h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And don't forget, the no-smoking doesn't actually apply to them. They can smoke as much as they like in Westminster, because they gave themselves an exception. In Brussels too, they've just completed a multi-million pound smoking facility.

Them & us eh?

>>Why the hell aren't they inside the pub like they used to be? Surely some pubs could stay smoking pubs? Honestly why the cluck not?<<

*sigh*

Because (as we've said many times already) it's an employment health issue and you can't protect some workers and not others.

Plus, how would you legislate which pubs could be smoking? And in small places where there is only one pub, who would decide if it's smoking or not?


If people are standing outside pubs being dickheads I can understand the attraction of wanting to herd them back inside and keep them there. But really, that kind of misogyny and general idiocy needs to be addressed not hidden away.

Funny that it's not a H&S issue for MPs though

Kea, I'm not sure that you have the faintest idea of an ordinary inner city working class area. Pubs, drinking smoking have been a way of life for hundreds of years. And people get merry and silly in pubs. That's the way it is. It was mostly nicely contained in the pub, unless you happened to be married to one of these morons. But I think that's a completely different issue.

Ordinary folk jus going to the local shop after dark, shouldn';t have to walk past herds of morons outside smoking. That is the norm round here.

So why aren't those people who are 'oh so concerned' about the risks of smoking now concerned about this problem? Basically because they couldn't give a t*ss. I'm sure they knew this was going to happen. Why the hell have they waited so long to introduce it in Engfland compared with other countries?

I've spoken to bar staff in my local pub. They all smoke and feel much the same as me about the middle class puritanical do-gooders who know nothing about the realities of inner city working class communities.

All I'm asking for is choice. Smoking or no smoking. What's wrong with people choosing?

You know what I could tell any academic tomorrow about what's happening around here since the smoking ban. More and more people are just staying home with their mates, buying in cheap booze from the Super, and smoking in front of their own kids. If you are really serious about changing smoking and drinking habits for vast numbers of poorish people, this just don't scratch the surface. Which makes me think what the cluck are these laws *really* about?

Any moron could tell you. You ban sale of tobacco and alcohol from ordinary shops. Once again I say any moron could tell you that's what you do.

So lets have some honesty from these mealy mouthed rankers about why they haven't the balls to do that.

>>Funny that it's not a H&S issue for MPs though <<

I find that odd too. In NZ I think the only exemptions are for prisons, and locked psych wards (but even there patients have to smoke in an outside courtyard and visitors aren't allowed to smoke).


>>Kea, I'm not sure that you have the faintest idea of an ordinary inner city working class area.<<

Not in the UK obviously (although I have watched Shameless ). But I've been in enough working class town pubs in NZ to be able to picture what you were meaning. I just don't agree that working class people have some right to a cultural practice that affects everyone in a detrimental way, or at least not this particular working class practice.

We've got a debate here about alcohol consumption. Apparently it's not just the binge drinkers that are at risk, but also the middle class half a bottle of wine in the evening drinkers too. We've had quite a big change in NZ already in the last decade or so around alcohol (being the big pissheads that we are we've had to learn to be more refined), and I think this will change further. I also think that legislation will need to happen in order for some of that change to take place. Sometimes education isn't enough.

I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with cultures having to change some things. We all change anyway. When I grew up there were no wine bars or cafes here, everyone drank one of 3 brands of beer in barns called the public bar. Now it's a different, there is more choice, and my local not only stocks a range of quality beers but people actually drink them


Besides, the real working class issue re smoking is about poverty and stress. I'd rather gnash my teeth about that one.


As for the misogyny of drunken louts on the street instead of in the pub, I think there is a wider issue there about culture and drinking and respect for women. I accept that there may be no proactive attempt to deal with this, but I don't think the solution is to give working class people an exemption from the smoking laws

We had the same arguments about everyone retreating to their homes to smoke and the death of pub culture. But it hasn't happened. I noticed the other day that the ring leaders who boycotted the pub originally are now back there drinking again That's because pub culture can exist quite well without smoking inside (although admittedly my local went to some trouble to set up two good outside smoking areas that are sheltered and user friendly, neither of which are on the street).

So what do we do in the short term about all these drunken eejits spilling out from pubs, smoking, in the short term? Seriously now the evenings have got darker I would feel quite nervous about going to my local shop. I've never felt that before. On the way back tonight I had to cross over to the other side of the street, and hope they didn't spot me.

Really in a totally practical sense I haven't heard a dicky bird from the anti smoking lobby about this. Because they are all nice people living in areas not affected like I am.

I'm not sure thinking of them as tw@ts will engender them to your cause If the anit-smoking lobby and all the MPs who voted for the legislation are ALL middle/upper class and removed from the problem then it is possible they don't actually know what the problem is. Try telling them. Or find the working class people (MPs and lobbyists) and talk it through with them.

I don't know what I'd do in that situation...probably look at my personal safety like you are. But also maybe phone the council and let someone know that there is a significant problem (again, referring to them as tw@ts might not be the best approach ). In NZ at least, framing the problem as a gender safety one would make officials sit up and take notice.

I've already decided what to do. Next time I go to the shop, I'm going to carry a big knife! Actually I'm not kidding, because I'm not what you might call a nicey nicey woman.

I reckon a water pistol might do it

call the police if you feel the need, tell them you're being harrassed... Though personally I would approach the landlord first and tell them their clientele are being intimidating and harrassing people walking past. If they want to keep their licence, I'd imagine they'll make some sort of effort to control their drinkers. If they dont you have every right to complain to higher authorities.

I agree that the attitudes and actions of these people is a seperate issue that has simply come out because they are drunk outdoors now... It's not that it wasnt there, it just wasnt so visible. Letting them smoke indoors doesnt make it go away, it just confines it again. Then you have no change and nobody learns anything.

Personally I'd be on to my local MP, the landlord, perhaps a local paper and the police if nothing else is done. They can always come round and talk to the people carrying out the harrassment and help them realise they are behaving in an Anti Social manner. If you dont feel safe, do something about it, dont blame some legislation that simply uncovered a problem.

If people are stanind outside a pub being leary and maknig a nuisance whether they are smoking smoking or just there because its a hot sunny day isnt the issue their breaking of the law is.

Im not middle class, I live in an area with a (partly deserved) reputation for being violent and dangerous and a lot of that is down to alcohol fueeled violence.

However I dont consider myself a tw@t because Im in favour of the smoking ban. I have worked from time to time on the doors and behind the bar in pubs and smoking made the working environment shitty. I dont think it was as bad as working in a mine but all that second hand smoke cant be good for you can it?

So Im afraid your wrong here Fanny.

One of the issues Ive always had about youth crime being seen as worse is that adults hide their bad behaviour better and your anecdotal evidence proves it but your wrong to want it simply swept out of site again.

Alcohol consumption is dropping. This is a good thing pubs that are causing a nuisance through their customers should be shut. Not given persmission to be exempt like the hypocrites of Westminster.

one love

blicky it was nothing to do with youth crime. Many of them seemed older than youngsters, though I didn't study them in great detail, because of how I was feeling and trying to get away.

And I'm not making some point about wishing the problem to be swept under the carpet. I'm saying up until this smoking ban thing I wouldn't think twice about waliking past that pub. So all I'm saying is that when new laws are introduced, the people doing the planning and implementaion should think through these things properly. If the problem carries on, and it might not with winter coming, I will complain to the proper authorites. But last night I was feeling really angry, and it just suddenly seemed to me that some pubs could remain as 'smoking', like my local for example.

I do hear your points blicky. And I've certainly never thought of you as a tw@t

I didnt make myself clear about the youth crime thing.

What I meant was that people perceived youths as being criminal and anti-social when all the while adults were doing much the same things because adult behaviour of the same kind had a place to happen out of sight.

Now with bookies having glass fronts and pubs having smokers on the pavement in some places people can see that there are uncooth, troublesome, feckless adults too.

(Strange how you never hear about cooth and feckful people though)

Other than the rules about the dimesions for smokers shelters and distance from the door etc you are right there was no other planning to go with the restrictions. I dont think it is the geovernments job to help people adjust to the laws though.

We are talking about a non-necessary habit here not something that most or all people *have* to do.

I can see how throught the time that the pub is busy this could be an issue and that some of the time this will overlap with periods when people will be going about toher business.

However there is still hassel from drunken people exiting pubs at closing time no matter what time closing time is. Its worse at Christmas and the answer there isnt ban Chirstmas or make it once a month so there isnt such a peak.

We deal with it and police it appropriately.

Like I said its a public order issue and not something best dealt with by taking retrogressive steps which in the eyes of anyone with eyes can only be health hazard to those working in pubs and such like.

Interesting title

When is a smoker not a smoker?
When he/she is a fatty...

Surely it would be "t*@" rather than "t*@t" given that @ mean "at"?

Wonder what that was all about?

God damn phantom yiksers.....

I was speculating as to whether or not the @ version of a common low grade swear word that refers to female genitalia would need a "t" on the end as people have been saying in this thread, given that @ means "at".

So I also speculate whomever yiksed me is a right tw@, or possibly a right tw@t depending on how the speculation went!

So it's okay to say' tw@t' but not 'tee, double u, @' - really