Extremes

Digression first – I think I have a title for the Christmas anthology. ‘The Silence of the Night’.

Although maybe ‘The Silence of the Reindeer’…or is that too brutal, even for me? I have some fava beans and a nice Chianti here if anyone wants to come round and argue about it.

Anyway. It has 16 stories from ten authors, three of whom are new entrants to the Underdog Anthologies. Stories range from traditional, whimsical, romantic, dark, to… mine. Editing is complete (unless another one comes in, it’s not closed yet) and this weekend will be occupied with sending out author contracts and payments (it’s also quarterly payments time for the novel authors) and putting it all together.

So, a quick one before going quiet again.

I hear Ohio are now demanding that doctors transplant ectopic pregnancies into the woman’s womb, or they’ll be prosecuted for ‘abortion murder’. This takes the ‘no abortion’ extreme beyond the pale. Even the Grauniad think this is a stupid idea. It’s that bad.

Ectopic pregnancy is where the placenta tries to implant in a Fallopian tube instead of in the uterus. Untreated, it is fatal. Both mother and baby will die.

The only treatment is to operate to remove the wrongly implanted foetus and that has to be done very early on, well before any sane country’s abortion limit. Yes, the baby will die but that was inevitable anyway. The mother can survive.

So, the Ohio idiots-in-charge have decreed that doctors cannot simply remove that wrongly implanted pregnancy, they must transplant it into the mother’s uterus. This is a medical procedure that, in layman’s terms, does not exist. It has never been done. It has never been attempted. Nobody has the slightest idea how to do it and it’s unlikely to work anyway.

You would have to extricate the placenta from the Fallopian tube and then reconnect it to the wall of the uterus in the exact same pattern of blood vessels. I really don’t think modern science can do this and I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of the first doctor to try it. The experiment, for that is what it would be, is likely to fail and kill both the mother and the baby.

So, you are a doctor in Ohio and you have a patient with an ectopic pregnancy. Your choices are –

1. Do nothing, let the patient die, be sued for malpractice.
2. Attempt a never-before-tried experimental transplant and most likely kill the patient and be sued for malpractice.
3. Perform the correct surgery, remove the wrongly-implanted foetus, save the mother’s life and… go to jail as an ‘abortion murderer’.

If I was a medical doctor in Ohio you know what I’d do? I’d relocate, fast! Before any patient shows up that is going to wipe me out one way or another. It’s probably best to avoid Ohio because if you get sick there, they soon won’t have any doctors at all. It’s not a safe place to be saving lives.

All of this is, of course, in retaliation for those states who have decreed abortion is legal right up to the moment of birth. Incidentally, Jerry Cordite’s Labour party want that here too. Pull out a fully formed infant and kill it. Premature births survive, a full term baby has no problem surviving, but if a mother in labour decides ‘nah, I don’t like it’, then baby dies.

In America now, you can cross a state line and move between a world where doctors are prosecuted for removing a wongly-implanted and inevitably fatal cell mass to a world where full term healthy babies are legally slaughtered. How the hell did it come to this?

What happened to a sensible medium course? That’s gone now, in so many areas. Humanity has polarised into extremes in every aspect of life. The centre ground is barren, the armies face each other on the peaks of extremity.

‘If you are not with us you are against us’ has always been a silly saying. Take the matter of gay marriage. I do not ‘support’ gay marriage, I do not ‘oppose’ it. Since I have no religion and I’m not gay, I don’t care about it at all. It’s none of my business. That, however, is not allowed. I must choose whether I celebrate it or condemn it. I refuse to choose. I don’t give a damn.

The Church of Climatology declare that if you do not accept the coming Fiery Armageddon of One Degree Temperature Rise then you are a ‘climate denier’. Personally I’d rather they were more honest about it and use the term ‘climate heretic’. At least they can’t burn us at the stake, not once we explain how much CO2 that would release.

A climate denier. Someone who denies the existence of climate? Well, they mean someone who denies that the climate changes. You know, someone utterly blinkered in their view of the world. They will never see the irony.

Of course the climate changes. The land masses move around. The atmosphere changes. There was a time when the atmosphere had a lot more oxygen than it has now. Sounds great? Well, you should see the size insects and spiders grew to when their oxygen intake was far less limited. Trust me, you don’t want those days back 😉 There was also a time when there was a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere. You won’t remember that time. Humans hadn’t yet appeared. Damn those dinosaur SUV’s eh?

The climate is changing as we speak. The sun has now entered a grand solar minimum and the coming years are going to be different. The thing is, they aren’t going to be warmer. Those solar panels are going to be covered in snow and the windmills will freeze up. It’s too late to build more traditional power stations, this isn’t ‘ten years away’, it’s now. If your house doesn’t have a chimney well you’d better get a generator to run some heating. Ideally something wood-fired because fossil fuels will still be taxed to the hilt to prevent the warming that isn’t happening. You could use some of Jerry’s billion imaginary trees.

Saying that puts me at an extreme. It’s no longer a reasonable ‘look at the actual science instead of obsessing over 0.04% of the atmosphere, most of which comes from mud flats and tundra anyway’. I’m a ‘climate denier’ for trying to warn of impending climate change. Well sod it. Let the buggers freeze. At least I can say I tried.

In America, you are either 100% for Trump or 100% against him. In the UK you are either 100% for Bozza or 100% for Jerry. There is no middle ground. The Lib Dims used to be a sort-of middle ground but Jo Swindles has taken them to the extreme too. Which extreme? Well they are on a little peak of their own that nobody is really looking at.

There have been many things I used to sneer at as conspiracy theories. Common Purpose. Well that’s real. You can see their little drones doing their teacher’s semaphore-signal exaggerated ‘body language’ in their speeches. It probably works if you don’t know about it. Now their graduates are fucking things up all over the planet. And it has become clear that that is exactly what they were meant to do. Take some dopes, teach them some tricks, set them loose and they will wreck everything while they honestly believe they are doing the right thing. Useful idiots, an age-old game.

The Georgia Guidestones, a modern day mini-Stonehenge with the New Commandments etched into them. Most likely the work of a rich lunatic but taken as Gospel by the idiots-in-charge. Massive population reduction is the delight of the cuddly Attenborough who you all love even though he wants you and your family dead. Reduce the global population to an easily controlled worker colony – it’s not a conspiracy theory when it’s in the open.

Old man Soros, with the face as benign as a smiling sloth. How could one old man be behind all this crap, I used to wonder. Now, I wonder how he’s still alive, he’s had a face like a retired army marching boot for many years. Then there is the conspiracy theory on adrenochrome, and now I have to wonder… all those very old white men, all those late term abortions… is it connected? Well anyway, it’s good story fodder.

This is the thing with writing. You research things. You make links that are credible, doesn’t matter if they are true, they just have to be believable within the context of the story. Those photos of ‘chemtrails’ might just be photos of busy airspace covered with vapour trails, but if I write something about chemtrails it’ll be credible because of those photos. We don’t see many of those trails here but then we are north of Aberdeen airport. Not much comes this way apart from helicopters heading for the oil rigs. They don’t leave trails.

I’ve written things that have later been true. ‘Telephone Pest’ happened six months after I wrote it. ‘The Sweet Man’ took about a year. I have stalled so many times on ‘Panoptica’ because the things I imagined turned up in the Daily Mail days later. I have wondered if maybe I should stop.

I’ve researched things for my writing, used ‘conspiracy theories’ to make them credible, and then watched it happen. A recent one. ‘All the Strangers’, had a kid with embedded electronics he never had to remove because it was wirelessly charged while he slept. I took the idea from the primitive wireless phone chargers that had started to appear at the time and combined it with the Borg and the alcoves they recharge in.

Now there are wireless chargers built into cars, and credit cards you just have to wave next to a reader. People have embedded chips to open doors at work. They will not balk at embedded credit card chips so they just have to wave their hand at a machine to pay for their shopping. They will fight to be first.

In this one, I will not be in the desolate middle ground. I will be right at the top of the ‘NO’ peak. As I am with things like Alexa, and TV with a camera in it. I do not want listening and watching devices in my home and I am sure as hell not paying to have them there.

So many other things. The human race is polarising. Us and them. With us or against us. The middle ground is a wasteland now. Make a choice. Choose one life or the other. You cannot choose your own.

If this continues it can only lead to one outcome.

They used to say, if you’re in the middle of the road you’ll get run over. Nowadays it might be the only safe place to be.

Because nobody else is there.

Sowing the seeds of hate

Well, the vapers are getting a real taste of antismoker hate this week. With one important difference.

The Puritans won’t ban smoking. Too much tax income involved and too many rich peoples’ pensions are locked into tobacco company shares.

Vaping has no such backroom protections. The Puritans can openly hate us smokers but they’ll never ban it because of the cashflow. Vaping doesn’t generate that cashflow.

So, we have the moves to ban flavours, very rapidly (not surprisingly) followed by moves to ban vaping altogether. Orange Don has tried to roll back on his ridiculous anti-vape stance but too late. Rolling back on it now is just going to get him tarred with the ‘You don’t care about the cheeeldren dying!’ hysteria. Which, incidentally, is coming from people who support abortion up to the moment of birth. Still, Don fell for that trap, let’s see if he can find a way out. I can’t.

Abortion is a separate argument. Personally I’d support it up to the point where they get elected to government but that’s possibly leaning towards the slightly extreme end of the spectrum. It seems to be all or nothing in the USA though. Some states you can have your photo taken with your newborn and then sell it for spare parts, other states you go to jail for a natural and unfortunate miscarriage. There seems to be no middle ground.

Anyway, back to smoking and vaping.

We’ve had pompous, self-important antismoking vapers since it started. Not all, I hasten to add, but a vocal minority, who delighted in siding with the Puritans against the smokers they left behind. We told them, one day they’ll come for you, but the ones breathing the Holy Steam never listened. I bet they still aren’t listening even as their Electrofags are snatched from their non-yellowed fingers.

It does wear off, by the way. The yellow finger stains, I mean. Change the way you hold your smokes and the stains from your habitual holding pattern will fade in time. Switch to vaping and they’ll vanish forever… until you are forced back to smoking by Orange Don’s Puritan Loonies.

The Puritans took full advantage of their new temporary vaper allies, letting them whip up more smoker-hate, until they realised the effect on their bottom line as vaping became more popular and tobacco taxes declined. So now they have turned on the vapers, and they have turned very hard indeed.

So hard, in fact, that they are trying to turn smokers into vaper-haters.

Yes. Really.

I inhale the smoke from a little bonfire in my face. You really want me to be scared of flavoured steam?

There can be absolutely no effect whatsoever from your nearby Electrofag while I’m actually burning leaves in my mouth. I’d get more effect from a kettle with a vanilla pod in it.

What this study actually says is that a third of smokers have experienced some poor bugger with a steam-stick thrust out into the same cold, inadequate shelter as the smokers. It does not equate to any kind of harm from that experience and it never will – because there can be no possible harm.

It’s fucking steam with a bit of flavour, a dash of nicotine and the chemical they use in asthma inhalers. Damn, if it does anything, it’ll do smokers good! It might even get a few interested smokers to try it for themselves. The price difference is a big pull here (that’s why I keep trying it, even though I haven’t found one to totally replace the real thing yet). That price difference is almost all tobacco tax, and that is why the alternative must be destroyed. Antismokers are losing money!

Get ready, vapers. The Puritans are turning smokers against you. It won’t be hard in many cases, remember how vocal your pompous bastards were in denouncing us? Petty revenge is petty, but you know it’s coming.

You are going to see smokers mysteriously diagnosed with ‘popcorn lung’ which, if it was real, should have been affecting smokers all along. You are going to see smoker cancer cases attributed to second hand vaping. Biologically impossible, but then look at the silly pictures on cigarette packets. You can’t get ‘meth mouth’ from tobacco, but here we are.

We already have ‘danger: contains nicotine’ warnings on packaged Electrofags that contain no nicotine. We do not have that warning on tomatoes or potatoes or the Pharmer’s nicotine patches and gum.

The aim is, of course, to split smokers and vapers further. There will still be the Holy Vapers who see their former compatriots as less than human. There will now be the Holy Smokers who at last have the chance to smack down the smug bastards – and to be honest, who can blame them?

Oh it’s going to work. It won’t take long.

If smokers and vapers were to come together as ‘nicotine consumers’ or similar, under a banner that covers us all, the Puritans would be screwed and they know it.

Will it happen?

Doesn’t look like it.

Has Trump blown it?

Donnie Trumpton has decided to ban all flavours for Electrofags.

Why? Well, six people have died and more have been hospitalised for using their vape devices (Electrofags) to inhale illegal drugs. Don the Trumper thinks this is solved by… banning the legal flavours.

No, Don-boy, what you intend will boost the sale of illegal drug-based vape jiuces and destroy the legal market. It will also boost the numbers of hospitalisations and deaths due to illegal vape liquids because the legal ones are no longer available. That is going to be used to beat you down, every single day. I have often wondered whether you are a genius or an idiot – this move puts you firmly in the ‘idiot’ box.

All the Democrats have to do now is oppose this, support the vapers, and in 2020 you are fucked.

It’s not just the vapers’ votes you have just lost. All their family, all their friends, were delighted to see them switch from smoking to vaping because, you see, in the real world we all know that vaping is at least 95% less risky than smoking. Now, all those family and friends have to watch their loved ones switch back to smoking and they all know that you are personally responsible.

Every time one of those ex-vaping smokers gets emphysema, they will blame you. Every time one of them gets lung cancer, they will blame you. Every time one of them so much as coughs, they will blame you. Don Trump, the Tobacco Pusher.

Look, Donnie, I live near Balmedie in Scotland where we haven’t liked you very much for decades anyway (you know why) but I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt as POTUS. So far you did pretty well, I thought, but it seems you have reverted to type. You don’t like it, nobody can have it.

You have no idea how deep this goes. Smokers who wish to try to quit were looking at vaping as a viable alternative. Let’s face it, the Pharmer crap doesn’t work even though it is mysteriously exempt from nicotine warnings on its nicotine products. Those smokers aren’t going to vote for you now.

And neither are their family and friends who hoped they’d quit smoking.

Donald, Don, Donny, Don-boy, Donnybubble (you don’t mind if I call you Donnybubble do you? Millions of vapers and their families are calling you a lot worse right now) you have fucked up big time.

You have just handed your opponents the nuclear button. ‘So the President is not interested in gun control but is going to ban mango flavoured steam’. Get out of that one.

You just have to hope the Democrats are as dim as you think they are, and my bet is, they ain’t all Alex Occaisonal-Cortex. They are going to latch on to this and they are going to swing millions of vaper votes their way.

Also, did you know that many Hollywood weirdoes also vape? Big names, Donny. Popular names. All inhaling harmless raspberry and coffee flavoured steam. Not oil-based illegal cannabis crap.

You, Don, the man who likes to shout ‘Fake news’, has just fallen into the trap laid by the fakest news of all. And your opponents will take it to the bridge. If they don’t, they must indeed be stupid.

I know you don’t like smoking and I’m betting you don’t like vaping either. So what changed?

Well, now the smoking and vaping voters don’t like you either.

Get that goodbye speech written. Ban the legal flavours on the pretence of stopping the illegal drugs and trust me, you’re done.

Hawaii at 100

Okay, I have finally finished with ‘Norman’s House’ and loaded it up. It has passed all the checks and the eBook version will spread soon. I’ll push it once the Amazon listings combine. Details are here.

The eighth Underdog Anthology is now open for submissions. Since we are not getting visited (parents again) until April 4th, I can set the closing date for submissions to March 25th, and I can be a few-days flexible on that. It’s the Spring (Beltane) anthology, details here.

Right, that’s the work stuff done. Now it’s time to get the popcorn, pour a good sized drink, sit back and marvel at the madness of the world.

I read recently of a man in India who plans to sue his parents for giving birth to him without his consent. I have also noted that several American states now allow abortion up to the point of birth. Soon they will give new parents a one-year cooling off period, during which they can bring the child back for extermination if it keeps them awake or if they just change their minds. Oh I know, it sounds flippant, but I’m really not joking. There will be many counsellors on hand to help change their minds during that first year too.

It sounds horrifying but people will accept it because it’s all part of the plan. As is your child sueing you for bringing them into this world without their consent. Read Orwell’s 1984, if you haven’t already, and see what your children will be able to do to you in future. Heck, they can do it now.

This post isn’t about those things.

If I live to be 100 I am going to Hawaii. I won’t go before then but if I get that old I am definitely going. It’s quite a few years away yet and given that I have lived, and continue to live, a life that should, by all modern medical propaganda, have ended in 1985, it’s a long shot.

Still, as I said, I will not go there before I reach 100 because I won’t be able to buy any cigarettes there until I reach that age. I will definitely go there when I reach 100 because I’ll make a fortune. I’ll buy cigarettes and sell them individually to the 90-year-old senile delinquents on street corners. (tip of the heavy hat to Zaphod on Twitter for this one)

The idiots in charge of Hawaii are concerned about – a potentially strong backlash from tobacco companies.

They are not at all concerned about any kind of effect on existing smokers. Fuck ’em. Nor on any small retailers who rely heavily on the profits from cigarette sales. Fuck ’em too. The tobacco industry could write off the whole of Hawaii and their balance sheets won’t notice the difference. Hawaii’s corner shops will notice the difference very quickly and Hawaii’s smokers will, if they have any sense, be packing their bags right now.

Oh I know, smokers, eh? Who needs ’em? Wouldn’t the world have been so much better without the likes of Churchill or Einstein or Brunel? We could have been so much better off under the virulent-antismoker vegetarian Hitler. So all the smokers leave. You won’t miss them. You’ll have your new Righteous overlords looking after you and if you think it stops with smoking…. you really haven’t been paying attention.

If it goes through, and considering the current lunacy gripping the world I won’t be surprised if it does, I wil visit Hawaii in a little over 40 years. But not before.

I’d better start saving though. The way cigarette prices are going, that pack will cost me more than the flight to Hawaii by the time I get there.

Killing Babies

First of all, thanks to everyone who gave advice on marketing. I can see it’s not going to be easy, but you guys have probably saved me from spending a fortune in the wrong places. Yes, I did say all book stuff would go to the blog on the new site but, well, catch-22… I needed advice on publicising a site that’s new and unknown. Asking for advice on that site would have been futile, even though that’s where that post properly belonged.

While I’ve been messing with a new site and Farcebok page, a lot more weird stuff has happened. Notably, the laughable demand by the EU that Venezuela have ‘free and fair Presidential elections’. This, from the EU! None of the top brass of the EU are elected, they are appointed. And they have the cheek to criticise another country’s elections? I think they need to cut back a little on swimming in the wine lake.

The big one, for me, was the news that New York, rapidly becoming the New California, has decided to allow abortion up to the day before birth. Vermont, apparently, is about to do the same.

Disclaimer: I have never been involved in an abortion situation and have no close links with anyone who has. I can’t imagine the kind of thoughts going through the heads of those involved but I’m sure it’s pretty damn traumatic.

That might mean I’m not ‘qualified’ to speak on the subject, in the modern smug-bastard put-down language, but I’m going to anyway.

I don’t like abortion as a concept. That does not mean I am ‘against’ it. It does not mean I’m going to camp out outside abortion clinics and wave a banner saying ‘Down with this sort of thing’. It does not mean I am going to demand abortion be made illegal. It means exactly what it says. I, personally, don’t like it. That’s it. No hidden messages.

I would, in fact, be very much opposed to making abortion illegal. It will just drive women to dodgy backstreet abortionists. No, if it’s going to happen at all, let’s at least leave it in the hands of properly trained medics.

These days we have contraception in many forms. Here in Scotland, the contraceptive pill is free and if you go into the doctor’s, you can help yourself to free condoms. Really. There is no excuse for ‘accidental’ pregnancy.

There is, of course, rape. In that instance, abortion is a woman’s only sensible option since our idiot lawmakers have decided that a rapist has parental and visitation rights of any child that results from their violence. A ludicrous decision that only ensures the raped woman will be pushed towards abortion. Otherwise she has to endure regular visits from her rapist. By law. There are divorced dads who don’t get that right.

Still, an unwanted pregnancy should, at the least, be visible three months in. New York’s law means that even after the woman has felt the baby moving, even after the time when a premature baby has a very good chance of making it, she can choose to kill that baby.

And let’s be clear. At that point, it’s not a foetus any more. It’s a baby. Sure, it’s still inside the woman but it’s fully formed and will likely survive a surgical removal. What then? Do they let it starve or put it down like a dog? It’s going to die in a way that these same people would not allow to happen to a violent criminal. In fact, these same people oppose the death penalty with ‘right to life’ slogans.

In the UK there is a continual push to extend the time allowed for abortion. I think it’s currently at 29 weeks, I might not have that figure exactly right. It’s considered that the developing child is not self-aware at that point and I have to admit I have no idea when a developing foetus becomes aware. I would say though that if it is moving, there is brain function – but I don’t claim to be an ‘expert’ any more than I claim to be brainless in any other field.

New York, and now Vermont, has taken it to the extreme. Or have they? Is this the final point in this branch of Righteousness? They have no final point in any other branch, so why here?

In a few years, will you be able to take your noisy toddler for euthanasia? A few decades more and your basement gamer 30-year-old who won’t move out or get a job… can you send him for organ donation? Well, why not? You can, right now in New York and soon in Vermont, terminate a perfectly healthy, fully formed baby on a whim.

If you have followed Righteous behaviour in every other field they have played in, you know there is no end point to any of their demands. Why would there be one here?

Expect ‘Retrospective Abortion’ in the next few years.

The state of the world

I’ve been keeping up with the Christmas anthology (five authors in so far, I have hopes that two more regulars will come up with something and there’s still 16 days until the deadline) so have had little time to react to the news.

There is so much lunacy out there. At a private bonfire party on November 5th, a bunch of sickos burned a cardboard model of Grenfell Tower. Yeah, seriously bad taste, but six people arrested and charged over it as a ‘public order’ offence? Really? Nobody was charged over burning effigies of any President of the United States nor of any other political figures in this year or any past year. Nobody has ever minded the burning of a Catholic in effigy even though more and more people now wish his plot to blow up Parliament had succeeded. And yet burning a cardboard box is now an arrestable offence.

What about the guy who started the real fire in the real building, which killed real people? What has he been charged with? Anyone? Oh that’s right, he was never actually arrested and nobody is looking for him. It’s so much easier to arrest backyard proxy arsonists.

I would not have burned Grenfell Tower in a cardboard effigy. It’s far too twisted even for me. I’d say those who did this are arseholes but it’s not supposed to be illegal to be an arsehole. Especially when you’re being an arsehole in your own back yard and not actually harming anyone.

Their big mistake, of course, was putting it on social media. Thoughts are policed far harder than physical crimes these days, with the full backing of ‘anti-fascists’ who do not realise that what they are advocating is actual fascism. The policing of thoughts and ideas and opinions.

Oh and if you are one of the millions of Americans who tune in to UK stories to laugh at how ridiculous we have become (I don’t blame you, this place is a madhouse) you might want to check out what’s happening in your own country.

Worried about Donald Trump? Believe he is some kind of fascist? Is he trying to police your thoughts? Is he advocating the suppression of teenage jokey behaviour and its investigation by the police? Who is advocating that? That’s who you need to be concerned about because that’s who will turn you into a police state. Or you can just hate Trump because he’s Trump and let the fascists win. Like we have in the UK.

Of course, if you are an arsehole, the alternative to being arrested for burning a box is to go into politics where arseholes are welcomed.

Better yet, get a job with the Puritans in Public Control Health. Then you can be so much of an arsehole that you can call for a tax on meat, later to extend it to all foods (come on, really, you don’t think that’s the aim?), and demand a ban on milkshakes. And nobody will call for you to be arrested for arseholeness.

Milkshakes? Ban the old Moloko Plus?

Oh yes, really.

Fancy milkshakes must be banned because Studies have Shown and Experts have Said that they bring all the boys to the yard and this inevitably leads to teen pregnancy, heroin use, vaping, animal abuse and anal insertion of pomegranates.

Well it’s no dafter than any other Puritan pronouncement, and that’s actually true. When it comes to making up absurd stuff, Public Health make Kafka’s ghost gasp in admiration.

Milkshakes make you fat. Sure they do if you have them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Most of us have them once in a while as a treat. My personal milkshake intake is much less than one a year and my overall milk intake generally depends on how much coffee I drink (espresso doesn’t need milk so only the ‘plain’ coffee counts). I have occasionally drunk a glass of milk but it’s way down from top of the list.

It’s rare for me to get the urge to have a milkshake and I have never had one of these ‘freakshakes’ of which they speak. I don’t want one. It does not appeal to me at all. Should I support banning them since I don’t like them anyway?

How many out there support the smoking bans because they don’t like smoking? How many support vaping bans for the same reason? How many support minimum pricing on alcohol because they don’t buy much, or any? How many support taxing or even banning meat because they don’t eat it?

I think all of those people are arseholes and I don’t want to be one so no, I will never support a ban on anything just because I don’t like it. Hey arseholes, I am not one of you and am proud to be excluded from your cult of arseholery. You can believe I’m the one who is universally hated if you like but really, it’s you. In the real world, nobody cares about, or even notices, me. Because I am not trying to live their lives for them. I have a life of my own.

Speaking of vaping, I recently bought a new one because it was on clearance sale. This is a bloody monster of a thing and will be a later blog post.

The JUUL vaping thing does not seem to be available in the UK so far. It is apparently, in America, a teen epidemic (that, in Public Health terms, means a teenager tried one once) and is used as a cudgel to beat flavours out of vapes.

JUUL’s response? ‘Oh yes you must ban these flavours we don’t make because they are evil!’

Has nobody been paying attention? The antismokers were happy to have the born-again nonsmoking vapers on their side to hammer ‘real’ smokers… until they had outlived their usefulness. Then, surprise, the vapers got hit with the same hammer. They looked to smokers for support.

‘First they came for the smokers. I’m a smoker, the rest of you are on your own now.’

Why would I support any group that has already supported my suppression?

I have wondered about JUUL and whether it would be a good thing to try. I’ll never try one now, not even if it does appear in the UK. I’m not going to support a quisling.

My prediction is that JUUL is now doomed. They are siding with the business vampires and they are not an ally, as they think. They are the host for a parasite that will use them to get what they want and then ditch them. Their customer base will see what they have done and abandon them.This has happened to several early vape sellers who tried to side with the Puritans and it will happen now to JUUL because the stupid bastards never learn.

A saying has been born lately. ‘When you go Woke you go broke’. Ask Lucozade or Irn Bru about that. Ask the peanut companies who have reduced the salt. Give it a year and ask JUUL if they still exist.

‘Woke’ is a parody of reality. More on that in another post.

The best response to the Puritans is still the one given by the makers of Buckfast tonic wine. Which I have never tried, but one day I will.

‘You cannot have caffeine and alcohol in the same drink!’ screech the Puritans.

‘Awa’ an’ bile yeir heid, ya wee bawbags’ responded Buckfast.

Buckfast won. All the companies could win by just saying ‘no’ to the Puritan thugs. Most of them just cave in. Compromise does not work when your enemy does not want compromise, just total control. As with Tessie ‘Halfwit’ Maybe’s Brexit, it is not a compromise. It is pathetic submission.

When you give in to thugs it makes them bolder. Thugs have toddler minds, they push and push to see how far they can go. If you don’t set a boundary for them, there is no boundary they can see. Modern ‘progressive’ idiot parents are finding this out now.

Basically, don’t be Lucozade. Be Buckfast.

Then maybe the end of the madness will at last be in sight.

Wales, the next target of the New Puritans

The Welsh Assemblage of Useless Authoritarian Wasters has introduced minimum pricing for alcohol. What a total and utter waste of time, as much of a waste of time as the Assemblage itself.

You know, when the Blair Witch decided to go ahead with devolution, Scotland’s vote was pretty decisive. They wanted their own parliament who are now hitting them hard for smoking and drinking and eating – and taxing them more to pay for more control over them. Still, that’s what they wanted. They voted for it.

The vote in Wales returned a resounding ‘don’t care’ because that is the Welsh way. The Welsh have never cared who is in charge, for the most part, because they aren’t going to pay any attention to who is in charge anyway. Plaid Cymru do well not because of their policies but because they have a Welsh party name. They can get into positions of power but have never grasped that the bulk of Wales doesn’t give a shit.

There is a place called Treherbert. I went there once. I spent most of my early life living mere miles from it and went there only once. It was enough  A tiny place at the end of the railway line, it is nestled in a deep valley between high mountains and sees very little of that strange yellow circle in the sky, even in summer. If you are ever looking for the legendary Caer Colur (the gloomy enclosure) I’d recommend starting there.

Some years ago there was a news story about Treherbert. The name got my attention at once. Something newsworthy happened in Treherbert? What could it be? Dalek invasion? Secret lair of Blofeld? Someone dropped a spoon?

A guy in a council house was making his own vodka when his still exploded in a most spectacular fashion. Apparently – and this came as a surprise – he wasn’t breaking any laws because it was all for his own use. He did not intend to sell any.

Hmm. I live on a farm that grows barley specifically intended for the whisky industry. I could probably buy a tonne at cost price. But let’s not get distracted by my hobbies.

The point is, even years ago there were home stills when cheap supermarket booze was available. In the 1979-1982 years of my first degree there were dedicated homebrew shops everywhere. They started reappearing in Scotland (not dedicated shops but homebrew sections in other small shops) even before the minimum pricing nonsense started here.

In my early teens you could buy homebrew kits in supermarkets and since they had no alcohol in them as sold, they were not subject to age restrictions. It was just syrupy malt and a packet of yeast. I see those making a big comeback soon.

I have a friend in Wales who will care nothing for this minimum pricing nonsense. He has a large garden full of fruit trees and they all get turned into wine. His blackcurrant wine is particularly good. So he doesn’t actually buy much commercial booze.

Look at other countries. Iran has a total booze ban for religious reasons. You are not even allowed an alcohol based mouthwash. So what happens? Stories of weddings ruined because of dodgy black market booze poisoning everyone.

Norway has horrific alcohol pricing and you can only get a limited amount from State booze stores. The result? Alcohol purchases in Norway have plummeted. Success? Sales of raw sugar have soared. What do you imagine is happening there?

Alcohol is really easy to make. Making it safe to drink is not quite so easy. Promoting an unregulated black market is never a good idea. But then, when was the last time any politician had a good idea?

Scotland’s minimum pricing might have worked maybe 20 years ago. It’s a long way from Aberdeen to the border and I’m north of Aberdeen. Driving down for a case of whisky is not cost-effective and would be a tough one to do in one day. Scotland is narrow but pretty damn long. But hey, we have internet now so I can order booze from English suppliers and it’s not subject to minimum pricing.

Today I was at the dentist for my half-year teeth count. Nothing wrong with me, she even took X-rays in a desperate attempt to find something wrong with this smoky-drinking curmudgeon. Little side observation – are all dentists small women now? I’m not objecting, I don’t mind at all, it’s just that there seem to be no male members of staff at all in that place.

Afterwards I passed the whisky shop, so I called in and treated myself to a bottle of Shackleton. I hadn’t seen it before. A malt blend based on the whisky taken on the 1907 Antarctic expedition. The whisky shop is never cheap, the more common ones are much cheaper in the supermarket but this place is where you find the unusual ones. It’s a great shop. When I win the lottery I’m going to try the high shelves with the ‘Oh fucking hell’ prices.

Wales is, frankly, tiny. It’s also vertically narrow with the English border on the east side so none of it is very far from a day-trip over the border. Get a few friends together, hire a minibus and stock up. Easy. It’s going to happen. So who will this new law damage? Well, corner shops mostly, small businesses, a small effect on the likes of Aldi and Lidl but alkies? Nah. It will be of great benefit to the English economy to the detriment of both Wales and Scotland. You know, guys, you voted in some utter fuckheads to run your devolved administrations – but then, who but an utter fuckhead wants a job that’s all about controlling their own countrymen and making their lives harder and more miserable?

What will also happen is homebrew and also criminal gangs filling the gap for those who can’t afford van hire or homebrew equipment. All of it totally unregulated and all of it free of any care about age limits. What a great idea, eh? No wonder government buildings have so many big windows.They need room for everyone to get a lick.

You know, more and more often these days, I’m thinking November 5th should be a day of national rejoicing in the UK. We should not be burning Guy Fawkes in effigy. We should be hailing him. He had the right idea.

At least he tried.