Smoking out my MP

Some while ago, February 18th to be exact, I wrote to my MP. Below is a short piece of it.

You'll have to forgive the loose format. Blogger is buggering me about.

Dear John Stanley,

Just a little message about how you and your ilk have badly let the old, 

 and lonely down,  with your illiberal smoking ban.

Some of the quotes I have collected are taken from the blog site

 of Frank Davis, and from those  who have made comments there.

 Frank has posted regularly and movingly on the subject of

 loneliness and the smoking ban, and particularly its effect on

 older people.

I give you one example, of  a poignant letter written by pensioner

 Jane Daniel in the evening  of New Years Eve 2010.  

“I have accepted all of that and never smoked where I was 

not welcomed to do so. I am now in my mid 70's and can

now only smoke either at home or in the open air. I am now

disabled (accident damaging my hip) and so can not get out

as much as I would like to.

So now I only smoke in my own home. This is a very lonely
existence and I would love to be able to go to a pub for a drink
occasionally. However, as a smoker I know that I can't do
this and enjoy a drink and cigarette in safety and comfort in a pub.

I accept all this and am sorry that my pleasure upsets so many people.
I wish that my life was different,  but after smoking for over 60 years
it is difficult to stop.

It really hurts me to hear that smokers are now classed as
disgusting filthy death carriers as I really hadn't considered
myself to be thus.

Now that I am all these horrible things I am glad that I am
nearing the end of my life. How cruel and malicious are
these people that have ostracised me and cast me out from society.

 I am so sorry if my 'habit' has offended people and wish that I
had never taken that first cigarette all those years ago.”

There were many more of these sad stories in my Email to Sir John.

I finished it of with this:

And you think that you stand up for a conservative way of life.

 You should be ashamed to the very  core of your being. From being

 a lifelong conservative voter, I decided that I couldn't vote for

 labour light  at the last election. IE the Cameron, left thinking big society.

 I'm unable to understand why the party  I used to believe in has

 become so intolerant to smokers, and bends over backwards with

 funding to  fake charities such as ASH and Alcohol concern.

I would appreciate an answer that doesn't involve spin and obfuscation,

 which is what is normally sent to us proles who question the status quo.

 Are you man enough? Your reply will say it all. 

Hint: 25% of the voting public smoke.

Your obedient servant(Not)

The Filthy Engineer

Now you would think that I’d get a sympathetic reply. Nope.

 I get this cockwaffle following the party line.

From the Rt Hon Andrew Lansley CBE MP

Secretary of State for Health

Department of Health

Richmond House 79 Whitehall

London

SW1A 2NS

Tel: 020 7210 4850

The Rt Hon Sir John Stanley MP House of Commons

Westminster

London SW1A OAA

29 MAR 2011

 Thank you for your letter of 2 March enclosing correspondence

 from your constituent Mr Filthy Engineer of Filthy Mansions, Somewhere in Kent,
about smokefree legislation.The smokefree provisions in the Health Act 2006
were carriedout in free votes across all parties by large majorities
in both Houses of Parliament. This Parliamentary support for smokefree

legislation reflected the very widespread public support.

The primary aim of the legislation was to protect workers and the

general public from exposure to the harmful effects of secondhand smoke.

Medical and scientific evidence shows that exposure to secondhand smoke

increases the risk of serious medical conditions such as lung cancer,

heart disease, asthma attacks, childhood respiratory disease,

sudden infant death syndrome and reduced lung function.

Smoking is the largest single cause of preventable illness and premature

death in the UK. It kills over 100,000 people every year and a recent

academic study suggests that the cost to the British taxpayer is more

than £5billion a year.

ANDREW LANSLEY CBE

Note the first bit if disinformation in the second paragraph.”reflected the
very widespread public support.” Well I wasn’t consulted, nor was
anyone I know.


The second paragraph is more waffle not facts. Notice the phrase that is
used by the bansturbators of all colours.  “ increases the risk”. I would like
to know Mr Lansley how you can state that asthma attacks are increasing
and blame it on SHS, when the percentage of smokers has fallen dramatically
in the last 50 years.


What about having  a look at this study which I think may have some small
bearing on our health. What are you doing about that? Nothing.


As for the last paragraph even that arch antismoking group ASH (January 2011)
doesn’t agree with that made up figure of £5 billion..

Smoking costs the National Health Service (NHS) approximately
£2.7 billion a year for treating diseases caused by smoking. 
About 76% of the price of a packet of cigarettes consists of taxation.


And as for the reply from my MP enclosed with that letter.
Just a note from one of his minions.

Oh well, time for a blood pressure pill, and shortly a large whisky or two.*


*And you too can bugger off, Alcohol Concern, if you read this.
 

What if?

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
(Hardly seems worth it.)

If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
(Now that's more like it !)

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
       (O.M.G.!)

A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
(In my next life, I want to be a pig..)

A cockroach will live nine days without its head  before it starves to death.    (Creepy.)
(I'm still not over the pig.)

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour
(Don't try this at home, maybe at work)

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
(Honey, I'm home. What the...?)

The flea can jump 350 times its body length.. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.
(30 minutes. Lucky pig! Can you imagine?)

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
(What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)

Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
(I still want to be a pig in my next life...quality over quantity)

Butterflies taste with their feet.
(Something I always wanted to know.)

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
(Hmmmmmm......)

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people.
(If you're ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.
(Okay, so that would be a good thing)

A cat's urine glows under a black light.
(I wonder who was paid to figure that out)

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
(I know some people like that.)

Starfish have no brains
(I know some people like that too.)

Polar bears are left-handed.
(If they switch, they'll live a lot longer)

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
(What about that pig??)

Engineering as it used to be. Part 2.

Now where was I? Oh yes I’d just been accepted into college.

At first I thought that I’d be handicapped by the lack of Technical skills learnt at school. I was wrong. It was all the other subjects which I’d never even heard about that would give me the headaches.

Subjects such as Applied Mechanics. What an earth was a Shear Force and Bending Moment Diagram when it’s at home?

Thermodynamics, or as in our case, Applied Heat. Entropy, Enthalpy, Boyle’s Law, and a myriad of other mystifying terms.

Naval Architecture. Complete with (as one reader posted in the comments previously), Metacentric height. Along with Water plane areas, Knees, Floors, Ribs, and Bow and Stern (I’ve never understood why they couldn’t be called the “pointy bit at the front” and the “bit that trails last”). Baffling.

Electro technology.  Generators, DC and AC. Volts, Ohms (There’s a law about that I believe), Capacitors, Inductance, and much more. Is your head spinning like mine woz?

Workshop Technology. Simple? Oh No. So much to master in so few years. Files, Hammers and chisels (Bloody painful if you get that skill wrong), Lathes, Milling machine (WTF? Do we have to make our own bread now?), Shaping machine, Pillar drill, Screw cutting, Tap, Die ( bit worrying that one), and chuck key.

Surprisingly enough after two years of this I became pretty Au Fait with most subjects and was nearly ready for my first Sea Trip.

Lastly before I went off for a Life on the Ocean Wave all those in my outfit were required to undertake eight weeks working under supervision, in a Naval Dockyard.

Now those of you who were around in the sixties and seventies, will know how the unions had a strangle hold on industry. Of course this played into the hands of young cadets like us. I spent eight weeks in Plymouth mostly on the beach, as we weren't allowed to even pick up a tool of any description. We just devised a Rota system where one of our number clocked us all in and out. Worked like a charm.

To be continued…………………………………..Life as the scum of the seas.

Heir to bear

It has only come to my notice that in some slight way, my family is a tad famous.

The Hall of Fame at the top of the house features treasured bears from the Museum's collection. "The Best of British" cabinet features four fine old bears from three pioneering teddy bear companies, Chiltern Toys, Chad Valley and JK Farnell. It was Christopher Robin's 1921 Farnell bear which inspired A.A. Milne's stories of Winnie-the-Pooh. The oldest of the bears is Arden, made in 1913, bequeathed to the Museum by his owner Claire Jukes, who started the first Elizabeth Arden salon in the United Kingdom.

The family firm of J K Farnell and Co Ltd occupies a position of unparalleled importance in British soft toy history, firstly because it was the very first British toy company to manufacture teddy bears, and also because it created the actual bear that inspired A A Milne to write the Winnie the Pooh stories. Yet impressive as those facts undoubtedly are, they comprise just a small fraction of the fascinating Farnell story. Founded in the Nineteenth century, for decades J.K. Farnell and Co Ltd was the most respected and influential soft toy manufacturer in Britain. Thanks to the superior quality of its products, the company experienced enormous commercial success at national and international level - even in Germany, home to its biggest rival, there was great demand for Farnell products. Surviving economic depression, devastating fire, the ravages of World War II and other traumatic events, the company kept going until fundamental changes in the British toy market forced its closure in 1970. Since then, the Farnell name has been forgotten by all but a dedicated band of teddy bear enthusiasts and the true story of this pioneering British firm has fallen into obscurity.

It just happens that I’m the Heir to the J. K Farnell Bear, fortune. (I wish). I hadn’t until a few days ago realised that A. A. Milne was inspired by something that my family had crafted. I am quietly delighted that my family have had an influence on children’s pleasure in some small way.

It was a great shame that the family business folded through intense competition for the new era of plastic toys, that became the rage in the late sixties.

I see that a Farnell bear is selling for £300 on Ebay. Should I bid for it? After all it may have been mine.

Engineering as it used to be. Part 1.

Woman on a raft suggested that I write on what us old time Engineers were put through to gain a qualification.

A bit of back ground, to begin this saga, that you’ll soon start to be bored to tears with.

I came from a fairly affluent middle class family (The Teddy bear factory will be featured in a  separate post). Anyhoo, I was educated in a prep school and passed the common entrance exam and was accepted by a good public school. The bugbear, however, was that my twin did not pass. This posed a bit of a quandary, and the long and short of it all is that my parents decided to send us both to a fee paying, Prison camp Naval training school.

My education there was abysmal, but finally I left and applied for a career with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary.

That first day at Poplar technical college was a real eye opener. Not only was I in the environment of the East End of London where the dockers spent a large amount of their time in the pub, but I was pitted against others who had so many more O levels than me.

What surprised me that I was accepted with O levels in maths, english, seamanship, and navigation. Not an engineering bent at all.

From then started my enlightenment into the world of Applied mechanics, Thermodynamics, Naval Architecture, and everything else needed to make a good Marine Engineer.

The one thing that I noticed straight away was that I was in a minority. Most of all accepted had come from technical schools which were abundant in that Era. They’d learnt technical drawing, metalwork, etc. This was to me, equivalent to learning to how to walk five years too late.

Too be continued………………………………(Maybe)

Am I Irish?

I see that the Irish need another €24 billion from the EU. Of course I’m expecting our idiot Chancellor to jump in with another bail out with what he thinks is his money. Sorry George, it’s not your money, it’s my fucking money you’re going to throw away.

I begrudge paying the high rate of tax already. If you count Income Tax, NI contributions, VAT, insurance tax, and all the other myriad stealth taxes, I think you’ll find that the average man in the street is being ripped off to the tune of nearly 40% of their pay.

What I want to see is real cuts in this country. Not just a slowdown in expenditure. I want to see the 300,000 civil servants culled as promised, and funding of the so called charities such as ASH immediately stopped. I want a flame thrower directed at the quangos and the other teat sucking drains on the public’s money.

I want you, Osbourne, and those idiots Cameron and Clegg, to give us that Referendum on withdrawal from the EU that you promised, but have since reneged on. Why are we throwing money at this edifice that is enslaving us with it’s laws that our leaders cannot object too, let alone defeat?

And I should of course finish with that prat Huhne, who wants to switch the lights off by 2015 by adhering to his slavish devotion to useless bird mincers and PV arrays. You know, the things that don’t generate power when the wind doesn’t blow, and when it gets dark.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this government, is as left wing as the last one.

My final comment is: Get out of my life and give me my money back. You C***s.

* I actually like the Irish*

Am I being to harsh? No I’m fucking not.

An honest Climate Scientist

Whatever next?  The vid is 32 minutes long but well worth a watch.

Why?

I started this blog about two years ago. What I can’t understand is why I write the drivel that I come up with. More interesting is that people actually read it and come back for more.

My ghast is truly flabbered.

Do come back and make suggestions, abuse me, in the comments. I will try to reply. (Honest).

If anyone who reads this has a particular issue that they feel needs to be addressed, them do E mail me at Niklowe[at]gmail.com.

That includes you Huw.

I’m truly humbled to have a loyal following. *Especially those from Kent County Council*

It’s difficult to blog every day, but your support makes it worth it. You’re the true heroes, and I salute you for taking hard earned time to follow this blog.  But hey, why don’t you give it a go. You might find it as fun, as this blogger does.

Egging you on.

Fancy bombing the Houses of Parliament, Tripoli, Your next door neighbour, or whatever floats your boat. Here you can do it with a ballistic Cadbury’s creme egg. You need patience as it takes a while for the page to load.

H/T to Max

Shopping

A customer asked, "In what aisle could I find the Irish sausage?"

The shop assistant asks, "Are you Irish?"

The guy, clearly offended, says, "Yes I am.  But let me ask you something.

If I had asked for Italian sausage, would you ask me if I was Italian?

Or if I had asked for German Bratwurst, would you ask me if I was German?

Or if I asked for a kosher hot dog would you ask me if I was Jewish?

Or if I had asked for a Taco, would you ask if I was Mexican?

Or if I asked for Polish sausage, would you ask if I was Polish?"

The clerk says, "No, I probably wouldn't."

The guy says, "Well then, because I asked for Irish sausage, why did you ask me if I'm Irish?"

The clerk replied, "Because you're in Halfords."

(For overseas readers. Halfords is a car accessory shop).