That’s how you do it.

 

Don’t have kids

Or at least not the female variety.

On Saturday my eldest daughter (Bless her) gets married. Yours truly has spent the last week or so running around in small circles tying up all the loose ends. Final fitting of THAT dress. Sorting out the collection and return of the morning suits. And of course the worst part of all. Bloody well having to pay for it all.

Here’s a little snippet of the costs involved for 110 guests.

The Venue: £ 5,000 (We’re renting the place FFS, not putting down a deposit to buy).

The DRESS!: £1,100. (I dared to mention a charity shop might be a good place to look. I spent two uncomfortable nights on the Sofa, for that heretical remark). 

A photographer: £1,150. Those photos better be bloody good for that price. I expect at least some satellite imagery to be included.

And of course the……..

Wedding Breakfast : £ 8,750. FFS £80 a head for lamb chops, or whatever they’re called these days.

And that is just some of the cost of a thoroughly modern wedding. And before you have a go at me for the extravagance, If I didn’t concur with the arrangements I would be blamed for being anti feminist, and I must think of the Cheeeeldren.

And that’s why my posts have been sparse.

And don’t get me started on that speech I have to make.

Wondered how it works?

The Internet that is.

*A public service broadcast from TFE*

It’s her job

Busy, Busy, Busy.

I’m still trying to sort out wedding arrangements for Daughter 1.

That Princess

What really happened.

The smoking war at sea.

This is the era when the badly researched science of second hand smoking was just starting to waft it’s ugly aroma.

Here we are off the coast of Iraq in early 2001

There I was onboard a massive grey painted ship just over the horizon from an enemy shore. The vessel in question is the Navy’s helicopter training ship and is sailing in her secondary function as “casualty receiving ship”. Not to be confused with a hospital ship. The reason being is that the vessel is fitted with a variety of armaments.

Hostilities have commenced and my Action Station post was I/C (In Command) of HQ1 (Command post for Fire fighting, damage repair, & Nuclear, Chemical and Biological threats). Adjoining HQ1 was the machinery control room run by a team of engineer officers and ratings.

Smoking areas on ships were a bit hit and miss at that time. It varied depending on which ship you were on.

I’m quietly sitting in my command seat when over my head set comes the somewhat worrying report from the Bridge that a Russian made anti ship missile search radar was sweeping us, and that the ship was going to turn and head out to sea at maximum speed. (Max speed being  a sprightly seventeen knots and sea skimming missiles have a habit of speeding in in the hundreds of knots).

Well naturally anyone would do what I did. I reached into the top pocket of my action coverall produced a packet of cigarettes and lit up. After a few moments a shout rings out from the adjoining control room, “you can’t smoke here”. My reply. (In wind up mode) “ Fuck off. I’m allowed to have a last cigarette before we all die in a blazing fireball in the next few minutes”. No reply.

Funnily enough no smoking in that space was never mentioned again.

Aside: One of the reasons I retired when I did, was the draconian rules on smoking that came about after 2007 onboard ships.

Friday Funny

 

In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Louisiana State University .

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air.  The elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully.  He got down on one knee, inspected the elephants foot, and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it.. As carefully and as gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.

The elephant turned to face the man and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments.  Peter stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled.  Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away.

Peter never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Peter was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son.  As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son Cameron were standing.  The large bull elephant stared at Peter, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down.  The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Peter could not help wondering if this was the same elephant.  Peter summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure.  He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder.  The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Peter legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same fucking elephant.

This is for everyone who sends me those heart-warming bullshit stories.

The fight back begins

Calling all smokers, non smokers and everyone who wants to see The Tobacco control industry out of their lives. And hopefully out of their jobs. (Am I being too vindictive? I don’t think so.).

There’s a new web site started today to fight back at Tobacco control. Reproduced below is their press release. Do spread it around.

A grassroots response to an attack against smokers

The latest offensive by the Tobacco Control Industry against people who dare dissent from their ideology is a Wiki-style website published and run by paid professionals. In it, they attempt to portray ordinary but active people who enjoy tobacco and promote Free Choice as arms of the tobacco companies and as if they were generally getting paid to support the Tobacco Industry. In response to this offensive, a similar but opposing Wiki website is being launched on June 28th.

An ongoing project, the website, Tobacco Control Tactics, (TCT or tctactics.org) is a compilation of years of research conducted by unfunded grassroots members of organizations around the world who are alarmed by the under-reported and unaccounted for harm the international Tobacco Control Industry is causing to ordinary citizens and economies.

"It is high time the public is made aware of what is going on in the Tobacco Control Industry and we believe TC Tactics will be a very positive step in that direction," says Wiel Maessen of the Netherlands, a founding member of TICAP (The International Coalition Against Prohibition) who was one of the prime initiators and motivational forces behind the creation of the TCT Wiki.

The website explains how Tobacco Control has morphed from a reasonable movement to educate consumers about the health effects of using tobacco while working to reduce youth tobacco use. It is now a well-funded and highly organized industry encouraging discrimination against adult consumers of tobacco. TCT explores how scientists, afraid to jeopardize their careers, publicly dissent from the central doctrines of the Tobacco Control Industry only after they retire, and how the Pharmaceutical Industry both influences the research done on tobacco issues and funds front groups to promote conditions favorable to sales of ineffective nicotine replacement therapy products. In brief, it examines, as its name states, the tactics used by the powerful, international and highly integrated Tobacco Control Industry, an industry which is far less recognized but arguably as powerful as the Tobacco Industry itself.

When asked to describe what the TCT project was all about, Michael J. McFadden of the US-based Citizens Freedom Alliance said, "Considering the unremittingly positive media imaging of antismoking organizations we expect people to be shocked by what they read in these Wiki pages. We ask readers to simply read our pages carefully and compare them with information presented on the other side of the issue. We believe people will be angry at the way trusted officials and institutions have used the same sort of manipulative and cold-blooded tactics long associated with the Tobacco Industry in order to push a hidden agenda of denormalization and eradication rather than an open program of simple education and proper control."

The creators of Tobacco Control Tactics believe that today’s Tobacco Control Industry may very well be doing far more harm to people and society than is generally recognized. Whether that recognition can be raised to the level of public consciousness needed to bring about change remains to be seen. Bill Gibson, a Scottish Director of FORCES International asks, “Can a loosely knit and unfunded group of consumers sharing enjoyment of a legal product and those supporting them stand up successfully against a highly organized, tax- and pharmaceutical-wealthy international industry?” And then answers, “We believe that the TCT website is a good step in that direction: Truth, communication, and information can stand up and win against ‘Big Money’ when offered the sort of level playing field provided by the internet.”

ENDS

The Tobacco Control Tactics website can be found HERE.

Set in Stone

I think the weather station below is probably as accurate as the UK Met Office.

TNA @ Rio+20: Lord Monckton Breaks Down the Rio Conference