Hypocrisy and Smoking
This
comes from ‘Many Shades of Evil’, which in turn quoted from my old book of
unwanted truths.
John leaves his house, spits like a footballer
all over the pavement, blows his nose like a footballer on the road without the
need for a hanky. Gets in his car, which belches blue smoke, throws his fish
and chips paper out of the window, drives to his mates. Gets out of the car and
urinates on a lamppost and throws up over the dog. Enters the house and
switches all the lights on, ignites the fire, blowing smoke up the chimney and
fumes up the power station stack.
His friend arrives and lights a fag. ‘How dare
you,’ shouts John. ‘You are polluting my air.’
Cigarettes
are the government’s best friend. It doesn’t matter how much you bleed the
smoker with taxes he can’t stop smoking; these are usually poor people who
don’t matter. You find some of them outside pubs in the snow inhaling deeply
but since they were banned from public places they mostly stay at home sharing
the smoke with their kids. I suppose if the government really wanted people to
stop smoking instead of simply gathering more taxes they would try to ban them.