Get the spittoons out!

Snuff is making a big comeback. Mostly because you don’t have to go out in the rain to do it. So far I haven’t seen much mention of chewing tobacco (plug) but I can see that coming back too.

This will mean pubs equipped with spittoons, poker tables and a terrible piano player who stops when a stranger walks in.

Maybe then you can order ‘Whisky – leave the bottle’. I could go into a pub like that.

While in Wales I visited an old friend who has never smoked. Neither has his wife, nor his daughter. His father and grandfather smoked pipes to a degree that would embarrass a small industrial town of the 1950s. I remember visiting. As he says, when they were both puiffing away, you could barely see across the room.

He started weightlifting when he was 13 and by the time he was 16 he looked like the Hulk. All that smoke didn’t seem to do him any harm. He was lifting things that looked like freight wagon axles and he’s still pretty fit now.

So I said ‘I’m going out for a smoke’. He would have none of it. His house allows smoking even though nobody in there is a smoker.

Then he said something that I hadn’t considered. ‘It’s brainwashing. If they can get you to still go to pubs and accept that you have to smoke outside, they can make you do anything.’

He was right. It’s brainwashing in action. I hadn’t thought of it that way because I now so rarely go to pubs but if you pass any pub now, there are smokers outside. They have accepted their lot.

Then there are those who reached drinking age after the smoking ban. They have never experienced indoor smoking. To them, it’s perfectly normal to leave the pub to smoke. Those youngsters aren’t likely to develop their own smoky-drinkies or build shed-pubs because they won’t see the need.

One generation. That is all it takes. Even if the smoking ban were repealed, there would be smokers aged 25 and under who are likely to object to indoor smoking. They simply do not see it as normal.

There is some hope for the future and it’s to be seen in, of all places, the Daily Howl. They blame everything on smoking and their commenters are noticing. The lies no longer pass unchallenged.

In a story blaming a pack of cigarettes for a fire (yes, a pack, no mention of any lit ones) they have this line –

The cigarettes did not have a UK-standard safety feature to stop it burning for long periods.

No such ‘feature’ exists. The commenters have pointed this out. Any commercial cigarette placed in an ashtray will burn down to the filter. If it is carelessley placed, the cigarette can topple off the ashtray as the weight of the front end turns into ash. That can start a fire.

None of this is mentioned in a story about a fire in which two people died. All they want to talk about is ‘Indian-made black market cigarettes’. Were they black market? Had those people, or some of their friends or family, recently visited India and brought back some perfectly legal duty-free? Doesn’t really matter since all the Mail wants to shout about is ‘cigarette causes fire’ based on the finding of a pack of cigarettes in a smoker’s house. No further evidence is required.

Two people died. This is considered almost irrelevant to the story. Fake fags! Smokes from India! Pack of cigarettes spontaneously combusts! Buy the taxed UK ones because they don’t burn… or something.

Anything that is burning can cause a fire. Cigarette, candle, incense, cooker, fireplace, anything. Even things that are not burning, such as faulty electrics, can cause a fire. No matter how much tax you pay on your tobacco, if it’s burning it is a fire risk. Light a candle – fire risk. Spark up the gas oven – fire risk. Ever since humans managed to make use of fire, fire risk has existed. We’re still here. Still burning stuff.

There is no ‘UK standard safety feature’ that stops a cigarette burning. Such a thing has been tried in other countries and it just makes the things unusable, so people buy even more black market baccy. It does not exist in the UK so the statement in the Mail is an out-and-out lie. Not a mistake, not a misprint, a lie.

The Daily Mail makes use of two tragic deaths to push its antismoker agenda. How sick is that?

The hope for the future lies in the comments. They have noticed the lie and the agenda and the number of ‘I have never smoked but…’ comments increases by the day. Meanwhile the usual ‘I think smokers are smelly, nyah’ whiners show no sign of increase.

Soon, perhaps, we will see just how few they really are.

As my Welsh pal said, it’s brainwashing. Conditioning. There are signs that it is breaking down.

Bring back spittoons. If the weak are so offended by smoking, imagine what they’ll make of well-used brass spit-buckets.