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From The Heart....
Hugh
15th January 2008
(This is a post taken from our Forum. The writer, Hugh, was welcoming a new member when his wonderful, thoughtful, and painfully honest, post emerged. Thanks Hugh).
This last 6 months have probably been the most miserable of my life and I've had difficulty keeping my spirits up. Why? I used to like going out for one reason: it was a form of escape from politics, political correctness and the uptight, square conformism of modern life. I naively considered it to be the one untouchable pleasure which would never be violated by state interference. But then, when July came, going out suddenly transformed into one giant authoritarian social engineering exercise. Bartenders bite their nails looking for cigarettes, customers fake smiles as they shiver on pavements, and mandatory red signs in every window with the state's new favourite emblem won't ever let you forget why. Everywhere you go, there's a voice always reminding you: "going out is now for non-smokers only; fail to comply and you will be punished".
Public attitudes have been forcibly "corrected" by the endless propaganda. No longer are smokers just people who like to smoke; now they're the target of a fervent moralistic jihad, banished to stand on the pavements for increasingly intolerant passers by to scowl and sneer at, with any publican daring to offer them comfort criminalised and bankrupted. Smokers themselves meekly file out to barely heated, half-built sheds and sit on wet garden furniture as if they believe that's all they deserve. And the worst thing about it? Most everybody cheers this authoritarian crap on like it's the queen's coronation, which to me has frightening echoes of Adolf being cheered on by the Austrians as he drove in to annex them. With frightening speed, formerly tolerant non-smokers are becoming outwardly intolerant of smoking and those who smoke to the point of boasting about it over dinner. No time in my life have I ever wanted to punch the lights out of anyone I formerly considered a friend... until now.
And I don't even smoke.
I've had to accept after new year that although I know something is still very wrong, my being miserable about it won't change anything. It's very hard to do but life must go on.
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