The techonology here at NigeCorp is in a peculiarly bad mood, so there might not be much from me today - but I must say something on a truly burning (hehe) issue - the impending smoking ban in England. Was there ever a more illiberal, malicious and oppressive piece of legislation passed by even this government? (Possibly the hunting ban - but at least that's been widely honoured in the breach). This one - like so much else - can be traced, of course, to the 'European' entity that is the source of most of 'our' legislation these days, but that's no excuse. Besides, our continental cousins have a more robust attitude to the interference of the state than we do - partly, I think, because they tend to have much stronger local institutions and identities. Here we can't even manage to cobble an English indentity together, let alone anything more local - so we are at the mercy of the State in all its meddling madness. As a result, we are apparently going to go along with this ludicrous blanket ban on smoking in all 'public places' - and even disfigure our churches and cathedrals with No Smoking signs (and no doubt they're looking into the effects of incense inhalation). So infuriated are my good friend Loophole and I at all this that we have actually resumed smoking, despite having 'given up' - simply in order to savour a last few weeks in something that still vaguely resembles a free country.
And then there's this - about to be 'rolled out' nationally, and exactly the kind of thing Brown will bring us more of. The State wants to get its hands on us even before we're born. Aieee....