ID cards made, effectively, compulsory on Monday.
The glorification of free speech made a criminal offence today.
One criminal barrister (not Ruthie) has said that the woolly word glorification is an invitation to a Court of Appeal/European Court reference.
Geeklawyer support the total smoking ban however. There’s not much worse than a smoky pub, or worse yet some fucker lighting up in a restaurant just as one is tucking into a delicately flavoured meal.
Neo-Labour is totally obsessed with political willy waving: “we are so much bigger than you”. And freedom suffers the collateral damage.
As I...
Someone is way ahead of me. I was only musing this morning whilst listening to Ali Desai on the Today programme that the phrase “glorification” must be good for a few billable hours.
I am delighted by the new smoking ban; the best bit of legislation to come out of Parliament for years. As someone who eats out a lot from necessity as much as pleasure I will enjoy my food rather more. And those with allergy induced asthma might now be able to have a normal social life.
Celebrate the smoking ban by going out for dinner and defying those who suggest that the ban will have a negative economic impact. Here’s a recommendation: http://www.adlards.co.uk
Umkhonto we Sizwe. The French Resistance. Glorious terrorists the lot of ‘em. I await Mr. Plod with baited breath.
David Cantrell…your name is familiar to me, but I’ve been awake all night trying to think where from with no success. Star of Eastenders maybe?
As with the ban on fox hunting, I believe the smoking ban is good because it will curtail the activities of selfish people and benefit others. I do not believe that a single toff on a horse goes out hunting for the good of the countryside and people who light up in restaurants show a similar level of disregard for anyone other than themselves and their needs.
I have slightly mixed feelings about the pub ban because I do think a lot of people take smoke as a given in any decent boozer. However, I now look forward to more visits to the pub, having often stayed away from my local on the grounds of smoke and the almighty hum on my clothes even after a brief visit.
I was tempted to oppose the ban after I heard that Jeremy Clarkson supported it. However, it transpires that this is purely on the selfish ground that he is a smoker and he thinks the ban might help him cut back. Good old Jeremy. Always putting himself first. And don’t get me started on his recent article in the News Of The World alleging that the police pick on middle class Britain and do nothing to pursue “the real criminals”. Come on Daily Mail! Sign him up.
David Cantrell…your name is familiar to me, but I’ve been awake all night trying to think where from with no success.
Ruth
He’s a well-known perl hacker, you’ve probably seen his name on the London perl mongers email list.
OOOh. Well. Hello there…Mister Cantrell xxx
To Neil: I do my best to stay out of arguments about foxhunting. I’ve never done it and have no desire to do it. I do feel that the amount of time and money spent on arguing about it could have been better spent on, say, hospital beds.
I do like Jeremy Clarkson, but only becuase he says what he thinks, however unfashionable. I am in fact running a campaign to become the first female presenter of Top Gear (with motorbike specialism). I reckon I could give Clarkson a run for his money. So, if the producer of Top Gear is reading this; please get in touch.
I agree about time being better spent on other things but isn’t that true of most of the time spent by Parliament? The wastage in all areas of public work is simply astronomical and I don’t think the debate on fox hunting has made much, if any difference, to this. In any event I happen to think that this is a very important issue that was dealt with appropriately.
As for Top Gear, I have to come clean and tell you that anything to do with cars or motorbikes leaves me absolutely cold. Watching Clarkson stand there spouting off in his pompous way surrounded by a bunch of motor freaks/geeks is an absolute nightmare for me. I’d rather spend a week in a Highland cottage with Peter Van Hoegstraten than watch 10 minutes of this tosh.
As advocates of free speech, I hope I’ll still be welcome to post my views!?
anything to do with cars or motorbikes leaves me absolutely cold
A worrying statement: it’s not that Ruthie or I are offended - rather, we worry for you.
Van Hoegstraten is a rather strange fellow. A week with him might be, if not pleasant, rather interesting, As long as he doesn’t have access to anything pointed.
Please don’t worry for me. I was just being honest about my views of automotive transport, ie. it simply gets you from A to B.
I have reflected on my comments re Jeremy and I have to confess that I do find him almost as funny as he is arrogant. It’s his dismissal of any link between cars and global warming that gets on my nerves. I have no idea to what extent, if at all, the two are linked but in his rush to decry anything he regards as politically correct or inconvenient to the motorist, he concludes, without any supporting evidence, that exhaust emissions do not affect the environment.
By the way, on the issue of cars, can I take this opportunity to applaud the driving earlier today of the old biddy in a white car who, rather than waiting in the long and very slow moving queue of traffic into town, drove along the outside lane (for traffic going out of town) and then proceeded to cut into the front of the queue. I dare say she would have played the old bat card and declared ignorance of the road layout had I had the guts to confront her rather than fuming silently. Congratulations on your ingenuity! White van man would be proud.
Pensioners eh! in my day they were polite and respectful. Now they just hang around in gangs menacing passing youngsters, get drunk on ginger wine & cause trouble in bingo halls and they all dress they same in those housecoats & floppy hats.
Still you work in chav central neil so it’s no so surprising.
This incident was in a far more respectable area, although I will not defend the area of my office. Thanks for keeping its identity secret, as per our agreement!
Started to develop “blog tick” a nervous affliction caused by absence from this site. So am posting from an undisclosed foreign location. (Lets just say it has snowy mountains and big sausages, heh heh). Weather is glorious (I already have an attractive “panda eye” suntan.) Ruthie is, of course, an excellent skier, and having skied the whole mountain already will be going boarding tomorrow, a bit more of a challenge.
Anyway: to Neil. For God’s sake don’t take Clarkson seriously. Have a laugh at his arrogance, but I’m sure his attitude about the environment is just a way of pandering to a certain section of the viewing public and a way of achieving notoriety. Don’t fall for it.
“Automative transport just gets you from A to B.” Are you, like a girl or something? So why aren’t you rollerskating to work then eh? By the way I think you’ll find that motorbikes are very environmentally friendly, but that’s not the point.
If you mail me I’ll send you a great joke about older women drivers. No-one seems to ever mail me from this site. Either that or Geeklawyer intercepts them all..:-)
Uh..struggling with föreign keyböärd. All the letters are in the wröng pläce….
Geeklawyer thinks that Ruthie has not quite got the hang of a skiing holiday. As the demon of both Val D’Isere Tigne and Austria he thinks that some tips are in order that should help her avoid the sad fate of wasting time in a German/Austrian (?) Internet cafe, apre-ski:
Only if one is still able to see straight at this point is it acceptable to waste time in a cybercafe.
So much to say - so little time
The OAP who almost gave me a heart attack today (Worple Road SW19 for anyone who knows the person concerned has two sets of lights, I was slowing for the red set 50 yards beyond the GREEN PEDESTRIAN CROSSING set you blind and almost flattened old biddy) should be congratulated. Stepping off the kerb, swiftly at 10 feet in front of 28mph car does make most NHS cardiac tests redundant.
Curiously I was also wondering if Snowboarding is more or less dangerous than skiing today as it may be that I have lost a good friend ostensibly on a skiing trip, who planned to Snowboard. After getting lost on the Mountain on Day 2, a message to say they were safe and sound is the last thing to be heard from them.
Top Gear - for those who aspire to go faster than is safe (today 42mph would have done it for one pensioner). It has to be required watching for anyone with a sense that society should not always be PC. JC is so much more fun when taking the P out of any Johnny foreigner,
Geeklawyer - I worry, nick the rolls OK -a mid morning snack washed with the hipflask, But lunch MUST be a little leisurely. It is de rigeur to enjoy the antics of the passers-by from a bar rather than eating sarnies from the edge of a Mogul field. The enjoyment is not just the skiing, not just the eating out, not just the boozing, the mix is the quintessential. As to sex with the ski guide, that may be all well and good for Ruthie, but I have yet to have an opposite-sex guide, and as a heterosexual, this would give me a significant problem to follow your advice under point 5.
Have you considered the possibility that with technology, Ruthie was in the bar (as in 6) with hi-tech comms device, thus not needing to find cybercafe? Perhaps the inabilty to avoid the umlout proves me wrong. OK I’m wrong. Yeah - Ruthie get a life - you’re on holiday - either get back to the bar, the dining table, or , dare one say this on a public forum, the slapkamer?
As to sex with the ski guide, that may be all well and good for Ruthie, but I have yet to have an opposite-sex guide, and as a heterosexual, this would give me a significant problem to follow your advice under point 5.
There are female ski-guides. Some of whom must shave their armpits so that the sex wouldn’t be entirely aesthetically objectionable.
Now boys..play nicely.
Cybercafe pah. Ruthie only stays in the kind of hotels that have fluffy towels, an extensive wine list and free internet access…
And I’m good enough that I don’t need a ski guide. And not desperate enough to pick up some random character from a bar.
But thanks anyway for the advice.
I am very well, if with a slightly sore arse from boarding.
I might have of known Ruthie was a boarding hooligan. Damned menace all of you: go too fast on the slopes, you knock people over getting off at the top of ski-lifts.
I once beat up some skiboarding French youth in Tigne for ploughing into the back of me: he didn’t look so cool after that, as he spat his blood into the piste.
Geeklawyer is predictably against capital punishment: except for snowboarders. Ruthie he would be lenient with and only make her do life with a minimum tariff of 30 years.
You’ve got to catch me first. Hah hah hah.