The Solution to Smoking and Obesity
Why not allow towns to have referenda about whether they want to allow smoking and lots of unhealthy food shops?
It would be interesting to see what happened in the towns that voted to allow it after a few years.
Hopefully, they would see sense.
My old GP once exchanged with a doctor in Canada for a year, where there were lots of Native American patients, most of whom were heavy smokers. His statistics and stories about that time, would fill a large book. But sadly he’s dead now.
He was one of the better GPs, I’ve had in my life.
We Have Ways of Stopping You Smoking Outside Our Building
I took this picture at Canary Wharf
There is No Smoking at Canary Wharf
It seemed to be working!
Smokers’ Mess Outside a Pub
I took this picture outside a pub yesterday morning.
Smoker's Mess Outside a Pub
Isn’t smoking a filthy habit! I’m sure the road-sweeper will agree.
Is Holland and Barrett A Health Store?
I was surprised on Sunday to see one of Holland and Barrett’s employees outside their store having a quick ciggie.
I though they were a health store?
Or have I missed something and ciggies are now healthy?
My Dalliance With Joan Collins
Joan Collins was on BBC Breakfast this morning plugging a book.
I actually met her once in the queue for Immigration at Heathrow, after we’d both flown in from the United States. All I can say, is that she looked a lot better this morning, as I suspect she’d had time to do her make-up properly.
She did ask me a favour in the queue at Heathrow, which I declined. but then I never light anybody else’s ciggie. Or even one for myself, for that matter! Even if it belongs to Joan Collins!
Good Riddance
I only came across the Occupy Movement’s camp outside St. Paul’s once. I was walking from the Millennium Bridge to Smithfield and to say it was an obstruction to an unsteady pensioner would be an understatement.
They may have some points about tax and power in the City, but most are just the descendants of the Hippy movement of the 1960s and just want to do what they want to do and stuff the rest of us.
There was a distinct and strong smell of tobacco and I think cannabis smoke as I passed. My son died of a disease related to that sort of heavy smoking. It wasn’t pleasant for him. Or his family!
So I’m rather pleased they have been cleared from the steps of St. Paul’s. I’m just a bit worried about where they pop-up next!
The Man who got Saddam Hussein to Give Up Smoking
Dr. William Frankland was yesterday appearing in a case as an expert witness, a day before his 100th birthday.
The case is reported in The Times today, that also says that in 1986 he was flown to Iraq to treat Saddam Hussein. Saddam listened to the good doctor’s advice and gave up his 60-a-day cigarette habit.
In some ways he feels guilty about it, as he believes without his advice, Saddam would have died naturally years ago.
Perhaps, Blair and Bush missed a trick here, by not reminding Saddam that he owed his life to a very good British doctor.
After all, all dictators are paranoid about their health.
Blackpool is the Smoking and Pregnancy Capital of England
Apparently according to this report from GPs, 30.3 % of pregnant women in the NHS Blackpool area continue to smoke, as against 20% for the north as a whole. By contrast in NHS Brent in London, the figure is just 2.8 %.
I would suspect that Blackpool doesn’t need a mayor, but a real Norland Nanny, to sort them all out. Preferably with an AK-47!
Angelo Dundee!
Angelo Dundee has died and that is sad.
The BBC has shown a clip from the famous Henry Cooper/Cassius Clay fight, where Cooper hit Clay with half a house and dumped him on his bottom. In this clip, Dundee is seen in the ring with a fag in his mouth.
How times have changed! Would any of the audience be allowed to smoke now, let alone the trainers of one of the fighters?
Farewell Christopher Hitchens
I didn’t agree with everything Christopher Hitchens said, but at least he had it right about religion and was always worth reading.
The world will be a worse place without him.
Probably if he hadn’t smoked he’d still be here.
In some ways smoking is the most selfish vice, as it annoys all the people around you and then when it kills you, it leaves your family in total distress.
He was eminently quotable.
The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that ‘if English was good enough for Jesus, then it’s good enough for me.
[Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.
Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.
To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?
There are lots more like these.
The Anonymous Widower 