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

I'm guilty of 'conspiracy to pervert the course of justice'. No, I am not Lord Levy, I actually partake in the occasional cigarette and I am not ashamed to admit it. But, dear readers, suddenly I've become an enemy of the 'smoke police'. I don't smoke that much, but I do enjoy the occasional 'rollup' with my daily pint at the Gay Hussar.

Sadly the Hussar is now a little less gay.

Perhaps I should fill you in with a little background. The Gay Hussar is a tiny drinking establishment about a mile walk from where I live. All it consists of is a small bar of about 10 feet square and a couple of outside loos. I would not recommend it as a venue for your first date – lets put it that way. All that is there are a few bar stools and couple of oak tables and a disused dartboard. However, if your first date happens to be the chairman/woman of CAMRA then you will do no better - the beer is superb.

The hostelry is only known by and used by locals. In fact, if you didn't know it was there it would be almost impossible to find. There is no large maroon and gold Beefeatyou style sign outside, just a simple brass licensee's plaque above the door.

Everybody in the Pub smokes. It is a smoking pub and always has been and that includes the bar staff (owner) and the patrons. If you don't smoke you don't go in – it's a simple as that.

Not since the visit by the Public Health inspector last week. Oh no. You see there is a problem.

The Gay Hussar also sells (lunchtimes only) the best home made Steak and Kidney pie and mash this side of Ross on Wye. Yes every day, cum rain and shine Steak and Kidney Pie and mash. The quality is consistent, the quantities generous and the price very reasonable. But here lies the rub. According to the smoke police one or the other has to go – the Pie or the Players. Someone in their wisdom has decided that Pie eating and smoking are not only mutually incompatible but, and I quote here, actually 'dangerous'.

Dangerous?

As kids we drank water delivered to us in lead pipes - we are not brain damaged. We ate bags and bags of sherbet lemons and pear drops – we still have teeth. There was no such thing as sell by dates, so most of the time we were eating old stale food unfit for consumption and full of terrifying bacteria and micro organisms. Cooked oily breakfasts were the norm, with fried bread cooked in lard – not these fancy air filled, reduced fat, aerobics instructor recommended, continental croissants.

Everything was full fat, unadulterated, real and 'unhealthy'. Skimmed milk didn't exist and, on the top of the milk, stand back! …. there was real cream! The whiter the bread was the better and the jam to go with it was bought at the WI hall prepared no doubt in domestic kitchens roaming with wild cats with acute alopecia.

Cars used leaded petrol, yet we walked alongside these roads on our way to school, there were peas souper smogs every winter, filling our lungs full of sulphur. Passive smoking was de rigueur - you could almost cut the haze of cigarette smoke in the beam of light in the cinema with a knife – and that was Saturday Morning Pictures!

Fresh fruit was in very short supply and Lemonade, Tizer and Coke was sweetened by naturally grown sugar, not healthier artificial laboratory synthesised sweeteners. And as for vegetables, no self-respecting kid under twelve would let anything even remotely green pass their lips.

Scientists, nutritionists and politicians said we should have been dead years ago. In fact according to the 'experts' it is no less than a miracle that we are still alive. But very much alive we are.

So what went wrong?

Might it just be that many of these people trying to run every aspect of our lives, are the same educated, knowledgeable, capable and competent people who for some obscure reason imagine(d)….

…well, come to think of it …

…all sorts of extraordinary things…

Luv,

Toffee