England Is No Longer Smoking
(Multiple answers permissible.) Smoking is : A) Cool. B) Bad for you. C) Smelly. D) Nihilistic. E) Expensive. F) All of the above.
It seems that hypocrit season is upon us in the U of K with all new reasons for me to scowl at the powers that be (not that I need a reason).
We are now a month into England’s smoking ban on the inside of public buildings because, y’know, people have to work there who don’t smoke. The new law makes no mention of people who work in an exclusively smoker-only staffing environment, but I guess that’s irrelevant. Not that I’m against the law, but I’d rather that licenses could be had for bars, pubs, clubs and so on to allow smoking throughout because quite frankly the new law has fucked up a good night out.
I’m not complaining about it that much. Smoking, while off the chart cool despite what nanny tells you is antisocial because it makes you smell a bit crap, so on those grounds I concede its value in preserving the smell of people’s natural sweaty aroma. Those who are resident in the Uk may have already noticed that pubs are now usually adorned with joss-sticks, scented candles and the like. Not to conceal decades-old stale smoke. No, it is to hide the fact that people in a social environment start to honk pretty badly after a while. Mmmmm. Someone should legislate against that.
The pub at the end of the road at which I work was populated last Friday as follows : inside, 8 people. Outside smoking, 50+ people. Way to go lawmakers. Way to protect and serve.
Again, not complaining. Yet.
In the biggest ninja move of the new smoking law, The Man has decreed that smoking on railway platforms is also verboten – even if they’re open air. This is the major hit as far as I’m concerned, as smoking at stations is the only thing that makes trains arrive any quicker (ie closer to on-time) and since you now have to exit the building to fill up on Phillip Morris’ finest there often is no longer the time. However king of the hill in this new environment is that you cannot smoke in airports.
I cannot begin to explain just how bad that is.
Actually, I can. And it’s San Francisco airport. The last time I was there, the Californian smoking ban had been in place for a couple of years and as a result the airport was a no nicotene zone. So what? So what if your plane, which you already don’t want to go on because it’s 10 hours+ of withdrawl, poor climate control, cattle transit hell, is subsequently delayed? The result is that you have to hang around for something you don’t want to do, unable to pass the time with your addiction of choice.
Pretty soon it won’t be overzealous religious nutjobs you have to be careful of on planes, it’ll be smokers who’ve been 12 hours without a fix.
Bastard.
All of this is inconsequential really. The ban is okay I suppose even though it is bloody inconvenient, however what it is fundamentally is a big piece of hypocritical legislation. If our friends in government wanted us to stop smoking they could do so through a small piece of prohibition. Outlaw the sale of cigarrettes. Legal to smoke, illegal to sell. Job done. That way you don’t punish the end user, but do punish the drug pushers. But of course that’ll never happen, especially given that tax on a single pack currently comes in at £4 or more. So they want us to buy fags but not smoke them. Cheers semen, you’re a pal.
Even after all this, the subject of the smoking ban has yet to significantly piss me off. The coup de grace on that front comes from my old friends, journalists.
Yes, that’s right kids, there has been a weird and wonderful side effect of the new smoking ban!
Smokers, get this, sometimes mingle with the opposite sex (or same sex if that’s their preference) and flirt while smoking! Hey, let’s call it smirting! Geddit? Smoking+flirting. Ho ho ho.
Attention journotards. We’ve been doing that for fucking years. You think it’s a coincidence that the definition of hedonism is lying back in bed in a 5 star hotel after several hours of particularly engaging champagne fuelled sex in order to light two cigarrettes at once pass one to your other half, rest the ashtray on your chest and smoke away while watching some random TV in a post-coital, semi-drunken, nicotine sated haze? The best bit? It’s all legal. Except now, where most hotels have banned smoking thanks to the new law.
The fun police strike again.
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August 8th, 2007 at 3:55 am
Ah well, y’see it’s not often I disagree with you Sam, but I have to say that as a non-smoker the smoking ban is the best thing since sliced bread. Now I don’t have to put up with smelling like a nicotine addict just coz I fancy a pint at my local. Now, when it rains, I get free entertainment watching all the poor sad saps standing around outside huddled under a single brolly trying to light their fags. Now, when I (dubiously) stand behind women at the bar and start sniffing them, I can get a good idea if they smoke simply by the fact that they smell nice instead of like an ashtray. Now – thanks all to the ban you understand – I don’t get punched by their boyfriends when i grope their arse, or at least I have a chance to leg it first as she either has to go get him, or he has to come inside. All time for my speedy and efficient getaway, whilst lung-reduced fag boy tries to keep up…
August 13th, 2007 at 5:26 am
I wish your “Recurring Themes” section would quite telling me to Taste The Man. It’s very un-nerving…
September 23rd, 2007 at 1:08 pm
If those involved in politricks actually cared about our health they’d ban tobacco products outright. That would cost them a lot of money though, as you rightly point out, and ironically enough the NHS (which tells me that it may not treat me if i’m a smoker) would suffer more than most. But this is to attempt a rational reading of something that is anti-rational, the knee jerk response to anything that will get these whores re-elected and stop making us think about illegal wars and bodybags. Stick your head out of the window around here and breathe in deep. That smell is the ambience of repression….