Message in a battle
Monday, June 18, 2007 
Seven days to our Revolt In Style dinner at The Savoy Hotel in London. Four weeks ago I was advised by almost everyone - including our partners Boisdale - not to go ahead because the risk of booking the Lancaster ballroom (the largest available room in the hotel) and selling only a handful of tickets was too great.
Now, with a week to go, we have almost 350 guests and only a handful of tickets remain. Guests include MPs, peers and smoker-friendly journalists from several national newspapers. At least two TV film crews will be present; so too the Internet broadcaster 18 Doughty Street. More will undoubtedly commit nearer the day.
I've read some of the comments on this blog. I will restrict myself to saying that, like it or not, media and public relations play a vital role in modern political campaigning. The Savoy dinner is part of this process. Some of you may think the event expensive and self-indulgent but how many MPs, peers or journalists would have attended an alternative event down the Dog and Duck?
To get a broad cross section of people to attend, including opinion formers, you have to make an event as attractive as possible and - for maximum effect - do it on as grand a scale as possible. Forest is renowned for events that are great fun yet convey a serious message. It is one of many reasons why we have such a high media profile (in relation to our size).
The event itself is just the tip of the iceberg. What you see is a dinner for 300+ but below the surface an enormous amount of political lobbying is taking place. Irrespective of any media coverage we might (or might not) get, by this time next week our target audiences (politicians, journalists and broadcasters) will know all about the dinner and - more important - the messages that accompany it because, behind the scenes, we have a small team hard at work on letters, flyers and news releases.
As I say, there are a few tickets left. To book telephone 01223 370156 (office hours) as soon as possible.
Events
Reader Comments (24)
I hope it spreads the message far and wide!
Simon - in case you don't see my question under the 'signs' article. Do you know whether David Hockney's 'End Bossiness Soon' badges will be made available to the public?
I'll ask him!
Brilliant. Thanks :)
Go to www.forces.org, and read 'appalled but not surprised' June 18th, by Gian Turci. Well worth it.
Yes that's an excellent piece, Zitori.
Incredibly powerful and insightful.
I speak to Gian regularly as I am a Vice President of FORCES International. His knowledge of smoker bans and the hatred the nasty little NGO's incite is second to none.
Now HE would be a great speaker for your dinner, Simon......
I hope we make a stand against this government(regime). Can't help thinking of Dr David Kelly, when he did. It's a bloody dictatorship, this is apartheid all over again.
I see tonight we have drinking yourself to death (channel 4). When will it all end.
It'll end when the people stand up and demand to be treated as minds, full of extraordinary potential, inhabiting a temporary and doomed body, rather than continuing to allow themselves to be treated as bodies first and foremost.
Simon, the smoker friendly journalists that you mentioned, who will be at the dinner, should be tatooed with the details of this FRAUD before they leave, the scandal of which must match anything they've ever reported on before.
If they do not inform the public that they are being taken for a ride, then that would be a scandal of equal proportions.
What about creating some NO SNOOPING signs to go alongside the compulsory warnings against smoking.
No Snooping signs is a great idea. I'm also thinking of a web site that will show pictures of known snoopers.
I've got a new t-shirt some of you might like. Check it out below.
http://www.icanhelpit.co.uk/blog/default.asp
Watched dispatches about drinking last night. Had already done research http://livercancercenter.upmc.com/Information/Alcohol.asp?section=Information
This medical site gives all the facts, it certanly does not say drinking can't harm you.
Do all alcoholics get alcoholic hepatitis and eventually cirrhosis? No. Some alcoholics may suffer seriously from the many physical and psychological symptoms of alcoholism but escape serious liver damage. Alcoholic cirrhosis is found among alcoholics about 10 to 25 percent of the time.
What causes cirrhosis?
There are many causes of cirrhosis. Long-term alcohol abuse is one. Chronic hepatitis is another major cause. In children, the most frequent causes are biliary atresia, a disease that damages the bile ducts, and neonatal hepatitis. Children with these diseases often receive liver transplants. Many adult patients who require liver transplants suffer from primary biliary cirrhosis. We do not yet know what causes this illness, but it is not in any way related to alcohol consumption.
Cirrhosis can also be caused by hereditary defects in iron or copper metabolism or prolonged exposure to toxins.
Just a couple of little known facts not aired on dispatches. If you watched dispatches you will be counting your days. Let's have the facts.
How many people know this.
Does alcohol cause liver disease?
Yes, but it is only one of the many causes, and the risk depends on how much you drink and over how long a period. There are more than 100 liver diseases. Known causes include viruses, hereditary defects, and reactions to drugs and chemicals. Scientists are still investigating the causes for the most serious liver diseases.
I thought it was only booze that killed your liver.
Fristly - Bernie's new t-shirt is brilliant - I recommend that everyone checks it out on his site. Secondly - I like the idea about snooping on the snoopers and setting up the website - like giving them a taste of their own medicine and very clever indeed. 'Schnüffler Verboten' (snoopers forbidden)!
Andrew; You are right. It is the same pattern as anti tobacco. It will take a long time to de-normalize drinking but not so long as it did smoking.
Jenny; Thanks. I'm redoing the shirt design a little to drive the point home a little harder.
http://www.icanhelpit.co.uk/blog/default.asp
Have you noticed the concern lately about people buying cheap wine and beer from the supermarkets and drinking more than their 28 units or whatever? Suprise suprise! They go out of their way to destroy the atmosphere of all the pubs with their evil popaganda and brainwashing (and that's before the ban starts) and are astonished to find we are all drinking at home.
Of course, Ken Lacey, you comments are simple but accurate. Consider too the, the words of Spinoza who spoke about "this asylum of ignorance." We are in it now: Nu-Labour = 21st Century Lunatic!
As a second post may I ask does anyone think that Chairman Gordon will be more sane than Commissar Tony?
May I have your bets please.
Blad; Brown, Cameron whoever we have over the next few years will keep going down the same road. For theirs is the power and the funding for ever and ever.... until we can't function at all.
It will come to an end but it might be a sticky one.
As I crossed the open space in front our town hall today, I was stopped in my tracks by the local radio station who are running an "ashtray amnesty day" in advance of the smoking ban.Talk about jumping on the bandwagon. I was happy to advise them that I will be attending above dinner at the savoy which seemed to make them giggle nervously they obviously felt they were talking to a criminal or subversive. Incidentally my passport was sent out five weeks ago by the passport office and was fraudulently signed for and stolen, so far I cannot get any help from passport office, couriers etc but most importantly the police do not want to know. How different will it be when they find out I am SMOKING IN MY OFFICE! Talking of which I wish the forest office would sort themselves out, I paid for my tickets for the dinner ages ago and even after 3 phone calls still have not received them, and I refuse to book a hotel till I get them - I am told they are being posted today. No wonder I smoke, why does life have to be so difficult?
Hello Wendy, I know this isn't exactly on the smoking agenda but I had the same thing happen to me a few years ago, when my new passport went missing. My one was not signed for by someone else as yours was, my passport didn't make it out of the local sorting office, where the passport office told me it would have ended up after they sent it to me.
I contacted the sorting office, the Royal Mail, and the police, none of whom offered any help at all, I eventually contacted my local MP, who's name escapes me. After a few weeks, she eventually replied to me. There was nothing she could do, she told me, these things happen all the time.
When I wrote to her again and pointed out that with all the terrorist threats and illegal emigrants entering this country, surely there should be something she would be willing to do? Why don't the passport office send all passports by registered post so that they had to be signed for, I suggested. Her reply to that was that it would be far too expensive, it could add at least another £1 to the cost of a passport.
This week we are being told that passports are going to cost almost double now, and this stupid, so called MP, didn't think it was worthwhile taking up a cause which might add one pound to the cost.
Needless to say, she was a Labour MP, one of the same stupid bunch that has now imposed the ghastly and unjust smoking ban upon us. That is fine isn't it, but trying to stop terrorism, that's not PC is it.
Well Peter its not really off subject is it, when you consider that we hold our British passports dear (or I did anyway)then we cannot understand why our beloved government cares little for these things and persecutes us for others. Anyway my MP is the only person I hadnt contacted (also labour) so you have now saved me the trouble !!
There is only one word to sum up New Labour: CRAP!