Beeswax ?

[The Medway Handyman]

Black Swan Dennipoo's.

[Appelation Controlee]

How would this 'choice' have worked, Dave? Would it mean that we would still have had a choice to leave a pub because it was full of cigarette smoke? Sorry for the sarcy edge, but most smokers I've heard want to be able to continue to smoke without having to stand outside in the pissing rain to do so. This tends to translate into the rest of us either staying home or having our clothes and hair stink of stale tobacco smoke after an evening out. This is seriously unpleasant, and has sufficient stature as an argument not to be diverted into an ad hominem spat. The only trouble is that smokers don't appreciate just how unpleasant it is.

[The Medway Handyman]

Very simple. Pubs could have chosen to be smoking or non smoking. The non smoking venue protected by legal enforcement like we have today. Then you could go to a non smoking pub & I could have gone to a smoking pub. Market forces would decide how many of each there were.

'Snoutcasts' as they are known. Most venues have more than one bar, remember the old Public Bar, Snug & Private Bar? Offices & factories could have had smoking rooms - cigarette smoke isn't a difficult particulate to filter out.

I certainly do. I wouldn't wish to inflict that unpleasantness on anyone.

The problem here is that punative legislation designed to punish & demonise smokers couldn't have been passed on the grounds of it being 'unpleasant'. They had to invent a health risk.

The multi billion £ pharmaceutical industry saw stopping smoking as a massive profit centre, something they needed since the number of 'new' drugs they can market is in decline. The marketing budgets are astronomical and are used to influence politicians, the medical profession & the media. The myth of passive smoking was born & is constantly reinforced.

The anti smoking lobby is fanatical anyway & didn't need much encouragement. Look at the ASH website where they talk about 'tobacco control strategy's' 'smoking cessation services' & 'freeing the world from tobacco'. Rabid.

We could have had 'choice', but that's not a word that's allowed by the new puritans. The Oxford Pipe Club, for example, can no longer smoke during its meetings.

Thanks for a reasonable discussion.

[geoff]

not been here long, have you ?

[dennis]

Liar, you keep telling everyone that your smoking has no effect on them.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Absolutely, *if the one next door had the legal means to self declare 'no smoking'*. And enforce it.

Absolute bollocks, Its only your 'one size must fit all' mentality that makes it be that way. You cant see that allowing pubs to make their own choices, and the customers to make theirs, IF the government allowed them to have that authority, solves everyones problems.

[dennis]

Of course your bollocks fails to address the primary reason for the ban. H&S requires the landlord to provide a safe *smoke free* working environment which is somewhat difficult to do if smoking is allowed. Employing smokers doesn't work as that is discrimination and the employer

*still* needs to provide the safe environment even if the smoker wants to kill himself.

[David]

messagenews: [e-mail]...

This group is great!

How a discussion about beeswax changed to smoking.

This group also made me the "boiler expert" in my family.

[The Medway Handyman]

If you paid attention Dennipoo's, you would know that my stance on this has been consistant. I've only ever said that it isn't a health problem.

I find diesel fumes, cheap perfume, fat women in leggings and people from Dudley unpleasant, but like passive smoking they aren't a health risk.

[The Medway Handyman]

But thats entirely the point Dennipoo's. Passive smoking is a myth. There is no health risk.

The legislation is entirely about punishing smokers. Not that its working of course, smoking has increased by around 6.5% in the last 10 years.

[Andy Burns]

You believe that which is fair enough, but the point is that non-smokers may well not believe it, and may not appreciate being "smoked at".

[The Medway Handyman]

Precisely why we should have 'smoking' and 'non smoking' areas/venues. Then eveyone could have freedom to choose.

But we don't because of hysterical fanatics like Dennis.

[Andy Burns]

In the couple of pubs I know which had a non-smoking area before the ban, it didn't work out that way; in a mixed group the smokers never wanted to sit in the non-smoking area.

[Rod]

O but the cheap perfume could be a health risk...

as could the diesel fumes:

and fat women (at least to themselves and their offspring):

Couldn't find anything about health risks of leggings (to others). Spoke too soon:

Dudley is the odd one out...

:-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Bravo!!

I am sure if you look hard enough, you will find evidence that Dudley is indeed injurious to health, though. Its probably joy rider capital of the North.

[Rod]

What is concerning (to me) is that the first three of those were at my fingertips having been read in the last few days. :-)

Having a Dudley accent is probably dangerous - as people are likely to take action to reduce the auditory impact of it in any way they can, violently if necessary.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well as an asthmatic, second hand diesel and second hand smoke and perfume do react badly with me. I also smoke, so I can't complain.

Wood dust and superglue kill me dead..I am pretty sure MDF dust was a hugely contributory factory in getting pleurisy..

As to fat women in leggings..well all i can say is that how these entities manage to get pregnant at all is quite beyond me..I can only surmise that there are some pretty desperate blokes out there who will shag anything, even if its merely out of pity. One would have thought that Darwinian imperatives would have removed them from the face of the earth by now.

Along with Dudley. And Slough.

BUt life's rich tapestry is a source of amazement to us all.

[Stephen Howard]

Remember ladies, you heard it here first...

[dennis]

If you don't want to listen just use your killfile, I couldn't care less about someone like you. As the saying goes I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.

[geoff]

In message , "dennis@home" writes

dennis - if you pissed on anything, you'd disappear, there wouldn't be anything left

shouldn't you be out causing traffic jams or something ?