I am going to be controversial today, because I didn’t sleep very well and have the hump.
I sat here watching the news on the BBC this morning and became more and more irate as the items unfolded.
And will refer to Personal preferences as PP because I am lazy and it takes too long to type it.
Smoking-BBC NEWS
The Gov in all its wisdom is going to make shops hide cigarettes and other tobacco products “under the counter” to stop children buying them and deter adults from smoking. What a load of bollocks!
Smoking is a PP and if people want to smoke that is fine with me. The “powers that be” have prevented smokers from enjoying their habit by forcing them onto the streets so as not to contaminate those who do not smoke. That’s fine, but smokers contribute £6 Billion per year in PROFIT over and above the costs to the state, hiding the firkin things will not deter them.
If they want to prevent “children” from smoking then make the shopkeepers abide by the law, and don’t sell them, and especially ban all cigarette vending machines, which by the way they haven’t done.
The “anti smoking lobby” ASH in particular, which is headed by an ex-smoker by the way, wants every one to be like them-self satisfied and arrogant.
Smoking is LEGAL, so leave smokers to do what they want.
Drink driving
As with smoking drinking is a PP, I personally don’t drink, but if people want to that’s OK.
There is a debate about DIY breathalysers and how inaccurate some of them are, leading to people driving when they are over the limit.
There is a very simple solution to that-the drink drive limit should be NIL, if you intend to drive don’t firkin drink.
The Gov as usual is half hearted, why the limit isn’t Zero? I don’t know, perhaps it’s something to do with income for the exchequer, as with smoking, if you know tell me.
Lads Mags
The antipodean, feminist, comedienne on the BBC this morning was bemoaning the fact that “Lads Mags” were almost porn and should be on the top shelf, and that they were often displayed next to children’s’ comics. And the even the SUN newspaper should be confined to the rarefied shelf. And that it is demeaning and “objectising” the female gender.
Once again a PP, if men want to buy these Mags then that is OK, but just a point to the “lady”, the young ladies that appear in these Mags are not kidnapped and forced to pose “semi naked”, they appear willingly, for money and “exposure” (pun intended).
If the same “young ladies” did not want the money and publicity, there would be no “lads Mags”.
It is not the buyer’s fault, and if someone would get astride (another pun intended) the displayers of the Mags and make them conform to the voluntary rules regarding the display of such material then what is the problem?
My PP on this-I don’t buy these type of mag, I think you can see much worse on the TV, and anyway a pert pair of headlights on a young lady brings back memories to my tired old eyes.
Rant over.
And something which is not PP or perhaps it is-BBC NEWS
Oliver Postgate the creator of, Ivor the engine, Bagpuss, The Clangers and Noggin the Nog has died at the age of 83.
We all grew up with these wonderful stories, and I feel that the world has lost a great talent, my condolences to his family.
Angus
