That poll.

Just under a week ago I reported on a poll I had up in my side bar.

It asked a simple question.

Do you want to quit smoking?

Since then the overwhelming consensus (Now I’m starting to sound like a Global warming alarmist), has been the almost exact reverse of the so called findings by the Tobacco Control Industry.

The poll maybe somewhat biased, due to the fact that in my left hand side bar I’ve a large smiley with the word “Smoker” emblazoned across it. Maybe  my loyal reader (Hi whoever you are) doesn’t want to upset me.

However as far as I’m concerned the poll speaks for itself. The majority of smokers who read this blog, don’t want to give up. The no’s vote has actually risen to 86.89%.

So I’m off for a cigarette on the strength of it.

I’ll be taking down the poll in the next few days. So if you want to participate then please do.

Electrickery

I’ve just got back from the eldest daughter’s house (Again) and on arriving there I was tasked with fitting a couple of dimmer switches. A simple task not really requiring much brainpower. Isolate the circuit, unwire the existing switch, replace with the dimmer switch, and reinstate the circuit. Job done.

Of course some would have it that I should, at vast expense have called in a qualified electrician. They would be wrong in their thinking. I actually hold a high voltage certificate that allows me to work with voltages over 1,000 volts. I had to obtain this in order to enter spaces and work upon machinery operating at 6.6 kV. (6,600V for the non technically minded).

The other qualification I had was that I’d worked on a class of ship that was not complemented for an Electrical Officer. I became that man. Alongside my other duties of looking after the main diesel generators, and the refrigeration plant. Being somewhat suspicious of a killing energy that can’t be seen I took extreme care to make sure that I followed the rules of “Isolate, test, test again, and work on it”. (Once I disobeyed my rules and touched a live circuit with 440V. Never again. It threw me six feet and I was probably unconscious for a minute or two).

Now to the crux of this post. Familiarity, adverse conditions, and sheer bad luck come into play. My outfit started to man the ships with electrical officers. Of course, us amateur electricians were told by these electrical officers that we had done a piss poor job. This pissed off most of us that had done the job, whilst holding down at least two other jobs (See above).

There was a problem with the control panel for the refrigeration rooms. The only way of sorting this out was for the electrical officer to switch of the power, open the door, and fiddle the door interlock controlling the main power switch to reinstate the power to enable fault finding to begin.

The sad part was that the ship  was rolling, the deck was oily, and oh dear, the lecky pitched headfast into the cubicle, striking his head on the 440V bus bars. And sadly that was the end of him..

Now you may say that I’m being disrespectful of the dead with the next part of the post.

After the body was removed from the vicinity it was realised that the body would have to be preserved until a post mortem could be carried out. That was the excuse for all the engineers to collectively define the initial problem and rectify it. The body needs to be preserved in a cool room. (Bye the way, never store the body in the deep freeze. Coroners will crucify you for that).

However I heard through the grapevine that the real cause for concern was that one of the refrigeration chambers was exceeding it’s set temperature. This was the “Beer Room”. Engineers can’t abide warm beer.

OK I’ll rot in hell if you wish. But I’ve heard this from multiple sources that I trust.

Moral of the story: You might be the expert, but circumstances can kick you up the backside without warning.

It’s taken how long?

I’ve just returned (Yesterday) from assembling my daughter’s flat pack furniture and found an official looking letter on the mat.

As I opened it, I noticed the document inside was coloured red. I was tempted to shred it, fearing it may well be a final demand for some service I might have forgotten to pay for, when my inner honesty kicked in and I withdrew the document.

To my surprise it was a red coloured V5C, That’s the document you have to prove to all and sundry that the car you purport to own is actually yours.

And of course there was a little leaflet explaining why they have sent the shiny red certificate, reproduced below.

Q. Why have you sent me a new V5C?
A. We are replacing all existing blue V5Cs. The new certificate is being introduced following the theft of a number of blank blue V5Cs. The aim is to reduce the risks to motorists of buying a stolen or cloned vehicle.
For tips and advice go to www.direct.gov.uk/buyerbeware

Being an enquiring sort of fellow I wondered when the theft of the blue ones had happened.

On digging I was amazed that they were stolen in, wait for it, February 2007. I was gobsmacked  at the sheer speed that this government department had moved.

It’s taken them 5 1/2 years to change a blue document into a red document.

Now I know why this country is in a mess

Friday Funny

I may not be back tomorrow.

I’m off to my daughter’s new house to do some work there.

I have few innocent sounding jobs which in theory shouldn’t take long.

I have to plumb in their newly acquired dish washer. This plumbing should not be as difficult as this though. Just a matter of nipping down to the nearest DIY store, buying some assorted bits of plastic pipe and Bob’s your Uncle.

Fitting a couple of dimmer switches. This won’t cause my early demise as TFE has successfully completed the High Voltage course and understands that electrickery has the ability to hurt. In past years I was actually the engineer that looked after all things electric on a particular class of ship. (I admit to being thrown across the engine room by inadvertently messing with live 440 volts. Ouch, shit, fuck, etc).

A new cable to fit to the daughters hedge trimmers. (I heard you snigger at the back. Stop it).

No. The one thing that may hold me in more of a slough of despair, is that I’ve got to assemble that spawn of the devil, FLAT PACK furniture (Weeps).

Still, I shall hold my head up bravely and accept the challenge.

I shall return.

Ban it, ban it, I say.

We’re all regaled with stories about the danger of imminent death by smoking or consuming alcohol. Now comes the insidious killer that has been lurking in our kitchens for decades.

Now we’ve all been frightened by the scare stories about the demons that live beneath our humble sinks. Those nasty chemicals that can kill a new-born child with just a teaspoon of one of these substances.

However the real killer resides in your fridge. No it is not an esoteric, unknown fridge living, ebola virus. It is:

BACON

Just two rashers of bacon can contain over half your daily salt allowance. Has that put you off your morning bacon sandwich?

The meat has ‘huge and unnecessarily high’ levels of salt and some brands contain three times as much as others. Customers affected by the recession are turning to cheaper cuts of meat that have high levels, according to the Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash).

The article at the link bangs on about a recommended daily limit which is absolutely bollocks. The body needs salt to live, Too little will cause nausea, headaches and eventually certain death.

As a marine Engineer working in tropical climes I’ve seen the effect of salt deficiency and have suffered the effects myself. You should adjust your salt intake to correspond with your condition at the time.

Soon they’re will be an edict that states that “They’re is no safe limit to salt consumption”, it has to be banned.

And who are CASH? As I expected, another fake charity. 

I’m off to get the frying pan out in protest. It’s the least I can do.

The Science of Government

The CSIR has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element is Governmentium (Gv). It has one neutron, 35 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lefton-like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons or protons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.

A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction normally taking less than a second to take from four days to four years to complete.   Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years. It does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganisation in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganisation will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalysed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

All of the money is consumed in the exchange, and no other byproducts are produced.

Can I have my Nobel prize now?

Polling the truth.

We’ve all heard about the official polls that tell us that 80% of all smokers want to quit.

Well a week or so ago I put a simple poll in my sidebar asking visitors the simple question, “Do you want to quit smoking”.

There were only four simple answers:

YES, NO, NOT SURE, & OTHER. (I’m not sure why I included other?)

Now I really didn’t expect anything dramatic, as I suspected that as this blog is obviously pro-smoking there would be a bias to not quitting. However I was also expecting more yes votes polled, due to anti-smokers visiting and attempting to pervert the poll to some extent.

The total number who filled in the poll was only 123, but as I monitored over the days the ratio of yes’s to No’s never changed.

The Tobacco Control industry were right in the respect of 80%, but surprise, surprise the poll shows the exact opposite in opinion.

YES:               6.5%

NO:                82.11%

NOT SURE:  1.63%

OTHER:        9.76%

Obviously the Tobacco Control polls would have  couched their poll answers slightly different to mine.

“Yes I want to give up smoking to save the planet from global warming”

“No I don’t want to give up as I want to kill all the children with my passive smoke”

I’ll leave it up a while longer to see if the ratios change. Then I may start another survey on a pet hate of mine. Wind turbines.

The question asked will be on the lines of:

“Do you think that wind turbines are the best thing since sliced Birds bread”.

Water

 

Then again I try to disguise it by adding whisky. I usually win whatever happens. I own my liver. Not sure about my kidneys though.

Here’s a wager for The Tobacco Control Industry and Alcohol concern. What will I die from? 40 cigarettes a day or 1/2 a bottle of Scotland’s finest. Over to you, fascist puritans.

Oh and bye the way. Alcohol concern, you need to trump this.

28 Days

Dare you.

The Tobacco Control Industry is killing us.

They never ever think of the consequences until after the fact. And they’ve been warned what would happen.

British undercover detectives in Birmingham have found cigarettes containing human excrement, asbestos, mold and dead flies, as counterfeit cigs flood into the UK at huge risk to public health.

Private eyes working for the tobacco industry have spent weeks rummaging through litter bins and scouring pavements for cigarette butts to access the scale of the black market in England’s midlands region, according to the Birmingham newspaper the Sunday Mercury.

Operation EDPC – which stands for Empty Discarded Pack Collection – was funded by Swiss-based brand protection company MS Intelligence – found that 31% of cigarettes were either bogus or bought abroad.

But then the UK border agency are getting on top of the problem. NOT.

Investigators were shocked by the sheer volume of the trade, which has more than doubled in the last 12 months. A similar study last year found only 14% of packets were fakes or had been smuggled into the country.

The trade in counterfeit cigs is big business. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) estimate that non UK duty-paid cigarettes cost the tax payer up to £3.6 billion during the financial year 2009-2010.

That 3.6 billion is more than enough to cover the cost of so called smoking related diseases. (2.7 billion quoted today by the Chief medical Officer).

When will the Government realise that they’re  being led down a very slippery road with their blind obedience to what ever the Tobacco control industry tells them? They don’t seem to realise that the public will take them to account, when it all eventually goes wrong and people start to die from their blind obedience to the public health lobby.  

SOURCE