given voice to put that prat Hitchens in his place.

If I went, it would only be the piss up afterwards that interested me - especially if it's at Boidales which really knows how to go that extra mile to make its smoker customers comfortable.

Meanwhile, I'll be saving my limited funds for an event in London that I see as far more worthy and far more likely to have an effect. I hope my MP Karl McCartney will attend the Save Our Pubs And Clubs amendthesmokingban.com reception for MPs where I hope my voice will be heard about how this spiteful ban has affected me and other lifelong smokers.

Flattering to deceive

A commenter suggested that I should do a post of “worst pub awards” where you come across an attractive traditional building, but on venturing over the threshold find an appalling, knocked-through, chrome-and-glass monstrosity. It’s certainly happened to me, but I can’t think of any in the local area that are quite that bad. Very often, if they haven’t closed down, they have ended up being remodelled in a slightly more conventional style.

However, I will mention two that I have experienced in recent years. The first was a pub in a Cheshire market town which had gained a reputation for its cask ales and I vaguely remembered having appeared in the Good Beer Guide. The “modern” signage outside gave a clue that all wasn’t well, and inside it was all chrome bar stools and low, glass-topped tables. Needless to say, we took our business elsewhere. The second was a handsome, four-square, stone-built hotel on the main street of a small Scottish town, which inside had been thoroughly knocked through and done over in a self-consciously modern style. I think apart from me there was one middle-aged boozer sitting at the bar.

Edit: I recall being very struck by this phenomenon on visiting the Bear in Oxshott, Surrey, in the early 1980s. I also recall the beer being unusually expensive even for that expensive area.

NANNY'S AFTER YOUR CAR

Source of photo

A few years ago, just before NuLabour legalised hate, discrimination and inequality, and the Department of Health was not corrupt, our office was pretty much half and half as far as smokers and non-smokers were concerned but there was a small group of intolerant anti-smokers who were constantly calling for a smoking ban.

One was Australian, I didn't know then what I know about Aus and smokers now, one was an intolerant twat, who was intolerant about all sorts of things including smoking, and one was a very middle class woman who said smoke made her eyes sting - even though she stunk the place out with her awful perfume.

They knew that I was opposed to the idea of a ban at a highly stressful place of work for the same reason I am against bans now. I also thought fears about smoke and dislike of the smell could have been resolved by ventilation - or sitting the smokers near windows and the ones who hated it over on the other side of the office.

The gang of three approached the editor while I was on holiday complaining about how we smokers were killing them and it was wrong to allow smoking in the building. The (non-smoking) boss did indeed consider it and spoke to others in the office. Some felt as strongly as I did, others didn't mind either way.

When I returned, and even before I'd got my coat off, the intolerant twat burst forth with : "Smoking's going to banned in this office so you better get used to it," in a na na n na na sort of way.

I sat at my desk and my job that day was to trawl through the national papers to see if there was anything remotely or directly concerned with anyone living in our circulation area which we could then follow up from a local angle.

A story in the Guardian caught my eye. It was a new "study" that "proved" traffic congestion caused lung cancer.

When I lived outside of the city of Lincoln, I took a bus to work or I cycled in. The traffic fumes were horrendous. When I moved into the city, I walked to work. The congestion was awful. There was a line of traffic spewing filth that I could taste from exhausts as cars waited at traffic lights on a road that I had no choice but to walk down.

Aussie, Intolerant Twat and Miss Perfume drove into work every day even though one of them could get a bus and two of them could've walked.

I cut out the piece from the Guardian and attached it to a letter I wrote to the editor explaining that in all fairness, if he banned smoking on health grounds then he also had to ban those people who lived within a five mile radius of the city boundary from driving into work as well. He called me into his office later to have a chat about it.

The Gang of Three squealed that it was because the air outside was so filthy that it was doubly important to ensure the air inside was "clean." The editor came down on my side and said if the issue came up again, he would keep me in the loop and ask for my views. He was a fair bloke.

I left the paper before that editor retired but I worked there as cover and saw the progression after a trendy young editor took over. First a smoking room and then a ban after threats from antis that they could sue, and then the law which wasn't necessary and shut the door after the monster had bolted anyway.

I think now our Govt has gone down the road of making laws that ban they simply can't stop and it does look as if a ban is heading towards the Gang of Three at some stage as their filthy habit is now in Nanny's vision

“Air pollution probably causes more deaths than passive smoking, traffic accidents or obesity, yet it receives very little attention from Government or the media.”

“In the worst affected areas this invisible killer could be taking years off the lives of people most at risk, such as those with asthma.

“The large EU fines we face, if we don’t get to grips with this problem, should now focus Ministers’ minds.

“Much more needs to be done to save lives and reduce the enormous burden air pollution is placing on the NHS.”

This is not news and something we've always known but the antis have always had a problem with it. Smokers have always demanded to know how we define those alleged deaths caused by SHS and those caused by traffic fumes, perfume, and other pollutants both indoor and outdoor.

I'll guess we'll never get an answer to that one while the anti-smoker money keeps rolling in and hypocritcal organic fart sniffers like Debs Arnott are happy to drive to smoke hater meetings while thinking nothing of condeming everyone else around them to death.

You could also argue, as traffic allegedly causes asthma in children, road deaths of children, and it is worse than SHS or obesity for children, then parents who put their kids in cars are no better than child abusers because they have a very high chance of causing them death or serious injury and they must know this. They can also choose other modes of safer transport for their kids but they are too damn selfish to do so.

Perhaps by turning the insult they direct at smoker parents might just make them realise how nasty and spiteful they are. Somehow, though, I doubt it.

I wouldn't want to see cars banned, incidentally, but I'd like to see a better public transport system. Perhaps the Govt could start by investing some of the cash stolen by ASH and it's fake charity buddies.

Spreading the pain

Recent reports suggest that the Scottish government are considering implementing a 45p per unit “floor price” for alcohol by using the alcohol duty system rather than simply imposing minimum prices. This may be because they have looked into the legal implications of minimum pricing and concluded that it would probably be ruled illegal as a form of price fixing. On the other hand, governments are free to set whatever levels of alcohol duty they like.

But, of course, an across-the-board duty increase would hit the on-trade just as much as off-sales, and could well end up driving customers away from pubs and bars. It certainly wouldn’t be the panacea to level the playing field as some naïve on-trade advocates have fondly imagined. And having alcohol duties twice as high on one side of a land border as on the other would obviously be a huge invitation to both legal cross-border trade and smuggling.

Part of me says “bring it on – it would be great to see the Righteous with egg on their faces!” but the more realistic side fears it would just be a precursor to similar measures south of the border.

CORRUPTING OUR KIDS

As we are simply the parents of our children it would appear we have no rights to decide that our kids should not be force fed ideological propaganda especially if they are in state schools.

My tolerant never smoking sister was recently very concerned at the reaction of her son after he witnessed a heinous crime. She said :

I met son off the train yesterday. He took me to one side and asked if we should tell the authorities something really bad had happened on the train. Had he been approached by a paedo, or seen someone stabbed or trespassing on the line? I was really worried. But no - apparently someone was smoking. Who says the propaganda doesn't work!!!

I said I hoped that she'd told her son that the crime he witnessed was against the smoker by a tyrannical Govt that would divide communities by lies, propaganda and misinformation to set one half against the other.

She told me it was a great concern :

The trouble is that the propaganda gets through stronger than the other stuff. If people want to know why a non smoker supports the pro smoking lobby look no further. any other group and it would be an "ism" and illegal.

I should have corrected her because as far as I am aware, the only representation made to Govt, the authorities and the public is freedom of choice and an end to the hate crime against smokers. Not one smoker I know actually promotes the act of smoking to others but rather their right to be left alone to smoke in peace without harassment.

Instead, I said she had to educate her son about Fascism, why it is dangerous and why anti-smokerism is Fascism. I said his generation is the future and they must learn not to hate because the Govt tells them to. I said to tell him that the next time he sees a smoker he should say he supports his right to choose to smoke in a separate cabin because it is the fair way.

One of the most cruel aspects of the anti-smoker fascists is that they are working to turn families and friends against smokers in a bid to isolate us from society even further. I'd hate it if my nephew grew up as an intolerant Nazi who hates me because of what the bigots have drilled into him.

He is 14 and well brainwashed by now and because my sister doesn't smoke, she had no idea what they were putting into her son's head. They tried it on my son when he was 8. He came home crying after his teacher told him I was going to die because I smoked. I came fourth in the mum's race that year at school sports (I would have done better but one mum cheated!)

My son's been on the side of choice ever since and especially now he is almost 18 and can see his beloved computer games are the next on Nanny's list of things to ban on false information from yet another fake charity.

That experience taught my son to continually question propaganda. I'm pleased I was able to control what he learned about smoking. I don't think that would be possible today. Incidentally, he chose not to smoke.

My three daughters went through school when information on smoking was just that. Information. It was NuLabour's scandalous TV ads that got to my nephew - especially the smoking baby. He was too young to understand how the film had been edited to achieve an effect, how the Govt paid £350 million for those adverts which aimed to pervert the truth to achieve it's ideological aim of a smoke free country, or how many of them were rapped by the Advertising Standards Agency as "misleading."

Now that my sister realises how corrupted her son has been by the state, she tells me she will be having a talk with him and bring him round here for a cuppa while I fill him in on some truths and tell him that there really are two sides to every story.

MY NEW BLOGSPACE

I took the good advice of readers in the comments of the post below and took time out of blogging to relax, think of something else other than the spite and hatred of anti-smokers, and clear my head.

It was relatively easy because I had decided to close my office down while me and my other half redecorated it. It was long overdue and the only room that didn't get a make over after we moved into this house six years ago.

That was mostly because my office was set up in haste because I had so much work on at the time we moved, the office needed to be functional as soon as possible.

It hit me what a mess it was when Leg Iron and Dick Puddlecote began the blogspace tag game at the end of last year and the clear out I promised myself in the New Year didn't happen because of working out of the office most days.

It always amazes me when anti-smokers slag off smokers for having what they consider to be dirty houses. I don't know if they live in shit and never redecorate but we do every five or six years because we get fed up with the decor before it gets to the really nicotine stained stage.

And I actually like decorating because I like to relax by doing hard physical work, gardening, running, cycling or horse riding.

Immediately after the office redecoration, we had to help daughter No 3 clean a council house that she moved into after a swap. The place was filthy but not in a nicotine stained way despite the fact the woman who moved out with her kids smoked and never opened windows.

The muck that lay in thick black inches of dirt on the window panes was settled condensation that had never been allowed to escape in the six years that the woman had lived there, the carpets were a veritable patchwork of stained, black and coloured spills, there were things under where appliances had stood for years that I couldn't even look at as I cleaned and scraped for fear that I would vomit. The garden was like a junk yard.

As daughter No 3 is expecting her second baby in a couple of months, it has been a bit of a worry because of all the heavy and hard work she has been doing in this new house. Her moderate smoking does not trouble me at all because smoking when pregnant is not dangerous to unborn babies. My grandmother proved it, my mother proved it, I proved it and my daughter has proved it. The anti-smokers lied to scare pregnant women into compliance with their ideology.

Despite this physical work that I've been involved in during the last week, each and every day I've found it hard to ignore the smoking issue because each and every day some other horrendous news story about the next part of the plan for smokers, including the open air ban, meant that the issue was still firmly in my mind but instead of venting those fears and concerns here, I blasted both barrels at colleagues at work.

The never smoker reporter from another paper that sits in the same court each week as I do tends to ask me what's new with the smoking issue by way of conversation between cases. I told him of some of the spite coming from Australia and some of the comments left on DP's anti-smoker sociopath spot.

He looked shocked and suggested it was hate crime. I find it strange that a reasonable person such as that can see it immediately and yet our bigoted Govt can't.

The chap from Addaction told me he is a smoker but he agrees with the ban because in his opinion SHS is harmful. I told him it was not. He said Roy Castle's widow would disagree. I told him Roy Castle smoked cigars and even if he did die of passive smoking, then the fact that he is the only person alleged to have done so proves in itself how safe SHS is. They say smokers kill trillions of people with SHS and yet they cannot name one.

Suffice to say his eyes were opened to the scam that has gained so much unjustifed ground.

Talk of imposing an outdoor smoking ban, for example, has nothing to do with health and even the bigoted, obnoxious, spiteful and selfish anti-smokers admit it :

Banning smoking is not about you not being able to have your little cigarette. It's about us, who have to endure your smoke wherever you see fit to stench up the air.

Do you understand those of us who dislike your smoke aren't worried about cancer, we don't like being assaulted by the IMMEDIATE effects of smoke, which is completely obnoxious. Yes, it's akin to be assaulted.

While, I do not want to take away your right to smoke, not at all, you can not in the same way demand your right to force smoke into our sinuses, eyes, clothes and upholstery, just because you're a selfish dick.

The coward who left that comment on Chris Snowdon's blog can't even put his or her name to the comment that shows more a hatred of smokers than any fears about health.

It's obvious who the real selfish, nasty, intolerant, and spiteful people are in this debate and it certainly isn't smokers.

Couldn’t give a XXXX for freedom

We’re all used to the image of Australians as rugged, rough-hewn individualists, always eager to cock a snook at authority. However, Australia is now one of the most urbanised major nations on Earth and, as Chris Snowdon points out here, it is fast becoming the world’s leading Nanny State.

The Taskforce also wants to ban drinks advertising during programmes that are watched by people under 25 – a category so broad as to include virtually every programme – and calls for graphic warnings similar to those now found on cigarette packs to be put on bottles of beer. It also wants the government to establish ‘appropriate portion sizes’ for meals, to tax food that is deemed unhealthy and to hand out cash bonuses to those who meet the state’s criteria of a healthy lifestyle…

…Australia has a unenviable record of internet censorship, for example, and a national website filter has been proposed to protect children from pornography and gambling. It also has a longer list of banned video games than any other Western democracy. And so if you, as an Australian adult, want to exercise your right to gamble and play violent video games, that’s just too bad. The rights of some hypothetical teenager to enjoy freedom from grown-up pursuits trump your own rights to pursue them.

The problem with Australia, as someone once told me, is not that they sent shiploads of convicts out there, but that they sent the warders too, and it is that mentality that now seems to be in the ascendant.

Knocking out the trade

Some slightly worrying comments here from Chris Tulloch, managing director of pub operator Weston Castle who specialise in breathing a new lease of life into failing low-end pubs belonging to Thwaites and Mitchells.

“We always have only one bar, it may serve to more than one area or more than one room. The bar, in our opinion, is the real heart of the community pub and it’s the most important thing in every refurbishment we do.

“Secondly, we take away pokey rooms, corridors and blind spots. This ensures that the bar is the centrepiece of a relatively open-plan venue and everything can be seen from the bar.”

Tulloch added that machine locations are very important too and Weston redesigns the entire layout so that it is able to continue to receive 20% of its profits from machines. There are also pool tables, jukeboxes, darts, bingo, live music and karaoke themed nights.

Well, I suppose anything that improves the trade of pubs has to be welcomed, but knocking them through and turning them into brash, standardised bars may not prove a good idea in the long term when customers value character and distinctiveness. Personally I actively seek out pubs with pokey rooms, corridors and blind spots.

What he is describing sounds very much like the typical failed pub model of the past forty years. There’s no mention of improving the drink and food offer, nor indeed of ensuring that there are decent smoking facilities. And, by definition, you can’t see outside areas from the bar.

Ask a silly question...

Alcohol Concern currently have a poll on their website asking the opinions of under-18s on alcohol advertising. Given their previous impeccable reputation for impartiality, I’m sure everything will be entirely fair and above board and none of the questions will be loaded to the slightest degree. I mean, it’s not as if they’re pushing a particular agenda, is it?

Obviously if you’re 18 or over you can’t respond, as it does ask for your age, but if you have any children or young relatives in the right age group perhaps you could encourage them to make their voices heard.

Counting the Spoons

The most recent poll asked people how many different Wetherspoon pubs they had visited. I was really just asking this out of curiosity after I recently counted up that I had visited 31, rather than trying to make any particular point. There were 99 responses, broken down as follows:

None: 13 (13%)
1-5: 31 (31%)
6-10: 25 (25%)
11-20: 12 (12%)
21-30: 4 (4%)
31-50: 8 (8%)
Over 50: 6 (6%)

It is perhaps somewhat surprising that anyone who currently ever visits pubs in the UK has not been to at least one, but there you go.

Although I have visited many Spoons around the country, including three in Scotland and two in Northern Ireland, I haven’t visited quite a few in my local area, as since they’re much of a muchness there’s little point in going out of your way if another is more convenient.

I have been critical of the lack of atmosphere in Spoons’ pubs, but, on the other hand, if you’re in an unfamiliar town they are somewhere you can rely on for reasonable food and a range of cask beers that are likely to be in decent nick. Few town centre pubs serve food in the evenings or on Sundays, and realistically you are often comparing Spoons with Pizza Express and the Bengal Palace rather than other pubs. Taunton in particular was a town singularly devoid of decent pubs to offer Spoons any worthwhile competition.

This chap has been to pretty much all of them.

Staggering around Shaw Heath

There’s more of my deathless prose in the May edition of Opening Times – see Page 7 for my write-up of the Shaw Heath and Higher Hillgate Stagger. Sadly the licensee of the Plough passed away between doing the crawl and the publication date. In hindsight, I probably should have mentioned the fake but appealing coal fire in his pub.

The piece on the closure of the Woodman in Hazel Grove by Mike Wilson on Page 9 is also well worth reading, making the point that even if a pub seems “no great loss” now it may well have seen better days in the past, and it marks the disappearance of another part of our heritage and traditions:

The Woodman was the sort of pub you could easily wander into on your own, order a truly excellent pint and then chat to the locals. As corny as it sounds, there was often some extemporore singing in the snug, aided and abetted by Bertha and Jenny who sat conveniently close to the snug's serving hatch, thus ensuring a ready supply of free drinks as new customers arrived. At one point an argument broke out between Bertha and Jenny and they were never reconciled to my knowledge, with the result that Jenny then took residence in the other front room - but this wasn't nearly as effective for her supply of free drinks, no longer being visible from the main bar.

Are our children safe?

The Daily Mail reports with characteristic relish that a group of primary school teachers “disgraced themselves” by enjoying a night out and posting the pictures on Facebook. Now, as far as I can see, they did nothing worse than any typical group of young women would, and their chief transgression was not setting their profiles to “private”. Amongst the deadly sins they committed were “smoking” and “drinking cocktails”. How can anyone be happy to entrust their children to the care of such a bunch of debauched trollops? Perhaps next time they should consider having themselves pictured at a knitting circle or a feminist book reading group.

DUMMY IN

Ahh fuck it. My finger has been hovering over the delete button all day but I can't bring myself to do it.

Perhaps I'll just stay sulking in my quiet corner for a bit before writing on here again - or maybe I'll just snooze with one eye open while I wait for something to turn our way.

It sure as hell hasn't happened yet and bearing in mind that some people don't think smokers really matter anymore, smoking is too embarrassing a subject to talk to politicians about, and the "nutters" who support us are not worth our time and effort, then I don't expect it to get better any time soon.

In fact, as long as smokers keep voting for a party or parties that have just picked up Labour's denormalisation policy with an added Nudge, it can only get much, much worse.

There is no point to any of this fighting constantly uphill with little support and shouting until I'm hoarse which is why it feels like this blog has come to the end of its natural life and I have run out things to say.

Maybe it's the way I feel today. Maybe I'll be back in a week, maybe a month. Maybe not at all. Maybe today is not the day to decide.

THE LAST POST

Not much to say here really except the title and to reproduce my thoughts and comments as they have appeared on FB

My fight is almost over

by Patsy Nurse on Saturday, 21 May 2011 at 13:39

I am so, so, so close to hitting "delete" on my blog and all efforts to date to fight the unjust denormalisation of people who enjoy something that they are told they are no longer allowed to enjoy. It's bad enough when you fight the other side but sometimes those who let you down the most are those who claim to be standing firm by your side. It's enough to make you want to quit smoking and I just might. It will kill me but who wants to live in this NuWorld of selfish puritans anyway? Not Me!
Join my protest on July 2 - it will be my one and only and last and then I'll disappear into obscurity, delete this FB account and then begin to live a more contented life, underground, away from the vile, vile selfish idiots who are ruining the future of my children and grandchildren. So many millions of lives wasted in two world wars to fight for the freedom of of those who have no idea what it means.

Like · · Share · Delete

Mick Walker Nah, don't do that. Take a walk with your man, enjoy the day, enjoy life. enjoy a smoke. Lay down in a field and look at the sky ... you are who you are and always will be and think of the good things in your life.
33 minutes ago · Like

Bill Gibson There is far too much going on right now, much of which is outside of of our control to influence the result ... but there are some surprises around the corner.
28 minutes ago · Like

Patsy Nurse Yeah - you are so right, Mick Walker. Surrender is sweet and I'll give up and smell the fresh air rather than the poison put forward by both pro-choice and smokerphobes. I think I'll join the Labour Party, campaign vociferously for them an...See more
24 minutes ago · Like

Christopher Lees It gets you like that as I damn well know. Do what you feel is right for you and yours. You have won, you just don't know it yet..
24 minutes ago · Like

Justine Hawkins Agreed Mick. Just got a link with Reggae name generator. l am Sista Rita, Patsy is Ganja Rose and Mick is Bredda Bassy. Funny for a Sunny day! xxx
22 minutes ago · Unlike · 1 person

Justine Hawkins Now get off the damn computer and catch some rays! x
20 minutes ago · Like

Bill Gibson I cannt comment further but a result is not that far away ... if you feel so strongly about it, go out have a ciggie in a prohibited area , get a ticket then go to court & fight your case. It will be 4 years in August since Chris Carter did just that and is now within touching distance of upsetting the odds.
20 minutes ago · Like

Bill Gibson Time that you started real reserach into Constitutional matters and the legality of the Smokefree Legislation.
18 minutes ago · Like

Patsy Nurse I don't think the law matters when applied to smokers or legal tobacco companies. They have already broken so many by just twisting the goal posts and tweaking what is legal to make it illegal. Frankly, I've got to the point of believing it when I see it and not until.
14 minutes ago · Like

Bill Gibson Forget the subject of smoking, it is clouding your thought process .. start looking outside of the box
10 minutes ago · Like

Patsy Nurse If I forget the subject of smoking then it's over for me. Thanks Bill. That's decided it. I am denormalised. I quit!
3 minutes ago · Like

Bill Gibson Fine, but you will miss all the fun
2 minutes ago · Like

Bill Gibson As I have said, look outside of the box as the impending result will have real consequences with regard to the Lisbon Treaty as well.
A few seconds ago · Like

Patsy Nurse Fun? I can't say there has been much of that to date. Abuse aplenty is all I've had so I must have been mixing in different circles.

That's all I have to say. I'll watch with interest what happens but my guess is Fuck All As Usual!

Dust and ashes

Here’s a picture of the now-closed Ash Hotel in Heaton Norris, Stockport, scene of the last night smoke-in described here. It’s a rather magnificent redbrick Edwardian building in the Jacobean style. I hadn’t really appreciated before taking this photo how impressive the side elevation was as well. At one time it had its own bowling green at the side, later used as a beer garden.

By the time I first visited, it had been extensively altered inside, but it still retained a possibly unique free-standing hexagonal handpump stand in the space between the lounge and vault bar counters, and a “Cocktail Bar” in the left-hand lounge which was typical of 1960s attempts to make pubs appear more sophisticated. It later received a further nondescript refurbishment which involved reducing the public area and taking the large rear vault out of use. Now it will never trade as a pub again – reports say it is to be used as a bakery.

Poppy choppers

The debate over whether CAMRA should support non-real craft beers continues to rumble on, as Tandleman puts it. In the latest issue of CAMRA’s quarterly “glossy” magazine BEER, there is a “for and against” opinion piece, with Tim Webb putting the case for, and Tandleman himself arguing against, although certainly not saying there is no merit in any non-real craft beers.

Now, as you’ll have gathered, I am no cask exclusivist, but on this issue I am inclined to agree with Tandleman, primarily because embracing non-real beers opens up a can of worms. CAMRA does what it says on the tin – it campaigns for real ale, something that has a clear and objective definition. It is not my view that means it should campaign against other beer styles (and founder member Michael Hardman agrees), or regard “real ale” as encompassing the vast majority of what is good in the beer world, although sadly there are still some in the organisation who see things that way.

However, once you start supporting craft beer as such, whether real or non-real, you have to make subjective judgments as to what qualifies. If Tim Taylors, a respected, long-established small family brewer, started making a non-nitro keg version of Landlord, would that be craft? Or Black Sheep, a very successful new brewery (no longer really a micro), albeit one whose cask beers are often thought a little dull? And, if not, why not? How are those beers different in kind from keg Jaipur IPA? And, if keg Landlord, why not keg 6X, or keg Pedigree?

Since the inception of CAMRA, there has always been a strand of opinion that anything widely available and produced on a large scale was inherently dull, and should be shunned in favour of the obscure, extreme and niche. At first this involved dismissing any cask beers produced by the erstwhile Big Six national brewers, then anything brewed by the major regionals like Greene King and Marston’s, then pretty much anything from any established family brewer, then even the products of successful micro-brewers that have expanded into mainstream pubs like Black Sheep and Butcombe. You meet some members nowadays who dismiss out of hand the entire output of brewers such as Shepherd Neame, Wadworth’s and Robinson’s who in the early days were the absolute acme of what the campaign was all about.

By and large, this kind of exclusivity has been rejected, but the advent of “craft beer” enables the issue of sorting breweries into sheep and goats to be opened up again. The embrace of “craft beer” would allow the righteous brewers operating at the cutting edge to be exalted, and those who have committed the deadly sin of achieving mainstream success amongst non-enthusiasts to be cut down as tall poppies.

As an aside, I have yet to encounter any “craft keg” outside of specialist beer pubs. Is this all really something of a storm in a nip glass?

LIGHT BLOGGING

Sorry for my absence of late but I've been rather involved in an office clear out which is well overdue and is by no means finished yet.

I've unearthed trash from forgotten drawers and pondered over documents I've kept for years - some going back as far as 1992 - but I've been strong and decided to chuck them rather than hang on to them. As I can't recall them all just a couple days after chucking them out, then that is evidence in itself that I haven't needed them and still don't.

Most things I need to find can be gained on the internet these days and so the mounds of paperwork had to go. What I've kept is some historical articles on such things as the early Chinese imitator magicians, the history of our Civic Insignia including Hermit's Hoof, and the first ever supplements trying to sell to Lincoln the idea that it needs it's own University. I may report on some of that when I come back to daily blogging in about a week.

Now my office feels really spacious and I can breathe as if I quit smoking several years ago but with the sunshine streaming through the office window comes that overwhelming desire to decorate so everything is going to be shut down while I strip paper, plaster more up, and give the walls a lick of paint and try not to inhale the harmful chemicals from that particular environmental pollutant.

Then I'm going back to fiction as my journalism work contracts have ended and I'm committed to just one day per week on court reporting in Bostonia - the Lincolnshire centre of Eastern Europe.

Clouds on the horizon

“Anti-drink lobby? What anti-drink lobby?” someone wondered. “As far as I can see, the quality and variety of drink available is better than ever before, we have the most liberal licensing hours for a hundred years, and I don’t see any actual restrictions on me being able to have a drink.”

In a way you can understand why someone would hold that view, but it does reflect a narrow, blinkered perception and an unawareness of how the plates are shifting in the wider world.

There are already some official legal or quasi-legal measures, of course. We now have the highest levels of alcohol duty in Western Europe, with the prospect of it continuing to increase above inflation for the next four years. From October, we will have a 25% surtax on stronger beers. Most bottles and cans now carry exaggerated “safe drinking” information. The growing adoption of “Challenge 25”, while not actually stopping anyone doing anything legal, provides a major disincentive to young people buying alcohol when they are fingered as suspects every time they try to do so.

You would also have to live a very sheltered life to be unaware of the increasingly negative stance on even moderate drinking taken in both government publicity and media reporting, which has led to a noticeable shift in public attitudes. People in the public eye, from showbiz stars to business leaders, will more and more make a point of saying they never touch a drop.

One of the main areas in which this has happened is drinking at work. When I started full-time work in the early 80s, it was commonplace to go to the pub at lunchtime at least one day a week, sometimes more, and most of those going, apart from confirmed non-drinkers, would have a couple of drinks. Now, it only happens on rare special occasions, and most present will be on soft drinks. Many employers, far more than in 1981, now impose a total ban on drinking during the working day.

Now it could be argued that this is a good thing, leading to fewer long liquid lunches and snoozing, unproductive workers, but that illustrates a key point about many anti-drink measures, that, taken in isolation, they may not seem that unreasonable, but their cumulative effect is to steadily curtail the opportunities for drinking and adversely affect public perceptions. And the fact that, over thirty years, we have lost a third of the pubs in Britain, and on-trade beer consumption is down by three-fifths, demonstrates clearly how that shift has already affected people’s real-world behaviour.

Realistically, there has been little significant movement in the legal restrictions on drinking. But, in a sense, the ground has been prepared for the coming onslaught, with the constant drip-drip of stories placing alcohol in a negative light and the growing currency of the idea that no quantity of alcohol can be regarded as entirely safe. We are perhaps in the position that tobacco was in twenty-five years ago.

And what are we likely to get in future – continued above-average duty rises, tiered beer duty, minimum pricing, graphic health warnings on bottles and cans, separate drink tills in shops, quantitative restrictions on on- and off-licences, advertising restrictions or bans, curbs on point-of-sale displays, compulsory reductions in the strength of drinks – all of which have been discussed on here at some point over the past four years?

It’s not for me to say to exactly what will happen, or when, but sadly I believe there’s every chance that in the coming years much of this will be brought in. It won’t be Prohibition as such, or anything close to it, and if you still want a drink you will be able to get one (at a price), but the social acceptability of drinking will be much reduced and, in the process, it will more and more retreat from pubs and bars into private spaces. Hmm, that sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it? It’s ultimately not so much about the law as about how public perceptions change.

In twenty years’ time, might the regular drinker be regarded in much the same way as the known regular cannabis smoker is today, as someone who is tolerated, but is looked on with a kind of weary resignation and the implication that they really need to smarten up and get with the programme rather than wasting their life away in a daze?

Forever changes

Recently, another blogger, who shall remain nameless, berated me (indirectly) for having a “fear of change” and displaying a negative attitude towards what he regarded as positive developments in the licensed trade. He didn’t extend the courtesy of linking directly to me, so I will reciprocate.

Perhaps I am guilty of being resistant to change, but isn’t that what a curmudgeon is supposed to do anyway? If you don’t like what it says on the can, don’t reach for the tin-opener.

But I think at times the nostalgic aspect of this blog rather passes people by. I may well think it’s a sad thing that the Colliers Arms at Hartshead Pike is no longer with us, but I wouldn’t hold it out as a model of how a pub should be run in 2011. And (whisper it softly) I may occasionally be guilty of exaggerating a tad for effect.

Back in 2003 I wrote a piece musing on change, in which I said:

Change is an unavoidable feature of life, and it often seems that the pace of change gets ever faster. It’s also part of human nature that as you grow older, you will recall with regret the things that have been lost, while viewing with suspicion any new-fangled innovations. Thus people become, well, a touch curmudgeonly. People’s view of the world tends to be formed in the period when they entered the world as young adults, and they view any deviation from that state of affairs in a negative light.

And to some extent that will always hold true.

But it often seems to me that those berating others for “fear of change” are themselves just as guilty of cherrypicking between those changes they approve of, and those they don’t. You wonder whether those who say that people should accept the smoking ban and move on would take the same attitude towards the Beeching Axe or the current government’s tuition fees policy.

Vintage stuff

Another extract from Vintage Pubs and Real Ale in Greater Manchester, this time describing the long-closed (and keg only) Colliers Arms at Hartshead Pike:

The incredible Colliers Arms is attached to a farm, high above Mossley, right next to Hartshead Pike Tower. It is delightfully ancient and pokey. Nothing has altered for decades. It is difficult to know which are the public rooms and which are the private household areas. In fact there is only one public room with odd corners, very old bench seats, a fireplace and a piano. In reasonable weather most people drink outside the pub rather than inside. The beer is served from the doorway of a small back room rather like a scullery. Alas, it’s Bass keg beer. In this setting it should be home-brewed beer, dispensed by jug. Worth a visit for curiosity value, but not for the beer.

This must have been the last remaining pub of its kind within the Greater Manchester borders. There’s more information here – some interesting comments about the toilets.

More Blogger problems

As you probably noticed, Blogger was offline for the best part of a day on Thursday evening and Friday last week, and a lot of posts and comments vanished into thin air. Fortunately, I didn’t lose any posts (and I always compose them in draft first anyway), but a number of comments made on this one disappeared.

Now, on the latest poll, I’m sure there had been 27 votes yesterday, but the total has now reduced to 18, so clearly all is still not well.

HELP FIND MARK'S KILLERS

Some time ago I wrote about Tony Corley's search for justice after his son was shot dead and then murderers were set free because of police law breaking.

What happened and why is detailed here and it seems the European Court of Human Rights has everything to do with it and why it went so wrong.

Tony and his wife also spoke about it here at the time and how the trauma of losing a son in such a violent and cruel manner was made worse by police incompetence and lazy investigations.

His book More Questions Than Answers details the family fight for justice from learning of their son's awful death to seeing five people walk away from court sneering at the Corley's grief.

Now it is 11 years since Mark was killed. The police team that messed the case up has gone and so has the former Chief Constable. Tony thinks now is the right time to search for new witnesses.

"There may be people out there who are now willing to come forward or who may have seen something then that they thought insignificant at the time but now realise is of importance," he said.

"Until Mark's killers are brought to justice I cannot rest. People have said to me that they understand but unless they've lost a child in this way they can only imagine what it's like. Others tell me to get over it and move on but how can I when I've stood in the spot where he was killed, I've seen people arrested and then seen them walk free because a judge has given preference to their human rights over that of Mark and my family?"

Tony gets some comfort from the SAMM organisation which includes members like Sarah Payne whose daughter was murdered by a paedophile and he set up Stand Together to help those parents whose kids were taken but no justice was ever received. It seems there are far too many cases of that sort.

With no police help, Tony is turning to the public for information that he can then take back to police and demand the case be reopened.

If you can help, contact Tony HERE

There is also a Facebook group that gives more information.

Serendipity

In the comments recently, Nisakiman said:

I really count myself lucky that I was going to, and enjoying, country pubs when they really did epitomise a British way of life; before the breathalyser, before the smoking ban, before the gastro-pub. It was a hoot driving out to some semi hidden pub in the middle of nowhere, only to find it heaving. Old sofas in the saloon, hole-in-the-wall bar, kegs* with wooden stopper taps racked up behind, grumpy old bugger behind the bar, no TV, no music, great atmosphere and lots of instant friends. Alas no more. A great loss.

Now, I can fully identify with that, and would say it continued well after the breathalyser. In particular, I recall the Royal Oak at Hooksway in West Sussex (pictured) in the early 80s fully fitting into that category, especially the grumpy landlord. In that period I had a friend who successively lived in Gloucestershire and West Sussex, and we enjoyed many productive pubhunting trips in those areas. And we never drove a coach and horses through the breathalyser law either. I have also written about the Boot at Boothsdale in Cheshire.

But things steadily changed, as pubs became more self-aware and consciously aiming to appeal to specific markets. The unspoilt, unpretentious alehouse of 1980 may by 2010, if it has not closed down, have become a heavily promoted country dining outlet. There are still good pubs about, of course, but that sense of finding one that is what it is because it has been run in the same way for thirty years has pretty much entirely disappeared. It may still exist in some very remote rural areas in Shropshire and Norfolk, but in Cheshire and the fringes of Greater Manchester it is a thing of the past.

And, if you go pubhunting in the urban wastelands, even if you find a pub open, you’re unlikely to encounter a crowd of friendly locals, let alone an unspoilt interior. This pub is on the National Inventory, but, looking around at the immediate neighbourhood, you would be a bold man to park your car on the car park, let alone venture through the door.

* (Yeah, I know, it was really casks, not kegs)

Edit: it’s worth mentioning this post on a similar theme from a couple of years ago

Wot no mats?

Something that has baffled me for years is why a growing number of pubs refuse to provide beermats. Especially with the now-universal adoption of brim measure glasses, they perform a useful role in soaking up spilt and overflowing beer, stopping it staining tables and running off the edge to spoil your clothes. I’m convinced it comes from the same misguided school of “trying not to look like an old-fashioned boozer” that has led to the widespread ripping out of bench seating. It goes without saying that Wetherspoons don’t have mats.

I was surprised and disappointed today to walk into one of my favourite local pubs - which in many respects is very traditional - and find they had decided to scrap the beer mats. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s another niggly reason to feel it’s less than ideal.

Turning the air blue

In recent months there’s been a lot of discussion about the concept of Blue Labour, which seeks to return the Labour movement to its roots in working-class communities, voluntarism and mutualism and rejects the top-down Statism and multiculturalism of the Blair and Brown era.

Now, many will dismiss the idea as a pack of nonsense on a par with Red Toryism. But I was very interested to see an interview in today’s Times (hidden behind the paywall) with Lord Maurice Glasman, leading proponent of Blue Labour, in which he says:

I would bring back smoking rooms in pubs. The idea that you meet your mates and you can’t have a cigarette with your beer is the most authoritarian, nightmarish, anti-English and anti-pleasure thing.

It’s widely thought that Labour was kicking its traditional working-class support in the teeth by bringing in the blanket smoking ban. But if I ever see that in a Labour manifesto then I really will bare my arse on the Town Hall steps.

VINEGAR TITS BAGSHAWE TAKES US BACK

I'd almost forgotten that 1980s classic series Prisoner C Block H until I watched Newsnight the other night and found that the guard who was nicknamed Vinegar Tits is now in the caMoron's NuGovt.

It is uncanny how the unemotional robot Louise Bagshawe MP looks like the character from the old TV programme and her lack of compassion and ability to move with the times also fits.

The NuVinegar Tits is part of a Govt that is trying to take us backwards to the Victorian Era where women are forbidden to enjoy sex and they must not have it before they get married.

The Bag was criticising The Slut Walk which is a campaign to promote the idea that women are not sexual targets and they should be able to wear what they like without attracting criticism for their style of dress if they get raped.

NuVinegar Tits said she didn't support it because she believed it promoted promiscuity which, in her opinion, is harmful. It seems the Govt is also trying to get in our knickers these days as well as other aspects of our private lives and who women sleep with, and how many men they sleep with, is fuck all to do with this puritanical bag or her Govt.

They have the right only to advise women on safe sex and responsibility so that their rich supporters don't moan about paying tax for any children that might result from this promiscuity.

This puritan's stance on sex appears to be bringing back into the public domain former Tory PM John Major's Back to Basics campaign. The one that he was slated by the press for daring to suggest it which is why Vinegar Tits Bagshawe is being so covert about her moralising.

What she will end up reintroducing to society if her prejudices are left unfettered is the next generation of young women who will end up committing suicide rather than face the trauma of getting pregnant when unmarried as their great grandparents did in the 1950s and early 1960s.

At least Vinegar Tits can claim support from fanatical Christian writers but then she would, wouldn't she as Christians like Odone are puritans who would whip a chastity belt on a women quicker than you can say the first line of the Lord's Prayer.

I do agree, at least, that Germaine Greer hasn't got it right either. Strong women don't want to be like men. They want the freedom to be themselves and if that involves enjoying sex with many partners then frankly that is their choice.

Govt control of our social and sex lives is enough to turn the voter back to Labour.

RIP NHS

This group of British soldiers would be turning in their graves to think they fought for a better way of life and were rewarded by a cradle to grave National Health Service which two generations later was turned into a selective organisation that only treats the wealthy and healthy.

It seems that the bully Tories do plan to privatise it and ensure their rich supporters don't have to fund the poor through their taxes since previous Govts stole our NI to fund the anti-smoker industry among other wasteful enterprises.

The generation that fought in WW2 agreed to pay NI for the National Health Service and all was well, if not perfect, until NuLabour came in, moved to the US model and changed the service to become the NHS - an organisation more concerned with squandering our good money on seminars, performance management workshops, and junkets rather than the altruistic care for the sick which should be it's main purpose.

Now it is being selective on who it will treat and who it will not there really isn't any point to it.

RIP The National Health Service. Nye Bevan was a great man but his innovative, truly social idea, was corrupted by the later generation of Nulabour - Hewitt, Johnson, Flint et al - wearing Old Tory clothes. It is soon to be a completely private venture formed by the Eton thieves who plan to crush the last vestiges of "care" it offers.

Now it's each man or women for themselves. I hope I don't get sick. With no where to turn, I'll probably die of something that could easily have been avoided like millions of others who can't afford the NuNHS in future.

FASCIST OZ STEALS SMOKER MUM'S CHILD

Dads smoke too

At face value it looks like fascist Australia is the first to to discriminate against smoker parents.

In this case the country's bigoted judges are taking children from loving mums and giving them to bigoted dads who complain their ex partners are unfit to be parents because they enjoy smoking.

It is terrifying to think that the country is breeding a new generation of Nazis who are being taught to hate one particular lifestyle group and see them as inadequate human beings.

British smoker mums wake up. Your children could be next especially as our corrupt Govt is in the pocket of the anti-smoker industry and to ensure it keeps getting Big Pharma pay-offs, it will move towards this kind of discrimination against loving parents.

First the state favours a non-smoker parent and next it will favour the state over two-smoker parent families.

Is this really what you want? If so just keep voting Conservative. No doubt Big Bully Lansley will see taking kids from smoker parents as a great wheeze to force us down to 18.5% is five years time when the next step towards criminalisation of smokers is taken.

UPDATE
And this latest move comes from a state whose institutions have abused kids for the last 80 years

Sickening isn't it - unless you're fascist that doesn't care about kids other than how you can use them to achieve your own ends of a final solution for those humans you despise.

Vintage Pubs

Following my last post about traditional pub interiors, I dug out my copy of Vintage Pubs and Real Ale in Greater Manchester by Peter Barnes, published in 1988. It even lists me (with my correct current phone number) as contact for the local CAMRA branch inside the back cover.

It is not a beer guide as such (and indeed includes a smattering of keg pubs) but instead sets out to list 150 pubs that still offer a “traditional” atmosphere, which it defines as:

• Separate rooms or definable areas to give you a choice of company, of comfort, of ambience.
• Minimum of structural alterations or pubs where change has evolved at a gentle pace, giving a feeling of continuity and permanence
• Serving all sections of the community or, in other words, the sort of pub where no one need feel out of place

Of the pubs listed, some, such as the Duke of Edinburgh in Bradford (Manchester) and the King William IV in Partington have been demolished, while the Horse & Jockey at Delph is now a mouldering ruin. Others, such as the Queens in Cheadle and the Roebuck in Urmston have been renovated out of all recognition.

But there are plenty that have come through the intervening 23 years pretty much unscathed. Of the nine pubs listed in Stockport, the Alexandra, Arden Arms and Swan with Two Necks retain their National Inventory status, the Armoury and Blossoms, while altered to some extent, still have a pretty traditional feel, the Florist, Pack Horse and Red Bull have been more substantially, although not insensitively, remodelled and the Gladstone (now Bishop Blaize), while little altered, became very run down and is now closed and boarded. It is perhaps surprising that the Tiviot, which is still like stepping back into the 1950s, was not included.

Nearby, the National Inventory listed Nursery in Heaton Norris retains its fabric intact, while the Griffin in Heaton Mersey has had an extension added on one side, but the original four-roomed pub, with its magnificent curved wood-and-glass bar counter, is little changed.

It is interesting that at least three current National Inventory pubs – the Grapes in Heywood, the Queens Head (Turners Vaults) in Stockport and the Turnpike in Withington – do not appear, although in the case of the Turnpike its original early 60s decor may not have screamed “unspoilt” back in 1988.

The description of the Albert in Withington is something that would be unthinkable nowadays on at least two levels:

The Albert is a pub where a working man can relax and not worry where his cigarette ash goes. It is a simple, small, low-ceilinged room, formed out of even smaller rooms in the past, with a central doorway. Thus the pub is a vault. You are not likely to see any woman in here. The furniture is very basic, the television is very prominent and the main colours are dark brown and nicotine.

It’s still going, although no longer serving cask beer and obviously not permitting smoking, and I suspect you would find much the same type of clientele in there. The picture on StreetView appears to have been taken in the midst of a thunderstorm.

DAY TRIP TO LONDON

The above image is one of my favourite from the Museum of London's Street Photography exhibition. I visited with my sister who was looking for inspiration for some of her own work on capturing moments in time.

I think the photo above struck such a chord with me because it was both poignant and nostalgic. It was representative of my own childhood. We were poor but often we didn't even notice because we were happy. Some of us smoked - when we could get hold of a packet of fags which was far easier then than now - but we didn't expect that if we continued to smoke in a future we couldn't envisage, that we'd be treated worse than the dirt we played in.

I also like the way that the kids in the photo of different ethnic backgrounds naturally get together and get on without the enforcement of today's "Diversity" Officers.

Multiculturalism was something we lived with without it's fancy name through common decency and a respect for other cultures. We all abhorred the divisive racists in the intimidating National Front and their idea of white supremacy which could be seen in another image of NF graffiti on a wall in a bleak looking Brick Lane.

The exhibition was fascinating and there were some fantastic images well worth having a look at including Skinheads and hippies around Trafalgar Square, and the one below which features on the cover of a book I bought as I left the exhibition.



Entry to the Museum and the London Street Photography exhibition is free. It runs until September 4.

I hung around the capital all day with my sister after the visit as she worked to get the street shots she needed for her course. She told me that she'd thought of doing a photographic study of today's smokers. As a never smoker former nurse who doesn't much like the smell of smoke, she hates the ban and the health propaganda around it because she can see how it leads to acceptance of fascism.

She couldn't, however, do that as part of her course because her college is anti-smoking and would never allow such a portrayal. This is the same college that expects its students to sign a contract not to smoke anywhere in it's open air grounds and near vicinity. If they break that clause, they kicked off the course.

I think the last time someone decided what was acceptable artistic impression and what was not was Hitler when he ordered the burning of art and literature which did not meet his own view of world perfection.

Drinking in the atmosphere

One of the best things CAMRA has ever done is to produce the National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors, which lists just under 300 pubs across the country which have interiors that are still largely as built, or as remodelled in the past. It is disappointing that less than 1% of all the pubs remaining in Britain fall into this category. Visiting one these pubs is always something special, and it is good to see a place with such a sense of history still functioning as a modern business, as opposed to being preserved in aspic by the National Trust.

While it is perfectly possible to have a dismal pub operation in a superb building – and I have come across one or two that left me somewhat underwhelmed – in general the unspoilt historic interiors add to the atmosphere and produce a memorable pubgoing experience.

Over and above these, around the country there are still maybe a few thousand pubs that, while changed over the years, still present very much a traditional layout and atmosphere. A few examples from my local area would be the Thatched Tavern in Reddish, the Griffin in Heaton Mersey, the Armoury in Edgeley and the Boar’s Head on Stockport Market Place. Many years ago Peter Barnes produced a guide to “Vintage Inns of Greater Manchester” which listed a few hundred pubs that still fell into this category. Some of course have since been closed and gutted, but many are still very much in business.

Some may dismiss this as having an affection for old-fashioned, “dumpy” pubs that have no place in the modern world except as museum pieces, but in reality pubs were designed like this because they worked, and still often provide a far better pubgoing experience than their more modern counterparts.

Until relatively recently, when new pubs were built they still generally conformed to the established norms of layout. For example, Holts’ Sidings in Levenshulme is still recognisably a “proper” pub in the traditional mould. However, over the past couple of decades an entirely new design vocabulary has evolved for pubs and bars that throws all the traditional design concepts out of the window. The key features of this are:

• Very long bar counters dominating the space in which they are installed
  
• Wide circulatory spaces around the bar
  
• An interior comprising a sequence of free-form interconnecting areas rather than defined “rooms”
  
• Free-standing chairs and tables rather than fixed seating
  
• High ceilings
  
• A deliberate avoidance of warm textures and colours

While the success of their business model cannot be denied, Wetherspoons must be the single biggest offender in this regard. I counted up that I had been in 31 of their pubs, and without exception they are soulless, impersonal drinking barns largely devoid of pub “feel”. In my view this is a conscious policy to make their establishments look as little as possible like old-style pubs. They have often been praised for their sensitive conversions of impressive buildings, but in general it’s still just the standard Spoons layout and ambiance and doesn’t really gel with the surroundings. If you put a works canteen on the floor of a cathedral, it’s still a works canteen.

This new design language removes any feeling of cosiness or intimacy and produces an atmosphere more akin to an airport lounge than a conventional pub. Unlike a shop, a pub is somewhere where, as well as buying goods, you are in effect buying time in a particular environment. No matter how good the food and drink on offer, if you don’t feel “at home” you’re not really going to enjoy yourself. And give me a keg Sam Smith’s pub with bench seating and geezers standing at the bar any day over drinking some beer that tastes of tropical fruit while perched on a stool in somewhere resembling the interior of a power station.

(The photo of the lounge in the Nursery, Heaton Norris is taken from the National Inventory website)

FIGHT THE TYRANNY

We'll soon be lamenting the anniversary of the imposition of the most unfair and draconian piece of spiteful legislation ever - the blanket smoking ban designed to socially exclude smokers, promote denormalistion of a selective group, and stop law abiding people from enjoying a legal product that has funded our NHS to the tune of £10 billion a year through tax for decades.

This year is the fourth of being ignored and so the time has come to make the Govt realise how strongly we feel about this and how little public support this law has.

The Third Reich - AKA unelected Tobacco Control - has been working hard to create the illusion that the smoking ban is being complied with by almost everyone, to make others feel isolated and not break the ban because they think they are alone or in a very small minority.

It is a very clever way of creating a sort of 'peer pressure'. It is not in the interests of the smoking campaign to have lots of court cases that create lots of press coverage that show there is substantial resistance to this bad law. They want YOU to believe that the smoking ban is working. That YOU are an exception to the rule and that everyone is complying.

In reality, MOST people, including non-smokers do NOT want a total ban - that is limited to a small minority of smokerphobes, despite what they try to get you to believe! We know that because ALL impartial polls proved it - BEFORE polls were ‘fixed’! Smoker haters ARE in a minority!

Tobacco Control is only surviving on propaganda and uninformed passive compliance - It can be beaten by people like us if we make ourselves known and heard and the planned ASHMob events around the country is one way of making sure we shout loud and proud that we are somebody too!

The 1st FlashSmoking event took place at Charing Cross Station, London, on the 2nd anniversary of the ban, the 1st July, 2010.

About 15 FlashSmokers formed an Ash Mob on the station concourse under the main clock, and as it reached 5:45pm, they lit up.

Hilarious consequences followed. After 5 minutes, with cigarettes almost finished, a BR employee turned up, and while he was upset about the smoking, he was more upset about being filmed while ranting. He called for assistance from the British Transport Police, who threatened to arrest him (the BR employee) for assault on Paul Wiffin, the (non-smoking) supporter who continued to film after the BR Jobsworth repeatedly pushed the video camera away!

The police officer, and the PCSO who was with him, had not the slightest interest in the smoking of cigarettes on the station concourse. Eventually the BR employee was restrained by his colleagues and lead away, while the rest of us finished our cigarettes under the watchful (and protective) eye of the policeman. The protest group then left the station peacefully.

Only one member of the general public said anything negative about the smoking, while several looked on enviously as they fingered their cigarette packets wondering whether to join in!

What it has proved is that:

By the time they realise there's a large group of people smoking, the cigarettes are almost finished. The police have no interest in stopping you smoking. There's little if any chance of the smoke police turning up to fine you. The general public don't care, and if there's enough of you, may well join in!

So verily, I say unto you, get out there and organise more FlashSmoking!

* Reports above from Mark Croucher, organiser of the London Flashsmoking event last year and pro-choice campaigner Steve Bell.

To get involved in a planned event in Lincoln go to my profile and email me.

MINISTER ADMITS DoH CORRUPTION

Well, well, well, junior state health persecutor Nanny Milton has openly admitted that the Govt's tobacco control policy is corrupt and designed by political lobbyists and Big Pharmaceutical vested interests.

In an answer to a Parliamentary question, Milton said the Govt didn't give a stuff about those who had voted Tory nor did it care about law abiding ordinary people or legal business.

Instead, it pays political lobby groups like ASH - which it hides behind "charity" status so its dodgy dealings can't be found through Freedom of Information requests - and only listens to big Corporate interests which compete directly with Big Tobacco companies who are not allowed to be heard along with their legal consumers who are being punished for not wanting to quit.

This would be the same Pharmaceutical Industry that uses Govt to push harmful drugs which kill smokers but they continue to be prescribed because the Govt says smokers don't matter and they are trying to purge us from society so death or quit makes no difference.

It seems that Nanny Milton is openly acknowledging that the publically funded Department of Vested Interests, AKA the DoH, is lobbied by organisations funded by the DoH, and is only happy to speak to those that share it's corruption in making Big Pharma richer and poor smokers criminals because they won't buy Big P's quit products.

And I thought Tories were for free market competition and not about making laws that allow one competitor to prosper at the expense of a rival.

Fair play on the only honest politician in Govt at present for asking the question of Milton. Personally I'd like to know if she is also being paid by Big Pharma to give it an unfair competitive advantage like her predecessor Pat Hewitt - the Taxi For Hire Minister who was paid £3000 per day to advance the interests of corporate Big Pharma in the making of Govt policy.

I repeat what I said above. This corrupt Conservative Govt hides ASH's main function - political lobbying - behind charity status so we can never learn how much it is paying our so called elected representatives to make the policy it wants making.

Philip Davies asked the Secretary of State for Health :

If he will make it his policy to require that organisations which engage with his Department on tobacco control issues disclose whether they are linked to or receive funding from (a) the pharmaceutical industry and (b) the public purse. [54656]

Nanny Milton - presumably in the absence of Big Bully Boss Andrew Lansley replied:

The Government are under obligation to protect tobacco control from the vested interests of the tobacco industry, under The World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Our policy on this is set out in Chapter 10 of “Healthy Lives, Healthy People: A Tobacco Control Plan for England ”. This does not extend beyond the tobacco industry and the Department, as with all other policy areas, engages with a wide range of stakeholders including the pharmaceutical industry, organisations in receipt of funding from the pharmaceutical industry and organisations in receipt of funding from the public purse.

The other question I'd really like to know is who the hell voted anyone in from the WHO into Westminster? I'm pretty sure there were no candidates from that organisation on my ballot paper last May.

So now the secret is out. Milton has admitted for all to hear that the current Govt is corrupt and it doesn't care about it's voters so smoking Tory voters - have your eyes been opened yet or will you still vote for more persecution from the thoroughly dishonest Conservative Govt that panders to Big Industry and lobbyists who are making the policy that you expected to be made by those you voted for?

If you vote Conservative again, you deserve all you get but ordinary hard working law abiding, tax paying smokers do not.

MORE JUNK SCIENCE FROM NUTTERS

source of image

Tea and cigarettes is still my favourite combination despite news that smoking and coffee is good to stave off Parkinson's Disease.

Unfortunately, the self-interest "scientists" (and I use that term loosely), have no idea what it's like to be a smoker, or how smoking affects people who smoke. They imagine in their heads, based on the years of misinformation and fraudulent junk studies, what it's like based on what they have been fed by previous "research" - a term over used to give credence to trash which could just as easily be made up by my over imaginative four year old grand daughter.

But then I've come to the conclusion that nearly all of this health scaremongering is complete and utter tosh especially given the new piece of junk science research that says Obesity harms fatties and others around them

Now that the hate campaign against smokers has been legitimised it is a natural next step for the fascists to look for the next target for public humiliation and social exclusion and this latest piece of made up fiction takes a sinister turn. The lie of passive smoking has now been reframed to enable what will no doubt be future social exclusion of fatties. They should be prosecuted not given cash for fraudulent "research" and "science".

Frankly on these issues "science" should be banned and not the selective groups it targets to make Big Pharma richer and allow these so called "scientists" to profit from the misery they are creating for law abiding people who just want to be left alone to live their lives without fear or prejudice.

Of course they use the excuse that they "just want to save lives". I'd believe it if they didn't excuse all of the lives lost from drugs pushed at them by Big Pharma lackeys like ASH UK

The bigoted Clive Bates from that organisation says it's OK for people to die from smoking cessation drugs "because most of these people would have died anyway". It would quite laughable if his ignorance wasn't so serious. For an organisation that scrounges public money so that its leaders can stuff their faces with health foods, he shouldn't be prepared to excuse the drugs that he pushes that kill them like Zyban and Champix.

This hypocritical and socially damaging ideology has wrecked our long held British social tradition of meeting in a pub, the civilised ambience of eating out, choice, freedom and democracy and even though there are calls for the Govt to step in and save our pubs it isn't going to happen because getting rid of the traditional British pub is part of this NuSocial engineering project of which ASH is the head.

What the issue of smoking certainly needs is more balanced voices and an open mind and fair Govt that is willing to listen to all sides of the debate and not just the one it funds to lobby itself for the result it wants by claiming to the wider public that corrupt bullies like ASH are "charities".

ASH gets just 0.2% of its total funding from the public - and that tiny minority of cash which wouldn't even enable ASH to rent it's own office for one year - probably comes from the unsupported, unpopular smokerphobes who obviously have mental health issues.

When fairness and balance comes back to the debate about smoking, only then can fatties be sure that they will be heard and the hate campaign against them will stop, and the wine o'clocks won't face a future of being described in worse terms than Josef Frizel

If these so called "scientists" really want to make their living on the back of causing misery for others, they should switch the focus of their research to find out exactly what makes someone a smokerphone and where exactly that irrational fear of smokers comes from.

Maybe then they can design a very expensive drug to make these weirdos "normal" like the rest of us.