[jambutty]

I’m not attacking you personally pixie as you stated in this ‘karma’ thing, it is just that you represent the anti-smoking brigade who target the hapless smoker whilst ignoring and even condoning the motor vehicle.

Just a small aside. It is a pity that some people do not have the courage to make their insulting comments in public forum rather than hiding them anonymously in this ‘karma’ thing. Who was it who didn’t have the moral guts to call me an ar.se.ho.le in public but had to hide it in a karma? I challenge you to show yourself and make your snide comment in full view of the forum members. Same goes for the karma comment of “not a valid argument”. Is that the best that you can do “not valid argument”? Make a ludicrous comment and not explain why I don’t have a valid argument.

So as you see it pixie, ‘the main difference is that smoking is done for personal pleasure’ is it and driving around to the shops, the school run, visiting, going on holiday etc is not done for pleasure or convenience. It’s a necessity is it? Sorry but in the main there is public transport to take people to the shops or school or visiting friends and even for going on holiday. What’s that? How do you get onto a bus with three kids and umpteen bags of shopping? With difficulty or you leave the kids at home with a baby sitter. We managed in the forties, fifties, sixties and even seventies. So why can’t we manage now? But it’s so much easier and more convenient to use a car to load all the shopping in and so much quicker than waiting around for a bus. Yes it is and fifty cars pollute much more than a bus, even one that belches noxious fumes and there are plenty of them around.

Let me acquaint you with some stark facts. A car with a one litre engine travelling at 30 mph will have the engine revving at around 3,000rpm. That is 3,000 litres of pollution every single minute. In ten minutes that car will have polluted the atmosphere with 30,000 litres of noxious gasses. In that same ten minutes one person would smoke just one fag. Anyone want to hazard a guess as to the quantity of smoke that produces? Let us be really generous and suggest 100 litres – that is 300 times less than that car. Most cars have a larger capacity engine than one litre and thus will produce more gasses than the example above.

‘Smoking serves no purpose whatsoever’ pixie? As a non-smoker you wouldn’t know what purpose smoking achieves and that is a fatuous statement to make.

It would be too much of a personal inconvenience to curtail the use of cars so we ignore the effect on our atmosphere and effectively condone the pollution. But just because a non-smoker would not be inconvenienced by curtailing smoking they target the smoker and the car is sacrosanct. There is the hypocrisy.

Sadly in the last ten or twenty years society has degenerated into a me, me, me, me, me society with hardly a thought for their fellow man/woman. That is a generalisation so don’t come back with the “I care for others” answer. You are the exception.

Has anyone noticed that as you reach and pass retirement age you start to become invisible in shopping precincts, supermarkets, anywhere where there are crowds of people and even whilst driving? “Sorry I didn’t see you” is the standard excuse as someone tried to barge pass knocking you aside.

I’m not attacking the car because everyone uses a vehicle either personally or to have goods delivered to shops. We all contribute to the atmospheric pollution that is the bane of our lives but the motor vehicle does much more than tobacco ever did and to just target smokers is hypocritical in the extreme. Sadly the non-smokers are not prepared to accept that as vehicle users they cause far more pollution than thousands of fags. “We can pollute because the car/lorry is necessary and smoking is not” is the only pseudo rationale they can come up with.

Just a reminder to the anti-smoking lobby. Next time that a neighbour lights up their barbecue or creates a garden waste bonfire in their back garden or on the 5th of November lights a proper bonfire for the kids, go and knock on his front door and ask him to put the fire out because the smoke is offending you. See what you get!

Not too far from where I live there is a haulage depot that has been decreed a no smoking area by the management. Workers who want a smoke have to clear the entire premises and stand on the road to puff away. Yet the yard contains dozens of lorry tractors all moving around connecting, disconnecting and moving the trailers around and of course belching out tons and tons of cough inducing exhaust fumes not to mention the passing traffic on the road. The yard and office staff is subjected to breathing in this filth yet they cannot stand a bit of tobacco smoke. OK! So this situation is down to government edicts but it does show how ridiculous the edicts are.

Get yourself round to my flat WillowTheWisp when twice a day during school time the air is chokingly thick with disgusting vehicle exhaust fumes from the traffic that congregates close to the school gates across the road and waits with engines running. It is only with the blessing of a decent breeze that doesn’t quite dispel the fumes before the next lot invades everything and I mean everything.

I have knocked on a car window and asked the driver to switch off the engine because the engine fumes were pervading my flat and what did I get? A load of abuse and was even threatened on one occasion. At 68 and registered disabled I am no match for the driver so I have to go away and suffer in silence.

I have no idea how old you are WillowTheWisp but just when did you find this urge to wash your hair and clothes after being in a smoke filled room? Early teens perhaps or is it a touch of recently jumping on the bandwagon because you are a non-smoker and have come across an opportunity to have your opinion forced onto others?

Verb sap!

Now I am off to enjoy my Sunday lunch followed by a nice mug of tea and a relaxing fag and rejoice in the fact that today is Sunday and the school is closed so that I can breathe in a relatively pollution free atmosphere or at least one of my own making.