busker

FUMEURS FUMING

• Dark days for persecuted puffers of this nannying state. Black as our lungs. But I sense a rumbling backlash coming.

  Make that a *wheezing* backlash.

• I don't mind the Brits shoving the fag-buying age up from 16 to 18, altho' I can't for the life of me see what effect it's meant to have.

  When I asked Uddhav one day why he'd so unquestioningly sold a pack of Woodbines to a clearly under-aged snotty-nosed kid, he flashed me his vulpine grin and tapped that sinclairian spot on the throat where they puncture to let the air in:

  "Whitey-sahib's imprecations not sounding so loud that way - also, not so quickly chasing our virgin daughters with lungful of tar."

  Quite, I smiled, eyeing his three teenaged daughters, each bustling to their chores and of a grace and burning-eyed beauty to have a preacher lay the Good Book down.

  And don't you love 'imprecations'?

  You and I would settle for common-or-garden 'insults' or 'curses' but they speak 'real' English on the sub and with those divine  accents.

• But I do think this wretched statewide ban is a bit much. Blimey, talk about a nanny nation.

  I guess I'll just have to take up blackjack and Texas Hold 'Em and spend my time up the Suquamish casino, puffing and passing.

• Or move to the Windy City where they can continue killing themselves til '08.

• Dept of Hope Springs Eternal: I'm so pleased to hear that the County public health department is getting hit with requests for information¹ on how to comply. Let's hope they get thoroughly  inundated with asinine questions as stoopid and objectionable as the ruling itself ... might almost be worth gathering a few good men and organizing a concerted campaign along those lines. Hmmm .... thinks ... bubble bubble.

• Initiative 901, indeed. What a grim association with which to lumber that fine upstanding word. And what *is* it about the numbers 9 and 1 that they're so appallingly hexed? I may use them in my next Lotto submission - that'd be a laff if it came up trumps.

• Glum faces and white knuckles round the ferry concourse ... indeed everywhere ... like, why not just declare the whole flipping state fag-free and be done with it ... I mean, bloody hell.

  Yea verily - I say unto you, the day of reckoning is coming and it shalt not be pretty (cough splutter hack wheeze).

  According to the entrancingly-named Traci Brewer-Rogstad, "There are a number of practical issues with Initiative 901"¹.

  ^5, brothers in bronchia - I definitely need to look into that cadre of Poumons Noirs notion before it goes the way of all my other idées fixes. Call it "The 25 Club" after the footage we're meant to observe.

  "Fines for smoking could be as high as $10,000 for smoking on car deck," the Review alerts me.

  Ouch - buy a few packs of Gauloises with that lolly, you could - speaking of which, *what* about that dreadful news that Gauloises/Gitanes are no longer fabriquées dans la belle France?

  Tiens! Talk about how are the mighty fallen.

  Thank *God* our best man, the late, loved and very much lamented John Blackwell never lived to see such infamy. And no, he didn't conk out from excess of bonnes Gauloises, well maybe they helped but that's not the point.

  On this topic, how is it those Frenchies always look so damn'd dashing with a cig dangling? That's chanteur Charles Aznavour over there and there's also the rubbery-featured Belmondo actor johnny.

  I'll tell you who *does* look good - that soldier up top on the right. Dang! Do you remember when that story appeared about how all Bush's IED-fodder wanted was a couple of cartons of Marlboro ... with that snap of the handsome GI and his rakishly angled gasper.

  Duude! I was in Corfu at the time - in fact, I think I posted on it - and the local girls were just swooning . Local lads, too, come to think of it ... Pericles, Andreas ... all the gang in the Perseus Arms.

  I think I read that Marlboro sent out a coupla transport plane's worth, and well they might - the photo appeared *everywhere* and must've set back A.S.H.'s efforts a couple of aeons. Of course, I doubt his mum was very pleased.

  "Bertie! You promised me you'd given up! Wait 'til you get back, you naughty boy ... and get a haircut, for heaven's sake. It was soo embarrassing having Mrs Jenkins from Number 12 show me the paper and there you were with all those wisps round your ear. I've told you before, no nice girl will even look at you if you insist on looking like a tramp, and in front of all those foreigners, too. What "must" they think of this country?

  PS: Am enclosing a cutting about the Blenkinsop wedding that's had us all in a tizzy. You remember little Petronella from number 6 - such a mousey little girl, always falling off her bike. Well, she doesn't have to worry about bikes no more. She can have a different car for every day of the week now. Seems she was the favorite niece of some scoff-law black sheep on her mum's side, trogged off to do his thing in Ruritania and ended up accidentally inventing some cure for ingrowing toenails or something. Anyway, made a packet and left it all to her.

  No one knew *who* he was, because Hilda wouldn't have his name in the house. Plenty of mention *now*, mind you - cousin Lemuel this and cousin Lemuel that and how she just *knew* that clever cousin Lemuel would make a success of it. Sure ...

  Anyway, she's having to watch her step with her daughter now all the money's come her way.

  As I was saying, she and Cecil from Acacia Drive upped and tied the knot. Don't know if you remember him - they lived in the Barraclough house before moving to number 27 when her dad took poorly. Such unfortunate looks - buck-toothed, match-stick legs and all those *freckles*.

  I suppose they went out together because no one else would have them - anyway, landed right on his feet, he has.

  Bertram, why weren't you *nicer* to that girl, instead of always snogging with that Linda Bagnell? Anyway, must go. Mrs Snodgrass is giving me a lift to my bingo session and then I'm looking in on Mr Andrews with something for his leg. Wrap up well and take your vitamins - and *don't* smoke!"

• On that note, I'd better shove in another of those anti-smoking links in case my own mum is reading this and frowns on me only rooting for the good guys.
  • "It's all right, mum - I've made QuitNet my default home page."
• OK, OK - also shove in that useful "Looked-at-Cigs-from-Both-Sides-now" URL and give a plug to Cold Turkey Day.
• And a lovely bit of nonsense from over in the UK about children's health being put at risk from passive smoking if the government bans smoking in all restaurants and bars. Theory is that, stop poorer folks like me from smoking in bars and we'll smoke more in front of the kids at home. All codswallop, of course, but this is the level you have to fight these people.
• Hilarious piece on the Semiotics of Smoking. I seem to fall between 'Empire-builder' and 'Pervert', altho' I'm not sure how much trust to place in someone who can't even spell Sobranie.