Thursday
Jun212007
Forest sells out (no, not like that!)
Thursday, June 21, 2007 
Revolt In Style: A Freedom Dinner is now sold out. From nought to 400 guests in four weeks is pretty good going. Now the hard work really starts - selling the event to the media. See HERE - and watch this space!
Reader Comments (58)
Peter Thurgood is absolutely right - it is the government and its supporters who are deliberately causing all this. Propaganda. I remember going to pubs years ago, and there was never ever such bad feeling amongst people. When I didn't smoke, I never thought any less of my friends who did. When I started smoking, no one seemed to take any notice or even mind. We went out in groups of smokers and non-smokers and everyone seemed to interact very well and never even noticed whether anyone was smoking or not. Now we experience hand-waving (as Peter has explained) and looks of contempt and disdain from people we have never even seen before as well as people we already know. In my local pub, the local magistrate publicly humiliated me verbally in front of my husband and other people for smoking quietly in a corner. I hear tacit and somewhat louder comments from people expressing that they can't wait for the ban to come in so that people like me can't smoke in pubs any more. I never go into that room now and after Saturday I should imagine I won't be going into any room there. Poppy is absolutely right about the ventilation issue - yes, it is divisive now and should not be. From next weekend onwards, there will be a lot of acrimony between people in public places and especially outside.
I have already stated in an earlier post, how on friend of mine changed since the new law was announced. I completely forgot about two other friends, a couple, more my wife's work colleagues than actual close friends, but nevertheless, we still regarded them as friends.
Until a year ago both this man and his wife smoked, more so than me in fact. Then one day the woman announced to us over an Indian meal that they had both given up smoking. When I asked why, she said it was because of the forthcoming ban, and they had decided to give up there and then rather than be forced to at a later date.
I laughed and told them that in my opinion they were being defeatist. In my opinion I think that a person should only give it up if it affects their health. Oh well, it was their choice, and they were as free to make that choice as I am to make mine.
But now, roughly a year on since their giving up, they too have started the rude hand waving in people's faces, not mine fortunately, but my wife told me of how the woman acted like this in a restaurant one lunchtime to another work colleague, and how she made a fuss about someone sitting on a nearby table smoking.
How can people change so much? How can they go from being a charming, happy go lucky person, always ready to give and take, to a mean mouthed, venom spouting bully in such a short time?
I dread to think what is going to happen to this country if concessions are not made to this unjust and bullying law.
Peter, your non smoking ex-friend handled the situation badly and appears to be lacking in diplomacy. Assuming that the dinner venue was your home then he should have known in advance that your custom was to have a smoke after a meal. The choice should then have been either not to visit you or to make an excuse, post dinner, to leave the table and go and admire your garden outside. Either way I couldn't bring myself to act in that way, and certainly not in the company of a long standing friend.
Jenny, unless you were in a sign posted non smoking venue the magistrate was completely out of order to act in the way that he/she did. Nobody can condone insolence or aggression of that nature. The indoor smoking ban as you know has been in place here in Wales since April but, unless I'm reading the wrong newspapers, I'm not picking up on stories of hostilities between smokers and non smokers at public venues.
One problem is that people are changing and this change in their attitudes and behaviour seems to be accelerating. I recently mentioned on a blog on this site about an area manager coming round and saying there would be no smoking on all of the premises. He is already nick-named 'Herr Flick of the Gestapo' by regulars. Fortunately the brewery told him he could not do that and smoking would still be permitted outside. There are local people with whom I used to converse happily a couple of years ago, but my local introduced a 'non-smoking' room in 2005, then they started to sit in there on rare occasions when I saw/and still see them and now they completely blank me. Robert Evans - I was in the main lounge where smoking is permitted up to 1st July and this incident occurred in January. Before then, I had always got on reasonably well with the chap who lives near the pub, but now, sadly, I just won't speak to him because he was so horribly aggressive towards me. This may not be happening in the part of Wales where you live, but it is most certainly happening here in North Yorkshire. I don't think West Yorkshire is so bad because a lot more people seem to enjoy smoking in most parts of W.Yorks, but in N. Yorks people are becoming very sanctimonious. The nastier side of human nature is really being brought to the surface by all this and I, for one, don't like it at all.
Jenny, the type of behaviour that you're describing is unfortunate and regrettable. There are smokers within my own extended family and circle of friends and I wouldn't dream of rebuking them in the tones that you've described. Everyone is just considerate and accommodating to one another and there aren't any problems. After the 1st July I just don't see any potential for nastiness as everyone will know exactly where they stand and what the ground rules are.
Is all this extraordinary politeness hiding out in some distant corner of England where they still have warm beer and cricket and the sound of 'Jerusalem' wafting softly across the village green while the Women's Institute prepare cucumber sandwiches for 'the men'?
Can't say that's an England I've ever experienced in my lifetime.
The England I know is full of football yobs, homeless people, drug addicts, drunks shouting at the top of their voices or having punch ups outside my window at 3am, the endless drone of traffic, the sound of cars being stolen in the early hours at the weekends and noisy neighbours with no consideration for anyone.
Perhaps, in this strange timewarp where you live, all will be civil and peaceful, but I know many places in this country where this will create hell on earth.
Poppy, I don't think Robert's politeness is hiding anything. There is nothing more infuriating than facing an enemy who smiles and sniggers at everything you say. Watch BBCs Question Time, and watch the panel members who just sit there shaking their heads, always with a smile on their face, you can almost sense the rage in the person who is speaking. They are goading them into loosing their temper and saying something they wish they hadn't.
Remember, keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.
Thank you Peter. :)
I'm afraid that the 'Britishness' Robert E describes is so far removed from my own experience that he sounds as though he's on another planet to me (and yes, Robert, I am English-by-birth, although I'm not sure what that has to do with anything).
My real point is that punch-ups happen in bars every night for the most ridiculous of reasons and often with no provocation whatsoever - a drunken yob's mere perception of provocation is enough to create a blood-bath. We are known for having the worst yob culture in the whole of Europe. There are yobbish anti-smokers and yobbish smokers too. Yobs come in all forms, spoiling for a fight. The idea that this will be some sort of smooth transition with no trouble and with the public shrugging their shoulders with a smile while they sip their Pimm's in the long shadows of a Summer evening sounds like something from another era entirely.
It is not reality.