The best of Belgium

Did you know that there is a "Minister for Small Business" by the name of John Perry?

Under the heading "Black economy poses threat to 250k retail jobs", the Examiner on Friday April 13 brought this interesting fact to my attention.

The dreaded weed tops the list on the black economy shopping list, but laundered diesel and illegal medicines get an honorable mention also. Now, canny readers might point out to the Minister that pubs are small businesses too, and one a day has been closing since the introduction of the smoking ban, according to the VFI.

But predictably the minister went on to say: "Consumers must be vigilant when purchasing goods and services, and understand the negative effects of purchasing illegal goods. The hidden economy is not a victimless crime: its victims are the local shop around the corner or the local tradesman who pays his taxes every year. Buying illegal goods kills jobs and passes on the benefit to organised gangs and paramilitary groups. In order to protect our friends and families’ jobs, we must say no to illegal goods."

Well, I have news for him. I had occasion to visit Brussels last weekend (for a wedding), and took the opportunity there to buy 1,000 grams of rolled tobacco for €100.00. This was from a tobacconist on the Rue de something-or-other, and included all EU taxes paid in full. If I had not been away and bought instead on the Rue de Patrick here, it would have set me back €400.00 plus. Does John Perry see any connection I wonder?

Every other single thing is more expensive in Belgium (except train fares). Oh, and I have one other useful tip for you. Checking in at the main airport there, I went briefly back outside for the last smoke in the cold. Then we trudged through the indignity of a security check before emerging at our gates. The Cork flight was at gate nine, and there was a nice little pub just down at gate seventeen. Lo-and behold, a door off the bar led into a fully enclosed smoking room, fully ventilated and with windows onto the runways. You could take your pint (Stella at €5.00), sit in this lovely bright room with a smoke, and watch the planes take-off and land. Apart from a day in Bruges, it was the best part of Belgium.

Sweet Dreams

“Ireland has led the way on smoking restrictions and the rest of the World followed," boasted Prof John Crowne (Senator) last week.

I could add with some irony now that Ireland is also leading the rest of the World in cigarette smuggling as a result.

As the Irish Examiner reported "More than 38 million contraband cigarettes worth almost €15m have been seized by customs officials. The haul - the largest in Europe so far this year - was discovered in four 40ft maritime containers imported into Dublin Port.”

Announcing this find in Dublin last night on TV, the breathless announcer made it sound like Red China had made a surprise nuclear attack on Kildare. This was followed by a smooth ‘anti smoker’, replete with Dublin 4 accent and talking down to us like children, as only a doctor can.

After a healthy serving of shock & awe, we got to the real news in the story. Benny Gilsenen of the Retailers Against Smuggling came on saying that is was affecting employment and the livelihoods of his members, followed in short order by a customs man who said that all 38 million cigarettes would be destroyed as quick as his little legs could carry him.

Then the Finance Minister, Michael Noonan, popped up, admitting that, "we made a mistake with pricing this commodity out of the reach of decent smokers. As such, my Government proposes to reduce the packet of twenty cigarettes in the shops to 50 cent a pack in a mini budget due tomorrow".

And then I woke up. The news can bore you to sleep these days!

European revolution?

In a much earlier piece I gathered information from all across Europe on the status of smoking there, for the purposes of choosing a holiday destination.

Smoking bans are all over the place (though not everywhere by any means), but they differ greatly. Ireland and the UK are examples of the more extreme end of this trend.

It is weather-related too. When you find yourself in the Mediterranean region, you nearly always sit outside anyway. Bans really only become annoying when it is cold or wet.

In the northern countries, Belgium has what I would call an intermittent ban. In Holland they have revised their ban to allow smoking in owner-run bars, and a similar situation exists in Denmark. Friends have reported to me that in Germany you have many ways around their ban. In France too, it is possible to find places that welcome the smoking customer. For Greece, it is a non-event. Austria is positively civilised. In other words, many places are not as extreme or fanatical as we are here in Ireland.

Reading this piece this morning, I'm wondering are we seeing the beginning of a counter-trend? Under the heading "Croatia plans to liberalise smoking law", we learn that "currently Croatia imposes a full smoking ban in entertainment entities. The government said soon it would be allowed to smoke in entertainment entities. Healthcare Minister Rajko Ostojic supported the introduction of the Austrian model – the owners should decide whether smoking is allowed or not. However, if smoking is allowed, the entity must have a proper ventilation system".

We have learned too from the Government in Prague that they discovered that smokers contributed six times more than it cost to treat any illnesses they may suffer from as a result of their habit. Are we seeing an outbreak of common sense on the mainland? If so, how long until it happens over here?

And if Minister Phil Hogan can justify the 'Household Charge' on the basis that it is the norm amongst our neighbours, can we not rightly call for other 'normalities' also?

Bye bye, The Viscount

I take my son to football training one night a week, and wait for him in some appropriate pub for an hour and a half, to bring him back home. He's only nineteen after all!

His training grounds are on the opposite side of Cork City from our own home, so it is a 30 minute drive there. From April to September, they train on grass and the rest of the time it is on astroturf in a different location.

As luck would have it his training grounds are located in Bishopstown, the area I grew up in, so the pub I visit for the hour and half was very familiar to me from my own teenage years to my late twenties. Back then, there were three pubs in Bishopstown, a bar named after the area, another called the Viscount Bar (It's on the airport flightpath, geddit?), and the The Outpost, probably because when we first moved to Bishopstown in 1964, it was a country town on the edge of the city and this was the last outpost before the great outdoors.

All of last year, and the year before, I was there reading a book every Tuesday night, from 6.30 to 8.00pm in the Viscount, and they had a nice little smoking room too. The man who built and ran the place was also the original landowner of the sites for the first estates built in Bishopstown, so a man of means you could say. My father, like everybody else, paid him ground rent, so his name arose annually around the Mallon table.

Anyway, this Tuesday was the first football training of the new year on grass, so I dropped the precious bundle off and informed him that his smoking father would be in the Viscount if he had any problems. Only, I wasn't because it was CLOSED!!!

The Viscount is out of business, shut down, boarded up, and now just a memory. I remember when it was an integral part of local life. Believe it or not, I parked directly in front of it, fished my current book out from under my seat, and walked to the door, pushing it in. It pushed back. Not to be deterred, I knocked on the door and waited patiently for that lovely West Cork girl that had served me on the high stool so often before. Then the horrible truth dawned and, do you know, a sadness overcame me.

The Viscount was a goldmine in a gentler time. It was an institution. Even my parents, two avowed non-drinkers, were in it many times. It was the height of aspiring middle-class respectability, a friendly well-run bar, ideal to meet friends and tell tall stories about our unadventurous lives to each other. It was full of life and reflected the lives that went on around it every day. It was the source of information (and scandal) about those that lived about us. They had aspirin behind the counter for the coffee morning people, roast beef and a pint for lunch timers, and beer and spirits every evening. There was no music whatsoever, live or otherwise, and the background sounds were the low hum of multiple conversations. You did not ever hear a raised voice in the Viscount. It was well laid out and furnished, and featured a semi circular alcove at one end which had curved glass in the windows. And nobody even knew what an off-license was in those days, though I believe there was one on Patrick's Street in the city at the time.

Standing there bewildered in the cold, looking at that closed door, my first thought was, "well there's another nail in the coffin". But the question in my mind driving away to find somewhere else was, "was it a nail in my coffin, or the coffin of the fabric of our society?" Where now for the huge population of Bishopstown? The Outpost is OK if there's absolutely nowhere else to go, but you wouldn't be recommending it to friends, if I can put it that way. The Bishopstown Bar has aspirations of its own and their disapproval is palpable if you do not want a menu with your drink.

I am sure that our "caring society" is frowning at my wish to even want to go to a pub. "Why don't you take a healthy walk", I hear them chide. And it occurs to me also, that in many quarters there will be celebrations at the demise of the Viscount. A bracing health drink behind the net curtains, toasting the forced closure of that eyesore. Fiona Ryan at Alcohol Action Ireland may have downed a Lucozade to mark the event.

But again, I wonder if anyone out there knows where we are going and why. Change is good, but change for the sake of change has consequences that cannot be foreseen, because there is no plan in the first place. It's akin to saying, let’s start removing blocks from the walls of a house, because we can. Just one to begin with, because that would make a change, and change is always good. But, do we wait until the house collapses to question why we began removing those blocks in the first place?

Anyway, the Viscount is gone, and the smoking ban initiated its eventual closure when it was put in place just eight years ago, in Michael Martin's Cork.

High jinks on the moral high ground

Hot on the heels of my recent blog (Carroll’s Law) about the HSE slinging your money around the Four Courts to score points against a tobacco company, comes an even newer revelation on the mis-use of taxpayers money, this time at the hands of the HSA (note different acronym - Authority rather than Executive!).

Smokers will know the HSA quite well, as every time they look up, there is the HSA looking down on them from the high moral ground. We are the filthy smelly addicts and they are squeaky clean. Isn't that right?

Well, they are squeaky clean in their pronouncements all right, but they are pretty loose with your hard earned money at the same time. The HSA fat cat likes his luxury when jetting off to some conference to hear the latest lies about tobacco. And for that smoke-free, champagne filled few days, you can hardly expect him to go dipping into his lavish salary, now can you?

Not a bit of it. You, the kindly taxpayer (and smokers certainly get caught for plenty of that) have furnished this high grounder with a company credit card to smooth his path. And guess what? He spent €625,000 grand on it, looking after himself properly.

"A report on excessive credit card spending by the Health and Safety Authority on items such as dinners, entertainment and travel is to be submitted to the Oireachtas spending watchdog committee", the 'Examiner' reliably informs us.

"Public accounts committee chairman John McGuinness yesterday said he had concerns about the excessive amounts spent on wining, dining and even flowers between 2007 and 2009. This included trips abroad, several dinners that cost over €2,000 each and a restaurant tip that amounted to €300". You can bet your ass that it wasn't a kid in McDonalds got the three hundred quid tip. And two grand for dinner? The main course must have been a herd of cattle.

The public accounts guys also heard that, "there was also a purchase at a hair health centre in Limerick that amounted to €200". Could that be for Harney's unruly mop, I hear you ask? Well no. We now know that that colossus got her hair done on the department’s direct account. Maybe O'Reilly had his beard trimmed on the HSA, but I doubt it.

But the credit card story enters the realm of fairytale when we learn that, "there were a small number of transactions for amounts totalling €25,000 that needed further explanation". Given the state of the housing market, you could probably buy my house for that. And the report goes on to say that, "concerns had been raised with the department over the spend, he added, including the €4,086 spent on travel, which remains unexplained". Unexplained? How about, 'what the fuck did you do with all that public money that is supposed to be spent on healthcare?’ A straight question after all, demands a straight answer. ‘Were you slinging it around like snuff at a wake or what?’

But you have to suppose of course, that if any deficit needs to be made up in the HSA finances, they'll simply get their cronies to agitate for an extra 50p on a packet of cigarettes and balance their books that way.

It must be heaven up there on that high moral ground!

Sugar sugar

Since writing my piece on my lifelong love affair with the deadly fillet steak, I have learned the true extent of the evils of cheese and salt as well.

And in a single week recently one of our national dailies reported one day on the beneficial health effects of a glass of wine, and on another warned that the same glass of wine could cause breast cancer.

Now it is the turn of sugar to appear on the taxman's radar. You'd recognise the taxman's radar set because the bright orange ball directly in the centre of it is the good ship Tobacco. The tanker alcohol is also bright and hovering close to the tobacco dot, but the screen is now filled with loads of smaller bleeping dots too. Indeed, pick anything you like to consume, anything at all, and I'll bet it appears as a small boat bleeping quietly at some corner of this set too.

But a brash new boat has come crashing onto the screen recently. The sugar containership is making a loud bleating sound as it swans into focus. This deadly killer is a real beauty for the taxman and the herd of its decriers, because the damned stuff is in just about everything. It's a real bonanza killer this lad.

Check out this article to discover how pervasive this epidemic really is. Jesus! I even know a woman with a real sugary voice! Is the bitch trying to kill me?

I'm telling you, dear reader, do not get out of that bed of yours. The tools of slow agonizing torture are all over your safe little home. Better to let the bed bugs have their evil way than to venture into the kitchen and actually put something into your mouth. Truly, there is no safe level of ANYTHING!

Carroll's Law

Years ago, in another life as a boy salesman for a computer company, the topic of incentives to sell more 'confusers' was hot.

But income tax rates were so high back then, any scheme that involved waving a wad of currency under the lazy sales rep's nose in an effort to get them to make a few phone calls often ended in failure. If your employer offered a cash incentive of £10.00 (a princely sum once) to sell a single machine, you ended up actually getting £4.00 when the Government were finished with your bonus.

Then, the accountants discovered tax-free gift vouchers. In return for shifting, say, twenty boxes full of PC's, your employer could send you and your chosen one to a swish country hotel for a weekend. Or you could convert it into vouchers worth 'X' pounds at some high street stores. This way, you got the full value of your extra effort.

Schemes like this are now common in the field of incentives in commercial business and perfectly legal. Well, unless you are a tobacco company that is.

When P.J. Carroll ran a variation on this theme recently, none other than the HSE went ballistic, and hauled them into the courts for it. In keeping with the modern trend of demonising tobacco in all its shapes and forms, you might expect that the court ruled that the CEO of P.J. Carroll was sentenced to be handed over to an angry mob of ASH-ites to do their worst to the bewildered man.

However, "District Judge Bridget Reilly held the scheme was a promotion but found that the term ‘financial assistance’ did not include a gift, prize or reward such as a voucher. She dismissed the prosecution". In response, the HSE hit the stratosphere and banged on the door of the highest court in the land to get their way. Using taxpayers’ money to feed some heavy hitting legal types, the HSE took their eye off hospital waiting times and tramped up to the "Four Goldmines" for their pound of flesh.

Now, you are thinking, that's that then. Carroll’s was shut, the employees let join the dole queues, and ASH were given yet another grant of your money. Are you sitting down? The Irish Times reports that "in his judgment, the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, found the district judge was correct in law in finding the term ‘financial assistance’ does not include a gift prize or reward so as to exclude a monetary payment or cash voucher redeemable for money". The HSE lost! ASH didn't get to disembowel anyone. Carroll's continue to make cigarettes, and no spinning meteors have been reported to be on a collision course with us, due sometime next Wednesday week.

Apart from the celebrating legal types now pocketing a goodly sum from the HSE (you and I), there is nowt but an eerie silence. And you thought there was no justice in the land and miracles didn't happen!

Payback

The payback for the years of support from pharmaceutical companies is well under way now. In return for supporting the efforts of various anti-smoker groups in many countries, the pharmaceutical giants required that their profits be enhanced.

This is being done worldwide using the simple vehicle of forcefully diverting the smokers’ tobacco money and pointing it at cessation products manufactured by these giants, using local politicians to do so. From the perspective of the rabid anti-smoker, this is a win-win and they do very nicely from it too, thank you very much. It is no mistake that at a local level you see the likes of - what shall we call him? - Dr Looney Like will do - advising the Government on tobacco cessation on the one hand, while being paid consultancy with a company such as Pfizer to develop cessation products for them on the other.

Add to that the fact that he has evolved into the de facto voice for tobacco research in Ireland, and you can plainly see where your oppressive laws come from. The good Doctor is simply called to advise the legislators on forcing the smoking population to quit. He cites a study, one he probably made up himself in his car on the way in, that proves "conclusively" that Pfizer cessation products are the miracle cure for the filthy smelly tobacco addicts. The politicians then enquire how best the addicts can be brought together with these wonderful Pfizer products, and the Loon is on a roll.

"First", he might observe, "You must put the price of twenty cigarettes up to €100.00 a pack". This will result in excise duties of over ten trillion in the first week alone. Then bring in a law to ban smoking anywhere in public, and in all private homes that feature a neighbour’s house within four miles as the crow flies (The ETS card). Finally, for as little as €100bn a year, the Government must buy these cessation products from Pfizer and give them out free to the sick smelly addicts through the local chemist shop. After a few years, when the addicts are hooked on the patches, Pfizer will produce varieties of them, containing stronger doses of nicotine for the sickest addicts out there". You can see the eyes of the feeble minded politicians lighting up at the idea that all of their bothersome work has been done for them.

Do you think that scenario is a bit far fetched? Well, Dr Siegal, on his site, outlines this strategy even better. He reports, "An endowed chair position created at the University of Wisconsin by Glaxo Wellcome to support the work of the University of Wisconsin's Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. The funding was intended to support a broad range of loosely defined research in the general area of tobacco control, consistent with the overall mission of the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention". So, a simple advisory body then from academia that would impartially advise a Government on tobacco control? Wrong! As Dr Siegal reports it, "The memorandum of agreement which established the endowed chair position defines a narrow range of supported activities that all focus on nationally marketing smoking cessation drugs".

The offending party in this instance is GlaxoSmithkline. Dr Siegal explains the strategy. "Essentially, what Glaxo Wellcome has brilliantly done here is to establish what you might call a national marketing office disguised as an objective research center. Through this generous gift, the Center and its Chair are essentially made partners with Glaxo Wellcome in the effort to market smoking cessation drugs nationally by increasing awareness of specific guidelines that physicians must use these drugs to treat every smoking patient, trying to remove financial barriers to the use of these drugs, and educating the public about the option of pharmaceuticals to encourage them to increase their use of these drugs".

Now, in our capitalist democracy, you have to ask yourself, can you blame a pharmaceutical company for trying to attract new customers to buy their products? In the same vein, can you blame a tobacco company for trying to do likewise? Indeed, can you blame stupid lazy politicians for falling for their scams? Is there actually any other kind of politician here anyway? And what of the local GP just down your street? To keep up with the dizzy variety of new medicines coming on the market, he depends on the sales reps from Pfizer and GlaxoSmithkline to tell him what to prescribe.

In this commercial merry-go-round, the political legislator is key. It appears that the medical/pharmaceutical axis has cornered the market there. Their vested interests have trumped the interests of the other stakeholders such as the tobacco companies, the retailers, the publicans and all of us disorganised smoking customers. We are not only not invited to the table to offer the other side of the story, we are actually banned from attending these decision making meetings.

In the case of the sponsored chair at the University of Wisconsin's Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention, the sponsors rules dictate that, "If (they) became interested in cold turkey quitting, this memorandum does not appear broad enough to allow (them) to pursue research in the use of cold turkey quitting as a smoking cessation strategy. More importantly, it removes any incentive from (them) or others in the Center from doing so because it is clearly not in the financial interest of the sponsor".

Checkmate!

Get real, Drink Aware!

When I hear the expression 'drink aware' and 'teenagers' in the same sentence, I presume it refers to the little brats knowing where the key to the booze cabinet is hidden.

But no, dear reader, "Drink Aware" is a concerned responsible drinking advocacy group. They are in the news as their spokesperson claims that "certain reality TV shows have been criticised for normalising and glamorising excessive home drinking". I can only assume that teenagers watch this muck, but I don't have a problem with that actually. My problem is with Drink Aware and their grasp of reality today.

Now, I must state first that, broadly, I support Drink Aware, in as much as they are the thin line of defence between the freedom to enjoy an alcoholic drink in peace, and prohibition a la Alcohol Action Ireland. However, claiming that a reality show screening people having a few drinks at home somehow distorts reality, is a distortion in itself. It's a reality show, for God’s sake and, far from distorting things, they are reflecting the reality of our society today.

A string of concerted attacks on the pub industry has succeeded in destroying the supervised consumption in public and driven drinking into the home. The puritans just don't get it. Many of us like to take a drink and believe it or not, many more enjoy a cigarette with that drink. It's called living. Wishing otherwise will not make it all go away. Force and coercion, however, may drive this enjoyment back behind the drawing room windows. So, when the cameras visit the homes of aspiring reality stars, out comes the hooch. The fact that the lines of cocaine and reefers of dope are not on these film clips does not mean that they are not there also. This will come as an awful shock to the Gardai no doubt.

We buy two thousand five hundred million euros worth of alcoholic drinks each year and the pubs are empty. It's illegal to drink in the car and on the streets and employers are against us doing it in the workplace. So just where do the people in Drink Aware think that this lake-sized cocktail is being consumed? That's the reality, and wonder of wonders then that a "reality TV show" should screen it.

Get real Drink Aware!

An un-scare story!

Over on the Taking Liberties website yesterday my colleague Simon Clark reports yet another awareness campaign, and this time it is salt that should be scaring the Bejesus out of you.

There is simply no safe level of salt and the act of walking into a chipper is akin to shuffling blindly into a gas chamber.

As for chocolate, that is seriously deadly. According to many informed sources over the years, chocolate may contribute to lower bone density, is high in calories, saturated fat and sugar, and is a danger to pets (chocolate contains a stimulant called theobromine, which animals are unable to digest). Like ETS then, but unlike leaking radiation for which there are stated safe levels, there is absolutely no safe level of chocolate.

Until now that is!

Both the Irish Examiner and the Irish Independent heralded a new enlightened era. "Far from piling on the pounds, a chocolate habit can help keep you slim, new research suggests", screams the Indo. "A chocolate habit can help keep you slim", confirms the Examiner. “What heresy is this”, I hear you whisper in shock.

I won't bore you with the details, but basically new research has shown blah, blah, blah. Doubtless some registered charity, called something like Action on Chocolate and Confectionary (ACC), will rush out a press release tonight, refuting any such claims and blaming 'Big Chocolate' for funding such phony science to boost their profits. They'll take the opportunity too to urge the Government to give them more funding of course, because that is how these things work, isn't it?

Death of the pub

Three events took place in short order in the last eight years that had the effect of almost destroying the ‘Irish Pub’.

Despite denials from the usual quarters, the smoking ban started the rot. Like it or not, the publicans were reluctantly forced to treat their smoking patrons differently, while accepting the same amount of money from them. Most smokers reacted by visiting the pub less often and some just never went back.

Michael Martin struck again by tampering with the Groceries Act, allowing the big supermarket chains to sell alcohol in bulk at below cost. On restricted budgets, this facilitated home consumption to rise dramatically, in favour of skipping the visit to the pub.

Finally, Gay Byrne convinced the nation that even a half pint of mild beer rendered a driver so drunk that it would be criminal for them to sit in a car. At a stroke, you couldn't even get to the pub in some quarters.

A swift piece of social engineering on three fronts meant that it was cheaper and more convenient to buy a huge box of assorted booze in the shop, take it home where you were free to enjoy a smoke with it, and you didn't risk incurring the displeasure of some uniform that night. It was a no-brainer really.

Over the last year, I have stopped drinking alcohol during the week. Instead, I discovered a zero percent beer which is quite nice, really. I can drive to and from the pub and have two of these. But the two bottles cost me €7.80, whereas I can bring six of them home for €6.90. And of course, while in the pub, I must go out into the weather to have my smoke anyway. It just doesn't work, does it?

This experience is replicated up and down the country. Pubs are closing daily and those remaining open are on reduced hours and rarely busy. You do not need to wait for research findings on the matter. Just hop in your car and visit a few any day of the week. The truth is all around you.

And what of the future? From the under thirties around me that I am familiar with, the Irish Public House is not even a consideration for them, but alcohol certainly still is. The modern trend now appears to be to get tanked up at home or in someone’s flat or digs, add some illegal substance to that on the way to a nightclub and then top it up with a few strong alcopops over six hours of dehydration, while their ear drums are assaulted by dangerous levels of high decibels. That is the modern definition of ‘craic’.

Meanwhile, according to Mr Dennehy, chairman of the Cork City and County Vintners’ Federation of Ireland (VFI), many of his 800 members were complaining at monthly meetings that elderly men, former regular customers, were not frequenting their local hostelries. He went on to blame the smoking ban and drink driving limits for this, and claims that, "Gardaí have noticed in the past few years that the age profiles of those committing suicide in some rural areas has increased".

For an old man now, living alone on his small farm, a social net has closed around him. The well-intentioned, on their pedestals in Dublin, have pursued their single issues with devastating effect. Society as he once knew it must seem as if it has evaporated, and any attempt he makes to reconnect with it, runs the risk of having his driving license taken from him, or he will be eased out into the rain to have his smoke, or both. Of the three pubs within driving distance, one is closed down, one opens at the weekends only and the other is usually empty. Increased Garda checkpoints, though, make it too risky to visit that pub. His post office has probably also closed as well, and young people today have nothing to say to a pensioner anyway.

Those who are responsible for this scenario, that is going on up and down the land, do not want to admit any downside to their zeal and ceaseless campaigns that have brought it about. In their feigned purity, their blinkered vision makes no concession to compromise or reality. Bans, laws and rules are their answer to human desires and frailty, accompanied by punitive punishments for those who do not measure up to their own high standards.

This then is the caring society that wants you to live longer.

Now we're to blame for education cuts!

A friend alerted me to an interesting website recently that I would like to share with you.

It is called the Crimson Observer and it is penned by an educated chappie by the name of Myles Duffy.

This guy knows his stuff, so when he broached the topic of tobacco and the smuggling of same, I thought I might get an insight I did not already have from him.

But I was disappointed. The piece (Rampant cigarette smuggling forcing swingeing spending cuts on the Irish Government) starts with "The Irish Government intends to cut the Education Budget by €916 million between what it spent in 2010 and what it intends to spend in 2014. That sum is comparable to the exchequer revenue that will be lost as a result of cigarette smuggling even if Customs succeed in executing 50,000 seizures worth a further €1 billion in lost taxes. Less than half of smuggled cigarettes are seized by the authorities according to anecdotal evidence and research".

I was incensed at this bloke’s implication that smokers are now denying children an education. It is a sick observation and is nothing short of incitement to hatred. Using his logic, you could accuse teetotallers of making no contribution at all to alcohol taxes, thereby denying much needed funding for the disabled. Or indeed, what about all the pitiless and selfish non-smokers and their cruel treatment of the elderly by contributing nothing in tobacco taxes.

It takes a very twisted mind indeed to be an anti-smoker!

Smears on TV

RTE 1 television had a documentary on tobacco smuggling last week. I missed the first half hour, but what I did see confirms what I have thought on the topic all along.

There were three distinct parties and opinions aired throughout it. Firstly, there was the official line, as provided by Government statistics and OLAF. Secondly, there were the voices of the Customs & Excise people on the ground, who deal with the problem and know its cause only too well. Thirdly, there was the presenter, who did his breathless best to add "shock & awe" to the whole sorry tale.

The thirty minutes I did see was fast paced, with inserts that naturally showed up smokers in as bad a light as possible. It was as if an outside broadcast crew drove around Dublin looking for fat women wearing pyjamas in public, smoking cigarettes and then throwing them on the path. You were left in no doubt that the species "smoker" was a sad, sick lot of ne'er do wells, all accompanied by a drab down-beat soundtrack, the background music of their blighted lives, you were supposed to conclude. Condemnation by implication was the thrust of it.

These cheap tricks then were interspersed with facts and figures. Well, there were figures all right, but these, by their nature, could not be factual. It appears that the wily smugglers do not lodge their annual returns with the Revenue Commissioners, so the facts and figures as presented were the best guesses that anyone could come up with. This was not stated of course, rather it was all offered as fact and truth.

In a similar vein, the alleged facts about the health consequences of smoking and ETS were liberally sprinkled throughout, almost verbatim from the ASH website. All in all then, it was a totally biased piece, unbecoming of a national broadcaster renowned for its balance.

Various Revenue voices simply stated that the high price of tobacco in Ireland was the cause of the smuggling, simple as that. They were not attacking the policy of high price, but just stating the cause and consequence. Only an idiot would contest this, and guess what, they found one. A bald and portly Michael O'Shea of the Irish Heart Foundation filled my screen alarmingly, to refute the idea that price had ANYTHING to do with smuggling. He prattled on in outrage for a while, but at no time did he enlighten us as to how he had arrived at this conclusion contrary to basic economics and human nature. The only surprise really from that quarter is that he did not add that the world is square and the moon is made of cheese.

But the presenter took the biscuit for his undisguised bias. Pointing to the lost revenue from tobacco taxes and then announcing proposed cuts in education spending, he all but said that filthy smokers were now denying a proper education to your precious children.

Did any of you see it and if so, what did you make of it?

Big Pharma funds the fun

Did you ever hear of an outfit called The Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT)?

I thought not. Well, they are out to get you, you smelly disgusting addicts, and you should have a have a closer look at this lot here.

Among their aims are "to encourage scientific research on public health efforts for the prevention and treatment of tobacco use" and "to provide a means by which legislative, governmental, regulatory and other public agencies can obtain expert advice and consultation on nicotine and tobacco". In other words we will provide any government anywhere all the junk science they need to persecute smokers in their area.

They came to my attention via Dr Michael Siegel's website, because the SRNT are holding their Annual Conference in Texas soon and the two largest suppliers of nicotine replacement products are paying for it!!!

GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer are picking up the tab for the champagne and caviar for all the concerned public health officials who are gathering to plan another assault on your freedom. You can be sure that whatever horse shit they end up agreeing on will trickle over here in time, disguised as some horrifying reason to hate smokers even more.

Dr Siegel makes the case on this sponsorship better than I can and you should check it here.

But the fact of the matter is that pharmaceutical companies, who stand to profit from it, are sponsoring the authors of junk science, to provide the paid lobbyists with ammunition to get governments to persecute smokers. Your local friendly manufacturer of alternative nicotine products is responsible for the attacks on your freedom.

And if you want to learn more about these people then google "pharmaceutical industry scandal" and you will have a choice of 1,170,000 articles to read, that will tell you who they are and what they are like.

Enjoy!

The deadly meal

My idea of culinary heaven is a meal I make myself, planned in advance and anticipated with mouth watering joy.

It's a simple treat for a simple man actually. I like to fry myself a fillet steak in full battle dress, when the occasion and wallet allow me to. I savour this with a bottle of good French wine, a hugely expensive luxury for me, and top it off with a fresh ground coffee and a small King Edward cigar.

"All very interesting", I hear you say, "But where are you taking us with this John"? Well, you will know by now, because of all the "awareness campaigns", that if you are alive at the moment, you have a 100% risk of dying. And you will also know that honest rigorous scientists everywhere are diligently researching your behaviour in search of things you get up to that could lead to 'elevated' risks of snuffing it even sooner than …….. I don't know.

Imagine my fear and guilt therefore when I sip that heavenly French magic, knowing I'll be dead before I get to the cigar. Strangely, though, this has not happened yet in 55 years, so I have always ended up lighting that aromatic stick and sitting back with a pasted on, contented grin, secure in the knowledge that I'll keel over any time now.

Again, wonder of wonders, I have always seemed to make it to the coffee course, deadly as we know, and some rich dark chocolate concoction that obviously should carry a health warning. And having pounded my poor body in this fashion many times, I'm still stubbornly here.

But, my thrill seeking treats have had a hidden danger too, all these years, and I wasn't even aware of it. According to a new study (where have we heard that before), the fillet steak is absolutely lethal and I am defying all odds as I hobble around today.

You can read the grisly details here, but you have been warned - you are now "aware". That sizzling sample of sumptuous sirloin, that finely fried fillet of pure heaven, "Is not only unhealthy but can contribute to premature death, according to new research".

So there you have it. My kitchen is a scene of carnage a few times a year. If you find yourself travelling through Mayfield, or indeed anywhere in the Cork region, keep the windows of your car up, take your iodine tablet, and get your kids into the boot under a blanket. You never know, I might be cooking, and there is no safe limit of fillet steak!