A sentiment I agree with from the Time there

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article2007645.ece

I agree wholeheartedly. I do not smoke and hate smoking BUT I DO NOT WANT IT BANNED. It is yet another assault on freedom with the aim of making us better people and with paid snoopers to shop the guilty. The parallels with certain earlier Central and Eastern European regimes is growing all the time and noone really opposes this trend. Extraordinary and disturbing.

Yes. Here's Rob Lyons from the same Spiked article:

This mix of attitudes provides a useful snapshot of Britain today. The intolerant and the interfering have new confidence that they can get their way. And much of the rest of the population has become acquiescent to their interventions. Only occasionally, ... does a single issue provide a spark for an outburst of anger at a government that is seen as remote. And these momentary bursts of rage die away as quickly as they appear. ... The smoking issue shows that the authorities have found an area where they can intervene in our lives and show themselves to be ‘caring’ and ‘attentive’ without provoking much protest.

Suck it up.

Suck it up.

Eating too much mercury laden fish again, Terry?

By the middle of this century politicians are predicting that the main cause of death will be excessive good health.

There is a letter in today's "Daily Telegrah" (sadly I did not do my "check for offensive articles before buying" duty carefully enough as there is a vile heil Diana article by the wretched Andrew O'Hagen - still back to the letter).

Lesie Watson from Swansea writes that in "Ireland, Scotland and Wales have introduced smoking bans without any problems. But we read that thousands defy the [English] smoking ban (report, July 2). What does this say about the English?"

It is a long time since I was proud to be English.