There does appear to be lots of smokers in Eastbourne this weekend judging by the smoking litter outside of the conference hall.
Not many appear to know about pocket ashtrays or they depend on street ashtrays being provided when they are clearly not.
Just to be helpful, I offered to help the chappie who had to clean it all away by sweeping up. He appreciated the offer but said it wasn't necessary. He said there never used to be a problem there before the council removed the street ashtrays from that area.
The weather in Eastbourne is glorious today. I wanted to sit outside in the sun on a bench and as I approached, I saw a man sitting on it reading a newspaper. I asked if I could sit there and smoke if it didn't bother him. He told me it did - a lot - but I was welcome to sit there if I didn't smoke.
I told him that outside was the only place I could smoke now but as he got to the bench first, I would move on. He thanked me. If I'd got to the bench first, then it would have been a different matter.
Around the corner I met a lovely lady who worked nearby. She said she had been told by her employers that she had to go right away from where she worked on her break if she wanted to smoke. She seemed just about as pissed off as many of us in this disorganised movement of ours so I told her about some of the blogs and support she could find from this blog's blogroll and she might want to get involved too.
She seemed very keen to know more and said she would share the links I gave her with her work colleagues - none of them aware of any kind of activism on this issue.
If she does pop over for a look at this blog, perhaps she could contact Simon Clark at Forest (another group the lady had not heard of) because she also seemed keen to help distribute those cards that will make smokers who are not active online aware of the e-petition calling for a fair amendment.
Judging by this experience, I'm guessing there are an awful lot of unsupported smokers and ASH certainly does not speak for them when they say such rubbish as "smokers want more restrictions and smokers want to quit."
Not this lady. She is lifelong like many of us and doesn't believe the crap on SHS and is confused and angry. She told me about a smoker relative who died aged 83 after a heart attack in his sleep and he hadn't visited a doctor in 25 years.
It's odd that when I talk to random smokers I've never met before, the story is always the same and not the fiction as promoted to blinkered and corrupt Govt by ASH Uk et al.