Every day the papers carry some story, each one more ridiculous that the last claiming that picking your nose causes knee cancer or that using a telescope will cause your eyes to drop out.  Some claims are so patently absurd that you have to laugh, but they are still printed in that air of frenzy that would have you believe they have discovered the meaning of life.

Why?

What is the point of all this garbage?

In an ideal world, the WHO or whatever would inform us that Professor Fred has discovered a possible link between sugar and obesity, or that the University of Narnia thinks cigarettes may be bad for you, and they would then leave us to make our own decisions.  After all, it’s my body, my health and my life.  That’s called free will.

One of the latest bits of blindingly useless bits of information to emerge is that Ireland is to have a 72% increase in cancers by 2030.  Apparently Bulgaria is the place to be with a 2.2% increase.  What use is this information?  Instead of wittering on about future trends, why don’t they just devote their time to finding cures?

Why has the WHO published these figures?  What possible purpose can they serve except to cause depression amongst the gullible few who actually believe the claptrap?  Are we all supposed to suddenly change our lifestyles?  Are we all supposed to switch from high sugar to sugar free?  On second thoughts, sugar will kill you and so will sugar free, so you can’t win there.  It can serve no purpose whatsoever except to justify some grossly inflated salary somewhere.

Of course in the last few years, governments have taken it upon themselves to force us to live their lifestyle of choice.  Smokers have taken the brunt of the greatest “denormalisation” programme since Hitler decided he didn’t like Jews, and now they are turning their attention to drinkers and eaters.  They won’t be happy until we are all eating government regulated food, drinking government approved drink and exercising following an exercise regime laid down by… [you’ve guessed it] government.  Even then, people are still going to fall ill and die so what will they have actually achieved, apart from making society miserable?

Possibly the last paragraph in the WHO statement is the most telling -

“We need to urgently look at introducing fat and sugar taxes and how these unhealthy foods are promoted, and even greater restrictions on the advertising and sale of tobacco”

So having failed to “educate” us, they want reams of further government control on how we live our lives.  [Though I would love to know how they intend to further restrict tobacco advertising here in Ireland – the only places where you ever see any sight or mention of tobacco is in the breathless press releases by ASH and on the little signs in tobacconists about not selling tobacco to under 21s.]

I just cannot see the point to it all.

“Government plans to ban cheap booze”

I’d link to it but I can’t find an on-line version.  I did a search using the above words and got a mere 29 million results and I ain’t gonna plough through that lot.  It seems to be a popular concept?

So Róisín Shortarse, our Junior Health Minister, reckons she is going to solve Ireland’s “drinking problem” by raising prices?

You really have to admire these bozos for their consistency.  The answer to any problem is to raise prices.  And then they whinge about Ireland being uncompetitive? 

There was a repeated reference in the article to “slabs” of beer.  I presume this refers to those carry-out trays of Budweiser and the like that you see in supermarkets?  Now Budweiser is nothing short of unadulterated horses’ piss, and to charge people extra for drinking it seems a tad cruel.  Generally the only people who drink it anyway are the Skobies.  Seeing as they are all unemployed then it strikes me as a good idea to have them semi-inebriated at all times as it keeps them quiet.

By sheer coincidence [?] I see there is an article in today’s Irish Times –

MP advise two alcohol-free days a week

Ignoring the painful grammatical error of mixing the singular with the plural, my first thought here is that all the UK’s MPs must be qualified doctors.  Why else would they [or he?] be giving medical advice?  And are the Great Unwashed going to be so impressed with this that they will forgo their Tuesday and Thursday slots down the pub?  I doubt it.

I really am getting very tired of these wankers deciding what’s good for us and trying to manipulate us into their way of thinking.  I admit that alcohol consumption is a major problem BUT it is a small group that is causing that problem.  Why the flying fuck can’t they target that small group, if they are so fucking worried?  Why do the rest of us have to suffer from their little bright ideas?  There are tons of laws that already exist to deal with unruly drunkards so why the fuck can’t they use those?

I really am getting pissed off with the Righteous deciding what is good for us and trying to engineer our lives to fit their vision of the ideal world.

I wish they would all just go and fuck themselves sideways.

In the meantime, I’m off for my couple of afternoon pints.

“An outright ban on the smacking of children by their parents is under consideration”

Is it now?

Is it any of the state’s fucking business?

Of course the Righteous will scream that we must think of the children [*sigh*] and that anyone who is against such a ban is a child batterer and a child molester.  They will talk of broken limbs and brain damage and all the other juicy urban legends.  They may even throw in a name or two for good measure and claim that if such a ban had existed that child would be alive and well today.

What a pile of steaming horseshit.

What the state, the Righteous and every other nosey parker overlooks is that there is a world of difference between a smack on the legs and child abuse.  But of course the Righteous only work in extremes – a smack on the back of the hand is going to scar young Johnny for life, both mentally and physically.

A child is not an adult.  A child’s world is not one where adult logic has a place.  You can explain to little Brian that electricity is fucking dangerous stuff but that won’t stop him sticking his fingers in the socket.  You can apply all the logic you like to little Peter about how running out into the road is not a very good idea.  Of course when little Peter is mashed to a pulp by the 27 bus you can at least have the happy consolation that you never laid a finger on him?  When little Mary is found floating face down in the pond you can have the consolation that she never suffered a single smack?

How do they propose to police this nonsense?  Do they expect the child to run frantically for the telephone because daddy has raised his hand?  Are they going to stand peering in the windows?  Are they going to train kids to become informers at nursery school?

Of course once the Righteous have introduced the law they will sit back happily in the knowledge that the precious children are now “safe”.  But where are the Righteous when the little baby grows into an obnoxious little cunt with no regard for any kind of authority?  Are they going to be around when the little brat goes on a shoplifting rampage or whatever?  Are they hell!

There are laws in place to protect any child from abuse which is right and proper.  Break your kid’s arm and you end up in court.  I have no problem with that.  The Righteous however see any kind of chastisement as abuse.  “You are teaching your child that violence is acceptable” they whinge.  Bollox.  You are teaching your child the meaning of “consequences”.  What’s wrong with that?

Why are they talking about this now?  Because corporal punishment of children is prohibited in all settings, including the home, in 18 of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe.  So fucking what? What is this obsession with doing what other countries do?  Why not stick with the other 29 states?  Majority rule and all that shite?   The council and other international bodies have repeatedly criticised the absence of a ban in Irish law.  Well I would suggest that the council [whoever the fuck they are] should go stick their noses up their collective arses and mind their own fucking business.

I wonder if all the children in those 18 states are perfect little angels?

Hah!

I rest my case m’lud.

It was an Irish Times report that I had read, but I had to wait until my blood cooled below boiling point before I could mention it.

Psychiatrist calls for lithium to be added to water

There are so many things wrong with this that I don’t know where to start.

What really worries me about this is that the idiot who suggested it – Moosajee Bhamjee – is a respected member of society and an ex TD [member of parliament].  He presumably therefore has the ears of the Minister for Sickness and ill-health.   Even more worrying is that this is just the kind of mindless crazy thing they would implement without even mentioning it to the public.  Maybe they have already started, but judging by my reactions, they haven’t introduced it in my area yet.

I’m no medic but from my meagre knowledge, lithium is used to treat Bipolar Disorder [or Manic Depression as some of us call it].  So he wants to dump this drug into the water supply so we are all forced to drink it, whether we have Bipolar or not.  Has he wondered how it would react with any other medications we might legally [or illegally] be taking?  Has he considered how some people drink a lot more water than others?  Does he realise that by contaminating the water supply he is also contaminating the whole food chain?  Has he even wondered at the moral implications of drugging an entire population?

What scares me most is that this would be a typical Nanny/Bully State reaction to a relatively small problem.  The number of suicides here is horrendous – 600 per year – but as a percentage of the whole population, it is a relatively small number.  I can just hear them though, crying out that “if it will save one life it will be worth it”.  It is the catchphrase of the Bully State and is used to impose the most draconian laws on us.

To be honest, it’s not the act of forcing a drug on us that worries me…

It’s that fact that someone would even suggest it.

Jack D Ripper was right

Any time the Bully State wants to impose more regulations and crappy laws on us it’s always a case of “think of The Children”.  We mustn’t drink in front of the little darlings and God forbid that anyone should smoke in front of the little dears.  We must watch their little waistlines from birth for the first signs of obesity.

Even worse, when the group about to be bullied hears the Children card being played they always fold and concede.  The mere mention has us standing there, cap in hand as we give a moment’s revered silence for the little brats.  You would swear it was some form of deity we are talking about.  They are just kids, for fucks sake – mere adults who haven’t grown up yet.

For some unknown reason the mention of Children conjures up an image of a little five year old girl called Heidi with golden curls, blue eyes and dimples.  What a steaming load of crap.  Your average kid these days is just as likely to be a five year old snot gobbler called Gazzer, with a shaven head, track marks on his arm and HATE tattooed on his knuckles.  He will probably already have an impressive criminal record and also smokes and drinks twice as much as his mother [no one knows who his father is, least of all his mother].

I am a firm believer in experience and in finding things out for myself.  I was brought up in an age where a boy wasn’t a boy if he still had intact skin on both knees.  I discovered that a whole barrel load of actions resulted in pain.  I discovered that it is not really advisable to pedal hard on a bike with no brakes.  I discovered which dogs in the area were prone to biting.  I discovered the taste of some quite unmentionable things through sheer experimentation.  I discovered that it is not advisable to clamber over a wall if there is broken glass embedded in the top of it.  I inhaled the equivalent of a pack of fags every time my father drove us somewhere.

And not one squidgen did me any harm at all.

Nowadays the little darlings are wrapped in cotton wool from the day they are born.  Signs go up in the car saying “Baby on Board”.  No one is allowed smoke within a three mile radius of the house.   The house is regularly disinfected from top to bottom, killing 99% of all known germs, just in case Little Precious catches something.  The Little Darling is ferried everywhere by car just in case someone might throw a lecherous glance.

And what is the result of all this?  The little brat has never been exposed to a good dose of germs from chewing dog shit or eating a sweet that was found on the pavement, so his or her immune system is non-existent.  His or her hands have never been allowed remain dirty so the immune system hasn’t a clue what a decent bug looks like.  He or she thinks that bicycles are perfectly safe because he or she has always been protected with a hard hat, elbow and knee guards, so falling off has no memorable consequences.  Of course he or she has no idea how to interact with strangers because we all know that every stranger is a child rapist or an abductor.

Paradoxically, the children nowadays are living in a much more hostile environment that I ever experienced.  They are surrounded by chemicals and poisons every day.  And where to these chemicals and poisons come from?  From the parents, of course.  Every day the child has to breathe in air fresheners or fabric conditioner.  They are surrounded with fire retarding chemicals on their clothing.  The carpets and curtains the house are probably saturated with chemicals from floor cleaners and shampoos.  The very air they breathe is a heady mix of of carcinogens and poisons, and that is before they even leave the house and head into the wondrous cocktail of traffic fumes.

Personally I would like to see all parents who mollycoddle their kids like this locked up for child abuse.  They are rearing brats who are totally unprepared for life both socially and physically.  It’s nothing short of cruel.

The next time someone tells me not to do something “for the sake of the Children”, they are going to get a resounding “fuck off”, and I’ll report them to the authorities for child abuse.

‘Dirt cheap’ alcohol linked to suicides in youth

I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time as it was fairly typical of the kind of scaremongering that goes around these days.  I mean to say – “dirt cheap”?  For fuck’s sake!  Anyone in this country who goes for a few pints is very rapidly going to find his wallet emptied.

And what’s all this about suicides? I know the suicide rate has increased alarmingly over the past couple of years but I would hazard a guess that unemployment, debt, house repossessions and the rest have a certain bearing?

Then I noticed a paragraph –

Ms Shortall said that, in many cases, young people were not able to handle the amount of drink they could now afford and that there was “an onus” on the Government to address the problem.

Aha!  Here we go.  The Bully State is moving in on alcohol?

She expected the group to make recommendations on pricing and availability which would then be examined by the Government. “We’re looking at the question of minimum pricing to remove that dirt cheap element from the market,” she said.

There was one whisper from the voice of reason -

Kathryn D’Arcy, director of the Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland, said alcohol consumption was on the decline in the State over the last decade but that it would support all evidence-based proposals to address misuse.

Sorry, Kathryn but you should know by now that “evidence based” means a rake of biased junk ‘science’.

But one swallow does not a summer make, as they say so I let it pass.

-oOo-

On Tuesday however, the screws were tightened a bit.

Taoiseach vows to tackle availability of cheap alcohol

This was more or less a regurgitation of Friday’s piece but the language had become that bit more hysterical.

Alcohol has gone from “dirt cheap” to “exceptionally cheap”.  Wow!  “Huge quantities of cheap alcohol are being consumed.”  Fuck!  The country must be swimming in the stuff.  “The statistics are stark.”  Hah!  In a Bully State, the statistics are always stark.

There were a couple of lines that did bring a cynical smile to the face though –

“Furthermore, one in four deaths in young men is due to alcohol, compared with one in 12 due to cancers and one in 25 due to circulatory disease”

Here it is folks.  If a Bully State wants to control you they try to terrify you with the prospect of cancer and heart disease.  Where have I heard this before?

“overindulgence in alcohol was the biggest social problem facing Ireland today.”

Damn!  And here was I thinking that it was poverty and unemployment or even smoking and obesity.  Just shows how wrong I can be?

-oOo-

Coincidentally [my arse] another item appeared on Tuesday.

Surge in alcohol abuse reported

Now this one was the “science” bit.  Just in case we are not scared by the politicians’ rhetoric, they start firing scary statistics at us.

Of course this piece introduces the poor innocent children.  These poor little waifs who are so hard done by with their errant parents.

over half a million children are living with adults who engage regularly in hazardous drinking.

What the fuck is hazardous drinking?  Do the adults insist on lowering their pints while sitting on a narrow ledge on a tall cliff?

“This equate [sic] to 587,000 children – over half of whom are under 15 years of age – being exposed to risk from parental hazardous drinking.”

Bloody hell!  There can’t be a sober house in the land.

Of course the figures don’t bear close examination but that doesn’t matter.  The scary stuff is out there now and everyone is quaking in their [alcohol filled] boots.

-oOo-

Is it a mere coincidence that we have a budget in the next few weeks?  Do I see an obvious connection?

Let’s make some predictions for the budget and beyond.

• A big hike in excise duty.
• Minimum pricing.
• Graphic [Photoshopped] images on all bottles.
• A massive clampdown on advertising.
• Restrictions on where alcohol can be consumed.
• Talk of “secondhand  alcoholism”.

Need I go on?

You know the routine.

“Two fizzy drinks a week can make youngsters more violent”

There are several things that strike me about this ‘study’.

For a start it is patently a load of utter bollox.  I have known a lot of fizzy drink drinkers in my time, and have joined their ranks and consumed more than my fair share many times.  Yet not one [including myself] has suddenly become violent.  They go so far as to state that “close to half of teenagers who drank 14 or more cans of soft drinks a week carried a gun or knife.”  That is so patently absurd as to be laughable.  They might as well say that half of all left-handed people will turn out to be serial rapists.  It is utter nonsense, yet it is emanating from “experts”.

The sad thing about this “study” is that a great many people will actually believe it.  They will scan the article and gasp in horror.  Without giving it any further thought, they will accept it as fact because experts in a university have said so and therefore it must be true.  They next time they see some kid slurping out of a can of Coca Cola, they will recoil in horror, convinced they are about to be shot or stabbed.  They will avoid the drinks aisles in the supermarkets and disinherit their own children if they ever so much as look at a can of Fanta.

What made them do this “study” I ask?  The answer is simple.  This is yet another link in the chain towards demonising sugar in the great anti-obesity fight.  We are going to see a hell of a lot more of these “studies” in the near future, each one producing more ridiculous scares than the previous one.  What’s the betting that there will be “proof” that sitting near a fizzy drink drinker will increase your chances of dying from cancer a hundredfold?  How soon will we hear all about third hand obesity [Don’t ask me what it is – it hasn’t been invented yet]?

Of course, now that it has appeared in print, it is equally cast in stone.  The science is proven.  There is no such thing as a safe level of sugar.  A person can suffer a heart attack just from watching a can of fizzy orange for more than thirty seconds.  Even seeing a can on a shelf in a shop will cause 50% of people to rush out and buy a gun.

Do you think I am exaggerating?

Do you think I am being sarcastic?

Hah!

Just look at the unbelievable claims they make about tobacco.

It’s starting all over again.

Their latest shimmy is to propose a tax on sugary drinks.

What I find so boring about this is its predictability.

Step 1: Hold an advertising campaign to frighten the bejeezus out of everyone.

Step 2: Start talking about epidemics.

Step 3: Mention [frequently] heart attacks and cancer.

Step 4: Turn the rest of the population against the proposed victims

Step 5: Introduce a law which only affects a tiny minority.

Step 6: Extend the laws one step at a time until it affects virtually everybody.

Step 7: Move on to the next unfortunate batch of victims.

Step one has already kicked in.  We are being subjected to a whingey advertising campaign that suggests that we are too fat if our waist measurement is above a particular figure.  This is patent bollox because there is no mention of height.  A three foot midget with a waist of 36” may have a problem, but a seven foot bloke would be positively svelte.  That doesn’t matter to them though as it is not the facts they are promoting – it’s the fear.  They want us to self diagnose ourselves as being obese, based on an arbitrary number.

Incidentally, I have noticed the same advertisement appearing on the foreign TV channels [Channel 4 or ITV], so this is not an Irish issue.  Oh no.  This is the bastards in Brussels at work again.

Step two has been going on for a while too.  Never talk about widespread obesity when you can talk about an epidemic.  The word ‘epidemic’ conjures up images of carts of bodies being wheeled through the streets while we all huddle under our beds in fear.  The fact that there is no ‘epidemic’ [obesity is on the decline] and that the word is defined as “The occurrence of more cases of a disease than would be expected in a community or region during a given time period” where an excess of body fat can hardly be classed as a disease, is apparently irrelevant.

Step three is just gaining momentum here.  Up ‘til now only smoking caused heart attacks and cancer.  Now they are including obesity and alcohol.  Suddenly smoking is not the unique killer they claimed it was, and now everyone is under threat.

Step four is the really clever one.  They know damn well that the majority don’t give a flying fuck about obese people, so they have to get everyone on board to ‘denormalise’ the concept of a spreading waistline.  Here they introduce the concept of ‘second hand obesity’, no matter how ludicrous that concept is.  They are already producing ‘studies’ which ‘prove’ that obesity is somehow communicable.  They want us to fear the overweight in order to have us clamouring for legislation.

Step five is now on the table.  Let’s tax sugar.  Fair enough you might say [if you’re a fucking sheep], but next it will be fats, then salt, then spices, then a whole clatter of things until tofu flavoured with vitamin pills and health food supplements is the only untaxed food left.  By then though, it’s too late as the gubmint can’t backtrack – it would be ‘giving out the wrong signals’.

Step six and seven have yet to happen, but they are coming down the line.  Mark my words.

How do I know all this?

Simple.

Ask any smoker.

It’s only right and proper, as we all know that children must never ever see images of boobies or willies.  They are disgusting unnatural things and their sole function is to sully young people’s minds. We are better off without them.

Of course the censorship will have to extend to profanities too.  We can’t have our pure and innocent children calling us motherfuckers and cunts now, can we?

Naturally any mention or even a hint of a mention of cigarettes is out.  We all know that the word alone is sufficient to cause a massive coronary even in the youngest of the young, and even if they survive that, the word will inflict a lifetime’s addiction on them.

And what about seditious writings?  We all know [in fact the science is proven] that seditious writings lead to anarchy and we can’t have our children growing up thinking that politicians are not wonderful people who only have our interests at heart.  Personally I think everything on the Interweb should be banned apart from YouTube videos of Teletubby programmes.

I have only one thing to say on this…..

I would like to thank all my UK readers and commentators.  It’s been great chatting with you all.

Somehow I think I am soon to vanish off your screens.

Heh!

I had one of those moments this evening when I read the following [with thanks to Brianf for spotting it]  -

Children to be banned from blowing up balloons, under EU safety rules

They have to be joking?

But apparently not.

The fucking EU with its Nanny State mentality is doing its best to ruin any sort of fun.  Obviously there isn’t a parent in the land that is capable of using a bit of common sense.  Children are apparently dropping like flies, choking to death on balloons, whistles and teddy bears’ eyes, and we never even noticed.

What’s next?  Are they going to ban gardens, just in case a child chokes on a pebble?  Are they going to outlaw anything smaller than an inch in diameter in case a child shoves it up his or her nose?

I really am speechless.

It has gone so far beyond a joke that it really is frightening me.

When is this utter madness going to stop?