Why are all the pubs closing? Doh!

From this week's Daily Mash. (I suspect that my colleague Neil Rafferty, who co-founded the online satirical magazine and is a spokesman for Forest, may have written it.)

Millions of people across Britain who never go to the pub were last night asking why all the pubs were closing down.

As it was revealed that 2000 pubs have closed in the last year, non-pub goers said their community would not be the same without the local pub they never went to.

Margaret Gerving, from Peterborough, said: "I was delighted when the smoking ban came in because it meant I could finally go to the pub without being killed.

"But then I didn't, mainly because I'm not the sort of person who likes going to pubs. I prefer to stay in with a carton of pomegranate juice and a bag of pine nuts and make long lists of all the things I want banned.

"Now it turns out that nobody else is going either because quite a lot of the people who used to go to the pub also liked to smoke. But none of this explains why all the pubs are closing down."

Former pub owner Charlie Reeves, from Hereford, said: "We were told that the smoking ban would mean lots of young mums and dads bringing their children in. But that didn't really help because there's only so much Guinness you can pour down a three year-old before it falls asleep.

"Then there's the added factor that a pub with children in it isn't really a pub, it's a fucking hell hole."

See HERE.

Thought for the day

Brian Monteith, who has nothing better to do as he waits to go to Trinidad (on business!) for three weeks, has forwarded this illustration. Apparently it reflects the "Thought processes for male and female brains when faced with the question: SHALL WE GO FOR A DRINK?"

I couldn't possibly comment.

Smoking: the next logical step

Neil Rafferty is not only a spokesman for Forest. He's also one half of The Daily Mash, the UK's No 1 satirical website which he created with fellow journalist Paul Stokes. I sense Neil's hand in THIS article, entitled 'Smokers banned from looking at cigarettes while smoking'. "Smokers will have to hold a large piece of card over their face so they cannot look at the cigarette they are smoking, ministers said last night."

Cigarettes and sex

Writing in the Daily Record this week, broadcaster and journalist Tam Cowan complained: "Even as someone who hates the killer weed, I think they've gone too far. Did you know, for example, it's now illegal to smoke inside a bus shelter? It's a sad day when lassies from Airdrie can't even enjoy the simple pleasure of a cigarette after sex."

Rafferty: he's having a laugh

When he's not representing Forest, Neil Rafferty keeps busy writing for the satirical website The Daily Mash which he co-founded last year with his friend Paul Stokes.

Rafferty previously worked for the Press Association, Business AM and the Sunday Times in Scotland. Stokes is a former columnist with Scotland on Sunday, the Daily Record and the Scotsman.

Occasionally the worlds of satire and tobacco collide and the result is THIS.

How long we can go on laughing as politicians north and south of the border introduce one idiotic policy after another is another matter.

You've got to laugh

From the Newry Democrat in Northern Ireland:

"Hello again and welcome, and thank you for not smoking. Yes strange isn’t it to see hordes of people standing outside pubs, clubs and hotels.

"It's only now you realise how many people actually smoke. On the plus side girls are getting chatted up, but on the down side two guys were smoking outside a local pub and they started to argue on the pavement.

"As the row heated up, one guy said to the other: 'Right you, inside.' "