In the news

I have a strong feeling that we could solve a lot of problems by deporting everyone who has bought an Oasis ticket.

Isn’t there an island or somewhere in the UK where we could, house, these folks? Seems inhumane to inflict them on some other poor country.

North America 👍

Doesn’t Mexico have enough problems??

Somewhere with an Oasis (trade descriptions and all)

Almost Certainly Unpublished Letter to The Guardian

Keir Starmer is on a collision course with the hospitality industry and political opponents after signalling plans for major curbs on outdoor smoking. (Guardian on line, Thursday evening)

Long ago, when I was young, it seemed that almost everyone smoked, but no one had a psychotherapist.

Now the situation is the opposite - could there be a connection?

I haven't smoked for half a century and I'm certainly not going to start now, but I do miss all the pubs that have closed down - this proposal could easily kill off a few more.

Even fifty years ago less than half the population smoked. If four out of ten people in a room had terrible diarrhea you could easily be mistaken for thinking that almost everyone stank of shit.

Now the situation is the opposite - could there be a connection?

No

A former captain of the Bayesian says the ventilator ducts let water in when the boat is heeling 40-45 degrees over, which is the Downflooding Angle https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2024/08/27/former-bayesian-captain-offers-insight/ There are lots more articles about the Bayesian on the site.

https://x.com/PaulOnBooks/status/1829306770101047577

I really dislike smoking. Never smoked, but my mum died of lung cancer, it got her 20 years after she stopped.

But I think this is a rather silly idea and not worth the political capital or parliamentary time to do then are a billion other things they could and should be doing.

It's a dead cat story to take over the news cycle, after they announced that the Autumn budget is going to be a bit shit

In which case Esther has just gutted the dead Labour cat and smeared its entrails all over herself to move the attention from the Labour Party.

Yeah, she's cray cray

Why not just implement the increasing age limit for smokers, that the Tories introduced. That was at least a sensible piece of legislation.

All for this. Hopefully the gov’t won’t be swayed.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/29/starmer-faces-pushback-from-pubs-over-bonkers-outdoor-smoking-curbs

Isn't that what they're doing? I thought this was an amendment/expansion to the Tory smoking Bill.

Could be totally mistaken on that though so someone please correct me.

As an former long time smoker*, I originally struggled with the bans as a big part of me felt that pubs are adult spaces for adults to do adult stuff. But a big factor in my battles with quiting throughout my 20s was the role pubs and bars played as an enabling space.

Ultimately smoking is bad for you and everyone around you. I'm not in favour of the tyranny of the majority, but when the minority is doing something antisocial and harmful then my fucks to give are limited. Honestly I now find it really odd that people still smoke.

*>10yrs now :)

Yeah I think so

I love the term "hospitality sector" to describe businesses that thrive from making the nation unhealthy, expensive to look after and have well funded lobbying groups.

Totally

Yes, it's a bolt on to that bill.

I wonder if there are a few motives for this:

1. They have the votes to do it and it'll deliver a long term benefit. So why not?
   
2. Politicians/civil servants inability to use someone else's policy when you can do extra work to create your own.
   
3. A distraction the media and public can engage with. (which you hope they've run past focus groups who are in favour of it).
   
   

On the chat about the impact to the service industry, I'd like to see numbers on that. I did lots of reading of pub business plans and market trends around 2017. Everything I read said less people drinking alcohol resulting in a need to move to food led spaces with broader beverage options. My gut says commentators on this are thinking about the drinking/smoking habits of their youth, not the reality. Happy to be proved wrong on this. Also Brexit. This was a big factor in fucking the pubs I was working with.

Smoking costs the NHS £3Bn a year, might be something to do with it. Plus the associated economic impacts of people being unable to walk up stairs and so on.

Can we not just invest in escalators?

Great way to create new jobs!

How much does alcohol cost? I’m not sure a government’s financial situation is a good reasons to ban things.