Oh they will, will they?

A minor boiling of the blood as I saw this on Facebook this afternoon:

'Every smoker knows that one day he will have to quit. Either voluntarily or involuntarily.'

Is that a threat? Involuntarily? How does that work then? Are a crack squad of antirauchennazi going to kick my door in and wrestle me to the ground whenever I spark up? I do hope so, because if they're not quick enough they'll drop stone dead as soon as I exhale. These guys must be on serious danger money.

Oooh, what's that I spy? There's a little. . . thing. . . in the corner of the clever little logo which looks like a stubbed out ciggie. Ah, yes it would be the EU, wouldn't it? I thought I'd have a little look, see what they're all about.

You can't display the content while I'm viewing Facebook over a secure connection? What's going on here? The EU wants me to view one of their Facebook apps by surrendering my secure connection? Let me just go to the kitchen drawer and get my tin-foil hat.

This isn't the EU trying to covertly harvest data from Facebook, is it? That would be a low trick. I wonder how many people fell for that?

So, out of a population of 500 million, 55 people have decided to 'like' this. I bet they're doing the conga around the corridors of Minitruth about that.

Unstoppable? More like unstartable.

Muppets.

What's it going to be?

Is it me, or is it a mere coincedence that just as the weather turns nice and people walk around with smiles on their faces, this comes out to make sure we're all good and miserable?

Drinking more than two alcoholic drinks a day can significantly increase the risk of some cancers - with at least 13,000 cases a year in the UK linked to drinking.

Oh, really? Forgive my cynical response, it is just that if you take all these 'studies' at face value pretty much everything will give you cancer and result in an agonising premature death.

"Our data show that many cancer cases could have been avoided if alcohol consumption is limited to two alcoholic drinks per day in men and one alcoholic drink per day in women, which are the recommendations of many health organisations," the report's authors said.

*deep sigh* I notice a disturbing lack of hard numbers there. 'Many cases could have been avoided'? Come back to me with a definite number that would have been avoided, and how much those people drank, and how often, and I might start to show an interest.

"And even more cancer cases would be prevented if people reduced their alcohol intake to below recommended guidelines or stopped drinking alcohol at all."

Oh for crying out loud. Can you bunch of miserable, grey, nannying, hectoring, pouting, righteous puritans not just fuck off and leave us the hell alone for just one day? Just one day out of the year? No? Thought not.

But which is it going to be? I'm a little confused. You can't pass one day without hearing how doing, eating or drinking, well, pretty much anything, will kill us stone dead quicker than jumping in front of a train, and yet, we're constantly told that we're living longer than ever before, and we're slowly bankrupting ourselves in the process.

'Ahhh yes', the righteous say, 'but you'll die.'

I'll let you in on the worst kept secret in human history. We're all going to die. I will, you will, the President of Mali, the lad or girl who delivers the freebie local paper, the bloke who does the vision mixing on Coronation Street, all of them, each and every one of us will die. It is one of the things we will never have control over. I'm thankful of it, immortality would be a fate worse than. . . well, you get the idea.

'OK, but you'll die horribly.'

I'll let you into another secret, death rarely comes in an airy bedroom with the sun streaming in through the windows on freshly pressed linen with a collection of loving relatives surrounding the almost deceased. How often do you hear of someone who goes to bed at night a healthy person and just doesn't wake up?

We all die of something, and from where I'm standing one cause is just as good (or bad) as another. Mother Wolfers was a geriatric nurse in the public and private sectors for many years. I used to go in to her nursing homes on occasion, it used to cheer up the old girls to have a young friendly face from time to time. Believe me, living to an advanced age is not a blessing. Spending your last few years, and it can go on for years and years, mourning a long gone partner with little hope of replacing that loving companionship with even the flimsiest facsimilie must be utterly miserable. Spending your twighlight years in a home where you are out of sight and mind of your family, occasional visits where you have nothing to say, and they just want to go, that is if you get visits at all, can only be heartbreaking. You'll make new friends and see them disappear one by one, in the chair one day, gone the next, knowing that your turn is coming. It is little more than a waiting room, up out of bed, breakfast from a blender, sit in a chair with little or nothing to do, lunch from a blender, back to the chair, dinner, time for bed, lights out. One day it'll really be lights out. Am I to wait for that and be thankful for it?

If you're lucky you'll drop your marbles. It is often the way in geriatrics (or palliative care as it is now called by the PC), either the CPU goes or the motor goes. You want the former, I've spoken to an old lady who was convinced I was a sailor and that the nurses were her working girls. She'd been a madam in the 50's. She was gloriously happy. If the motor goes you're trapped in a body that can only be escaped by one means. I remember another lovely old lady, totally dependent on diamorphine, fading away before my very eyes, totally bedridden but with a mind as sharp as a razor. It is the manner of the life that is tragic, not the death.

No. Life is to be lived, not spent cowering in a corner fearful that it will be running away. Life is running away, it has done since the moment of your conception, take that time, I beg of you, spend it recklessly, there are no instalment repayment plans, when your account is called in, it is called in in full. Take every opportunity, your life is yours, it does not belong to the politicians, the doctors, the priests, rabbis or imams. The academics and scientists have no claim over it, it is yours and yours alone.

Have that third drink. Have that rare steak. Have that cigarette or cigar. The reaper will get you, he is inescapable. The only way you can be ready for him is to have a bloody great long list when he asks 'What did you do with your life, brief mortal?' Can you imagine answering that question with, 'Well, nothing really'?

Pay up! Pay up! And pay up again!

Just image the scene. It is Sunday morning and from your bed you hear the letterbox opening and then the floor cracking as the behemoth of a Sunday paper hits the ground and shakes the house to its very foundations. You take the publication upstairs and prepare to immerse yourself in the six colour magazines and countless niche supplements, or, if you're anything like Mrs. Snowolf, to half complete the crossword and sit the whole pile of papers on the shelf of the coffee table where in contravention of pretty much every physical law it will increase in mass and surface area for the next seven days.

I deviate. As you are about to sit down and enjoy your paper, the doorbell goes. It is the little scamp of a paperboy who has delivered the paper to you this morning (but not before 7am, see below), he is now explaining that the £1.20, £2.00, £2.50 or whatever you've paid is just for the delivery. As you have now chosen to read said paper, you have to pay again.

What would you do? Well, one of the first things you'd probably do would be to change your newspaper supplier.

But what if you couldn't change? What if you HAD to buy your newspaper from this shop? What would you do then? Oh, you'd be free to purchase another paper from another outlet, but that wouldn't absolve you of your obligation to buy your newspaper from this shop.

It would be an intolerable situation.

Yet. . .

My attention has been drawn to this old chestnut which is being wheeled out for the umpteenth time today:

Drunk people should pay for the treatment they receive at accident and emergency units, a patients' group has said.

But they already HAVE paid for the treatment. There is no such thing as free healthcare, these people are obliged to pay for the service. You want to charge them again?

'Ah, but Wolfers, these people are drunk', I hear you say.

Right then, define drunk.

What the patients' group wants to conjure up in your mind is an image of young men, Ben Sherman shirts, black slip on shoes, shaven headed or heavily gelled hair, brawling in the gutter. Let's just suppose you've been out for the evening with your friends to a nice restaurant. You're on foot, miss your step and break your ankle. You've had too much to drink to drive legally, but you're not drunk as you would see it. Are you drunk then? Whose definition of 'drunk' is important? What is the test? Incoherence? Evidential breath test? Blood test? Opinion of the triage nurse?

The Scotland Patients Association said nurses and doctors were often abused by those who had overindulged in alcohol, particularly at weekends.

So, prosecute them for common assault then. If they break that little bit of law, which has served us well for, oooh, about a thousand years, then prosecute them. Give the magistrate the power to hand out a proper sentence, it doesn't have to be custodial, but it does have to teach that abusing those who are trying to help you is the act of a clot, and this is what happens to clots.

They said the time had now come for such people to pay for services.

They HAVE!

Ms Watt said: "Anyone who has been abusing alcohol and can't stand on their feet and is admitted to hospital at the weekend should pay towards their treatment.

They HAVE!

Ms Watt said drunk people should be charged for using ambulances and for the time of staff who treated them.

Oh for crying out loud, HELLO? HELLO? THEY ALREADY HAVE PAID.

Hang on. . .

can't stand on their feet and is admitted to hospital at the weekend 

At the weekend? Of course, the hardened drinker will out necking it every night, do they not end up in the hospital during the week, or are they members of some loyalty card club?

If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes truth, it doesn't matter if it is based in fact or not. The fact seems to have been forgotten that we all pay for the NHS, it is not, and never has been free.

By perpetuating the myth that it is run on fairy dust and sunny mornings it makes it easy to demonise people, and drinkers and smokers and the fat are easy prey. What next? A pursed mouth saying 'Well, you chose to grow old'? An NHS that will offer treatment as long as you promise to never be ill?

Because people are told that the NHS is free they feel as if their health becomes the property of the state, or other 'well meaning' people (read: 'bloody nosy interfering busybodies'). It results in rubbish like this:

Burgers and sausages have been banned from being sold to fans at Forest Green Rovers football club.

The move was introduced for players at the Blue Square Bet Premier club a few weeks ago but now the policy has been extended to the whole stadium.

What? Eh? Why? How? *Boggle*

The Gloucestershire club is owned by Dale Vince who is a vegan who runs green electricity company Ecotricity.

Oh, right. There's an old joke in catering about how do you know when a vegan enters your restaurant? Don't worry, he'll let everyone know, very loudly, every five minutes. It's a joke I like because it plays on the level of having a little crack at the self importance of the Righteous, whilst also working on the level of a fart gag.

Free-range poultry and fish from sustainable stocks will continue to be served.

Great, the Devizies Tree Hugging Display Team will also be giving a half time demonstration.

"We appreciate some will miss their burgers and sausages, but our catering staff are working hard on a range of tasty and interesting products to replace those that are no longer available.

Oh, joy. Thank you very much, Dale.

"We're a country now where apparently chicken tikka masala is the most popular national dish. I think the old sausage bap won't be much lamented."

I think you're about to learn a valuable lesson about market demand. Oh, there are those who will follow the club whoever is running it, this is how football survives, but you WILL lose supporters over this, and you will certainly lose revenue in the tea bar, revenue which no doubt helps bankroll the playing staff.

"Anybody that really needs it can bring a ham sandwich or something if they wish - that's no problem."

Can they? That's bloody good of you, old chap. No pat downs at the turnstiles for meat and dairy produce then? Does this mean you won't be coming around to inspect the contents of my fridge with a disapproving look on your puss?

Forest Green Rovers, enjoy the mocking from opposition fans. You deserve it.

Jeez, what is wrong with these people that they think they have the right to decide what your money is spent on, what access you are permitted to have to services the money you provided paid for and what you should and shouldn't be eating? 

The One That Is Pleased The Recycling Agenda Is Being Followed. . .

We've been told that recycling is very important. I tend to agree, why make something new when you can re-use something old? It's just common and economic sense, the environmental concerns are all very well, but the idea of recycling is a winner just on the first two grounds.

I draw the line somewhere though.

At Easter, I blogged the following:

'Teddy, a six-year-old donkey with Anna Usborne, in Chalford, Gloucestershire, ahead of an Easter Sunday walk that aims to encourage children to enjoy a chocolate-free weekend, for the sake of their health.'

Oh do shut up and fuck off, there's a good woman.

'Hey kids, no chocolate this morning, it's bad for you. But we're going on a walk, and you'll see a lovely donkey. Won't that be nice?'

Well what's this I spy?

Parents should shun chocolate bars and sweets this Halloween and instead give their children spooky-themed healthy food, a charity says.

Yes, folks. It's the recycling of news stories.

Same story, same comment from me.

Fuck off you meddling, purse-lipped, joyless, bleak, grey, miserable arse-wipes.

When will you get the message that we couldn't care less about you, what you think or what you stand for and we will take no notice of you whatsoever?

I look forward to the same being trotted out in a few weeks for the festive period.

The One That Wants To Know Why You Can't Just Mind Your Own Bloody Business. . .

Back in March I blogged about some mouthbreathing Righteous arsewipe who was incapable of keeping her bloody nose out of other peoples' business.

It's happened again:

A supermarket has apologised to one of its customers after she was told she could not have unpasteurised cheddar cheese because she was pregnant.

I could paste more, but really can't be arsed.

Look, it is very simple.

It is none of your fucking business. None. Whatsoever.

I don't go to the supermarket for medical advice, and even if I did, I wouldn't seek that advice from the girl working on the fucking cheese counter.

Jeeeeesus.

Here we have it folks, our politicians spend so much time telling us how to live our lives that everyone thinks it is an appropriate way to behave. Footballers? Rock stars? Pah, it is the NuLabourites that have been a bad example for the public, if only they'd wrap cheese wire around their necks and stick their faces into the meat-slicer, then perhaps know nothing cheese vendors would do the same, instead of sticking their noses in to other peoples' business.

Bastards.