<P>Like the pic Paul - and the tie!</P><P>Are you back in London??? </P>
 

Well... I live in California, where smoking is being banned FROM FILMS !!!
On our last German tour I loved the fact that smoking was practically enforced..well, if not highly encouraged and available (scorn-free) with vending machines every 50 ft. or so in every city .

As for the health concerns, smoking has damaged me, but hey : eat right, exercise...die anyway :)

Cheers Paul !

-martin
GENRE PEAK
 

I couldn't agree with you more Paul! A few months ago I wrote an article about hiking in the mountains that made reference that I still enjoy a pint at the pub and smoking. The L.A. Times liked the article, but wouldn't publish it because of the smoking reference!! What is happening?!?

Take care,
Jonathan
 

thank god you smoke roll-ups!!!!!
 

Yes, my friend, the world has gone stark raving bonkers.
As you say, such 'health conscious' nations, such as the USA and the UK clearly care very deeply for our well-being... after all, think how consistent they are with their policy-making:

Banned! = Tobacco, all varieties and everywhere
Endorsed! = Gas guzzling shiny Landrover with bull bars and carcinogenic emissions by the bucketload rocketed straight into your face
Banned! = Fish and Chips (Yes! It's true- in a village in England a planning application for a fish'n'chip shop was turned down on the grounds that it would 'encourage obesity and ill-health')
Endorsed! = All so-called 'Organic' wholefood outlets selling equally high-cholesterol cakes/muffins and ghastly frothy coffee that is undrinkable and expensive... but, hey, that's ok!
Banned! = Once weekly rubbish collections (cited Greenhouse effects and all that nonsense)... now doesn't England have a history involving rats?...best not mention that... hmmm...
Endorsed! = Air-fresheners (Yes! We have adverts on T.V. of babies sniffing these unnecessary 'home odour solutions' as if they were popcorn or newly mown grass. With as many chemicals and carcinogenic pollutants as your average ciggie, surely this isn't wise?)
Endorsed! = Wi fi in primary schools. Don't worry if your growing infant's brain is slightly heated- it only causes brain tumours, headaches and unusual cancerous growths
Endorsed! = Mobile Phone masts in school playgrounds beaming their microwave radiation directly over our kids

They really do have our best interests at heart, don't they?

I shall continue, as I do already, to take advantage of God's umbrella for the outcasted smoker, the arching tree, under which I sit, in need of no man-made awning or 50% wall-free structure, to enjoy the flavour of a Richmond Menthol and the peace and quiet of my own sweet company :)
 

Try the Isle of Man, smoking ban doesn't come into effect till end of march 2008
 

Same shit in France ! (And in Canada it's worst...)
So we will have regular smoking meeting for the mini festival Optical Sound in Paris March 7.
I think they should do the same thing for the booze, then we could go freely in prohibitions backrooms like in the 1930's !
 

You have a point there about prohibition backrooms! Except this time we don't let the mafia do it for us, we do it ourselves! REAL UNDERGROUND
 

Paul, I TOTALLY feel for you!

As another (relatively) late-comer to smoking (didn't start on the fags until I was 22), I took smoking in public seriously and viewed it as MY RIGHT under law to do so (and anyone who didn't like it could sod off to somewhere where they chose not to smoke!).

However, following the smoking ban in Scotland (which we got more than a year before the English did (much like the Poll Tax, but that's a totally different story!)), my attitude started to change... pubs opened up outside areas where smokers could sit/stand and smoke away without fear of endangering anyone else... it REALLY did make a difference and, even as a comitted smokers-rights sorta person, it wasn't that big a deal (if anything, it made MORE of the ritual/fun of having a fag!).

Last year, as I approached the big 4-0, I started to SERIOUSLY consider stopping. I didn't decide to give up on the 1st of January, but waited until I'd smoked my last fag and finished the last of the (legal) high I had.

I've not inhaled anything but fresh air (and some second-hand smoke) since the 6th of January and don't intend to in the forseeable future.

Wanting to stop (and a little help from the nicotine chewing gum industry) has reduced my cravings (and the withdrawl effects) to a manageable level. It's not quite a month since I stopped so I'm NOT saying I'll never, ever, smoke again but I think it'll only get easier as time goes by.

I used to be 'evangelical' about MY RIGHT to smoke, so I DO understand your position, BUT do you REALLY want to be a slave to to tobacco industry for any longer?

I COMPLETELY understand your argument about the hypocrisy of banning smoking while allowing bigger, more polluting cars but I think you're missing the point.

You don't NEED to smoke to live. You weren't born with a fag in your mouth. While giving up is possibly going to be difficult, it WILL benefit you in the end. You should try, if only to prove that you don't neet to be anybody (or any corportation)'s slave.

I hope you see what I mean?

Good luck! :¬)
 

Yea, except here in france the pubs aren't owned by brewery chains(all the better ) so they can't afford heated terraces and the like. So I smoke a fag outside, go back in, take a sip of coffee, need another fag, go back out and ten of us are out there freezing our balls off n no one's inside the bar?
Now come the summer, that's a different story! The street will be the place where it's happenin!
 

Hi there Paul,
I left a few comments on the smoke-ban even tho it was rather in jest, but this whole thing has got me really pissed off!
I thought some people might have added but it seems to have extinguished itself like an old roll-up.
When I've got time I'll put something up on my blog!
All the best.....mike
 

sorry cant agree less I miss the aesthetics of hazy smoke but not the stink in my clothes and effect on my eyes and lungs. Standing outside for 5 mins does no-one any harm and then I don't have to go like Roy Castle (actually maybe you do have a point)

As for pumped up 4x4s get rid of as well, ken has introduced emmissionn zones recently so that ameliorate that prob to some extent.

all in all there a re more pressing problems in the world to worry about ...........like LEEDS UTD getting 15 points deducted.

by the way nobody said you can't smoke crack in the pub.

Nick C
 

15 points dropped over the last couple of months have cost the arse dear.
 

Unfortunately our country is full of contradictions. As far as I know, it's always been that way.

What can you do?

Just give us our color tv, our gas hog hummers and our coronas and no one will get hurt.
 

I agree with your comments about vehicle pollution, but I think it is stretching it a bit to say that smokers have a 'right' to pollute the atmosphere of enclosed public spaces and impose their habit on non-smokers. What about the rights of those who want to enjoy going to a pub without choking, in a smoke-free environment? I would love to play my guitar at very high volume in the early hours of the morning, but this doesn't mean that I have a right to do so and that my neighbours should tolerate my anti-social musical whims! Banning smoking in public places is just the first step in making our planet a cleaner and more pleasant place to live - eliminating toxic vehicle emissions will undoubtedly follow. As a smoker, it must be extremely annoying to be suddenly denied the 'freedom' of smoking in a pub. However, smokers have not been denied the right to smoke - more importantly, we have all been given the right to breath clean air in enclosed public spaces, which is surely a fundamental human right for all of us?
 

You'll pardon my speaking out of turn... but no one, and I mean NO ONE, has a "right" to a smoke free pub. A pub or bar is a *privately* owned establishment, ie: not a public place, in the legal sense of the term, and as such, whether smoking is allowed or not should be entirely up to the business owner's discretion.

To say you have a "right" to a smoke free pub... what does that even mean? What if said pub owner didn't want to ban smoking? Then what you're truly saying is this: "You, pub owner, by law (since it is my *right*), must open a pub where smoking is not allowed. What's that? You don't want to? You say you'll get out of the business entirely? Not so fast, it's my RIGHT! Therefore, by law, you must devote your time to opening a non-smoking bar because it's my RIGHT to have a pint in a smoke free pub." What utter nonsense!

Because the "public" chooses (and CHOICE is such an absolutely crucial concept) to patron a particular place of business does not in any way, shape or form make it a "public place" in a legal sense. **It is a private business.** A courthouse, public library, city hall, police station, etc. is "public property," and if they want to ban smoking there, then so be it. But, hands off the private property! A privately owned business is no different that a privately owned home.

Here's to hoping the nanny state busybodies find something else to do with their time.

And, by the way, no one, and I mean absolutely, unequivocally NO ONE is a "slave" to the tobacco industry. To say that someone is a "slave" to the tobacco industry, implies that they have no choice, and that they are *legally bound by force* to smoking and to the tobacco industry. So, until tobacco companies can literally force you to smoke against your will, the idea of "being a slave to the tobacco industry," is completely absurd. Slavery is something that is forced upon you against your will. Slavery is not something you choose, even if it ends up being addictive, it's still your choice. I say again, CHOICE is such a crucial concept.

Best,
Andrew J.
Society of the Briar