Phantom of the Opera

I’ve never heard it played like this. Enjoyable to hear a different version.

Plain packs in the land of the leprechauns.

Live from thejournal.ie comes an article gloating about the introduction of plain packaging on tobacco products in Eire.

AHEAD OF WORLD No Tobacco Day on Friday, the Minister for Health James Reilly has announced that Ireland is to become the second country in the world to introduce plain packets of cigarettes, after Australia.

(No Tobacco day. Memo to self: Buy extra on Friday).

Minister Reilly said he was “confident that this legislation will be justified and supported purely by the fact that it will save lives”.

And of course there is a poll. And we all love polls don’t we? The results so far are nicely condemning of the whole hateful idea. Do follow the link and see if you can up the no vote.

Poll: Do you welcome the introduction of plain pack cigarettes?

A letter to the Doctor

My Son received a letter from his consultant Oncologist to take to his Quack GP. It contained one superlative sentence produced below.

 "Chris knows more about his condition than you do. Stop being a muppet and do what he says."

Straight and to the point I think.

Have a smoke.

Don’t feel downtrodden if you do.

Resourced from Jay at Nannying Tyrants.

Enjoyable?

There’s a certain kind of masochist who considers that gardening is a fun pursuit. Well this blogger considers that pastime was conceived somewhere in the lower circles of hell.

Bearing in mind that it was a hot bank holiday weekend for a change, gardening was not my idea of fun.

Let me explain.

I had to mow a lawn which hadn’t been shown the attendance of a cutting implement for a while. Consequentially mowing with a “Less bovver with a hover” appliance, that was sadly lacking in size and power, brought me out in a hate rage of any garden machinery of an orange colour. I honestly believe it would have been easier to have used a scythe and a vacuum cleaner.

Then there was the strimmer for getting into those parts that the orange machinery fails to do. Bloody thing seemed to eat plastic cord like there was no tomorrow.

The hedge needed cutting. The easy bit is slashing away with the hedge trimmer. The backbreaking part is picking up the detritus that you’ve just hacked off.

Then of course you’ve now accumulated a mountain of green rubbish. And this means a trip to the municipal waste facility (The tip). Queue hell.

Not withstanding that, there is the garden furniture to repair. So off to that well known rip off merchant with the web address starting with DIY. You only want one bracket, but oh no, you have to buy a packet of three.

Now your’e all thinking well done Mr FE you’ve now got an outstanding garden. You’re wrong. It’s the errant son’s garden (Errant cos he lives up north), that I’ve slaved over.

It all started a few months ago when he phoned and invited us up for the bank holiday. (I should have refused outright.) I was expecting to be pampered, wined and dined at expensive restaurants, and generally made to feel special. I should have known better. My daughters put Machiavelli into the third division.

In actual fact it was an interesting experience and brought me back in time to my youth. I knew nothing about gardening or DIY. So my son is not to blame in the slightest. (I’ll outline his faults in a future post).

Probably best to have astroturf and practice celibacy.

*I expect a comment Christopher*

Believe in God?

No need for words.

Oh well. Just two. EU Fail.

Save me from these green luddites.

I was watching the BBC news tonight and strayed into BBC south east.

Half way through the news came an interview with a citizen of the leafy village of Balcombe. Why am I writing about this Sussex paradise you might ask?

This is a village that is sitting on potentially vast resources of natural gas and permission has been given for an exploratory drilling to see it’s potential.

Now as I’ve posted before, the method of extraction is a game changer for our energy supply. Since 2005 we’ve seen an increase in cost of natural gas in this country, of an eye watering 35%. It makes sense to utilise a cheap form of energy to fuel our economy out of recession.

Not so for the hardened green ecotwatess..

This so called “Spokesperson” ranted on about every ridiculous scare story that you could think of. Here’s a sample:

Ground water will be contaminated. (How come if the drilling is thousands of  feet below)

Local wild life will die.

Earthquakes will devastate the area. (The earthquakes in the Fylde area were only picked up on seismometers)

All the horned toads will be eradicated. (Insert your protected species of choice).

We have to have renewable energy.

I hate with a passion these idiots who haven’t a scientific bone in their body who are so gullible that they’ll leave reason behind.

Scum.

This is what you get when you pander to extremists.
And we all know what religion he practises. Don’t we?

Islam if you were not sure.

I don’t bullyeve it.

Sorry about the title, but it’s a hint about this blog post content.

Apparently researchers have discovered that second hand smoke causes bullying in children. Think I’m making it up? Read on.

Children who are exposed to secondhand smoke in early childhood are more likely to grow up to physically aggressive and antisocial, regardless of whether they were exposed during pregnancy or their parents have a history of being antisocial, according to Linda Pagani and Caroline Fitzpatrick of the University of Montreal and its affiliated CHU Sainte-Justine hospital. No study to date has controlled for these factors. “Secondhand smoke is in fact more dangerous that inhaled smoke, and 40% of children worldwide are exposed to it. Moreover, exposure to this smoke at early childhood is particularly dangerous, as the child’s brain is still developing,” Pagani said. “I looked at data that was collected about 2,055 kids from their birth until ten years of age, including parent reports about secondhand smoke exposure and from teachers and children themselves about classroom behaviour. Those having been exposed to secondhand smoke, even temporarily, were much more likely to report themselves as being more aggressive by time they finished fourth grade.” The study was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health on May 21, 2013.

I’m fucking gobsmacked. What will they blame SHS on next?

I was surrounded by wreaths of SHS when I was a kid (A long time ago), and grew up to be quite a shy child.

Now I find that smoking calms me down, so I suggest that instead of smoking around the cheeeldren, we should instead shove a lighted ciggie in the mouths of our new borns to prevent bullies of the future.

*For the anti-smokers out there. I’M JOKING*.

That’ll work. My studies of 97% of smokers in my household prove it (One).

You can read more at Junk science.