Stalinist Bastard

Good Lord, is that the time? I really must apologise for the unpardonable interval since my last message, how crushing this must have been for my ever expanding legion of fanatical readers. I can only put it down to the lingering after effects of a rather superb meal I had with ‘Bullwhip’ Blunkett, late of The Queen’s Own Hooligans, into whom I bumped anon whilst out gassing badgers on Hampstead Heath (‘Bullwhip’ was shooting blue tits with his trusty service Webley, a harmless enough hobby but one which has got him into hot water with the busybodies of the so-called PC Brigade more times than he cares to remember). Anyway, we repaired to his club for a mouthwatering meal of poached calves’ brains and a barrel or two of claret, and that’s the last I remember. Hope the blighter hadn’t spiked me drink with that Rosehipnol, or whatever it’s called...

Suffice it to say that I was roused from my post-prandial torpor by the latest assault from the sanctimonious ayatollahs of the PC Brigade, in the form of an appallingly self-regarding piece of pious drivel written by a talentless little creep named Chris Hallam, published in The Grauniad (see picture, above). The greasy little oik with the eminently punchable face has got it into his Stalinist noggin that the ban on smoking in public places is insufficient, and should be extended to the home as well!

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/chris_hallam/2007/12/smoke_out.html

Good God, has the man taken leave of his senses? An Englishman’s home is his castle, damnit, and I didn’t fight and die in two world wars to be lectured to by some anally-retentive social-worker with delusions of grandeur. Seldom have I read, even in The Grauniad, that vomit-inducingly priggish busybodies’ arse-rag, such arrantly Stalinist bilge, even from the foul harridan Toynbee.

So angry am I that I am compelled to examine his putrid rantings in greater detail, so please bear with me, dear reader; you may want a whisky stiffener and a puff on a cheroot to help you through...

“Instead of producing the dream of a land free of the scourge of secondhand smoke, it's now virtually impossible to enter many pubs and clubs without first pushing your way through an unhealthy congregation of smokers converging around the doorway.”

What a nauseating example of spinelessness Hallam is, that the mere presence of smokers around a doorway almost impassably impedes his stately progress. Clearly, he has never had to thrash his way through an angry mob of a hundred Pathans in Kandahar armed only with a sharp stick and a service revolver, has he? And that was just to get to the bar…

“More pointedly, the ban has exposed a wealth of contradiction in public attitude. To pick just one example, while nobody seriously questions that anyone using a mobile phone while at the wheel at the car should face the stiffest penalties, people are less concerned about smoking behind the wheel.”

Words fail me! The gap in logic is almost unbridgeable! Arguably, mobile phones are sophisticated pieces of machinery difficult to operate whilst driving, involving not only complex manipulation, but also the loss of concentration whilst speaking to the dolt on the other end of the line (who almost invariably turns out to be trying to sell insurance). It can no more be contrasted with the instinctively smooth and unconscious action of smoking than, for example, wanking behind the wheel. But I suppose Commissar Hallam would ban that too!

“And what about children? If the government is sincere about protecting those most vulnerable from second hand smoke, then why isn't a ban on smoking in all households containing children, at least being considered?”

Ah, the old what-about-the-children ploy, the last refuge of the journalistic scoundrel! Well indeed, what about the children, Hallam? Frankly, children should be not seen and not heard, and if the little beggars are stupid enough to insult their elders by being in the same room as them when their betters are smoking then woe betide them! Frankly, if I had had the temerity to appear in the same room as my father whilst he held forth to his guests on some pressing issue of the day over a brandy and cigar, I would have been thrashed to within an inch of my life and been thankful for it.

In my day, we’d have taken a greasy tick like Hallam and tied him spreadeagled across the muzzle of an 18-pounder, shoved a lit cigar up his arse for ironic effect, and blown the blighter to smithereens.