Caller: Hi, a friend gave me this number, I hear you are looking for smokers.
Researcher: That's right, yes. We want to hear from as many as possible.
C: That sounds great! We've been so used to being treated like lepers recently, it's nice to feel wanted.
R: {laughs nervously} Right, err, so can I sign you up?
C: Perhaps. What's it all about.
R: Well, we're conducting research.
C: Into what, exactly.
R: Err, air quality.
C: Oh OK. Sounds interesting. Where do you want me to go?
R: The beauty of it is you don't have to go anywhere, we come to you.
C: My home?
R: That's right.
C: So the air quality you're talking about is the air quality in my home?
R: Yes.
C: And you only want smokers.
R: Yes, just smokers.
C: Hmm, who is the research for?
R: Action on Smoking and Health.
C: ASH, you mean?
R: That's the one.
C: And what is being done with the research?
R: It'll be used to formulate policy.
C: Policy for what?
R: Lobbying the government.
C: About what?
R: Smokefree homes.
C: {long pause} Right. Let's get this straight. You want lots of smokers so you can come round to our homes, full of smiles, and research the air quality in our homes. You'll then give the research to an anti-smoking organisation, who will play around with it, make it look like we are killing our families, then lobby the government to bring in a law which makes it illegal to smoke on my own property?
R: Yep, you got it.
C: Oh I see. When do you want to come round?
Nah. That conversation could never happen ... could it?
UPDATE: Grandad over at Head Rambles is wondering why this UK research is apparently being funded by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency. Now, we know that ASH have been granted £500k of Big Lottery money for this very purpose with the same university, so why would the Irish be getting involved? Can anyone shed any light?
UPDATE 2: Leg Iron gently alludes to another query. Will these researchers be fully CRB checked before gaining access to your home, and by filthy implication these days, your kids?
G'wan, any readers from Scotland want to volunteer and report back?
16 comments:
What a fucking stitch up Dick, did you notice in that article that it had to be homes with electricity only? No gas eh? I wonder why...well no I fucking well don't. This is fucking out and out war!
Funny you've come up with this Dick as 3 weeks ago a fool from British gas knocked on my door asking if we would care to return to them. He looked disgustedly at me smoking on the doorstep and asked me if I would refrain from doing so in his presence?
I gently informed him that I didn't ask him to knock on my door-he chose to, hence he could piss off at his earliest convenience and not interupt my pleasurable cigarette any further!
He departed.
Isn't it lovely when you put these pillocks down with pleasant conversations.
Didn't ASH tell them that they would be risking their lives by going into a home of smokers?
where electricity and not gas is used to cook meals.
was going to comment on this bit but it seems you all spotted it too lol
I don't get the electricity-not-gas thing.
Has anybody had the nerve to ring the number yet?
Ive heard being stabbed to death on someones doorstep is very painfull.
I'm serious.
I'd do time if those pigs turn up at my door
Call me a cynic but perhaps the gas thing is because they don't want naked flames in the house burning up all that second hand smoke, it might lessen the intended impact of their results.
The 'no gas' thing is because they are looking for combustion products.
They won't want coal fires either. They have to blame all of it on smoking. So a few pounds of coal will be deemed innocent while a bit of dried leaves in paper will be deadly.
That's why there's no control group. A non-smoker with a coal fire and a gas cooker might affect the already-written results section.
I agree with Mark. Perhaps one of our Scottish members could phone and ask why the gas cookers need not apply? Or how about email? You'd get an answer in writing. This could open a whole new can of worms.
ASH researchers coming to tea,
crumpet and fags ,bet they're
dainty little damsels who think
gentleman dont kick wimmin, dont
bet on it my little Frauleins.Some clever blogfanatic needs to find out asap where these ASH freaks wine and dine, they are overdue
for some meaningfull discussion.
Tent Makers Disciple
Thanks for replies.
So either
a) a gas cooker or coal fire will help burn up the cigarette smoke (so make it look less harmful, which ASH don't want), or
b) gas cooker and coal fire will add to the cigarette smoke (making you realise how little smoke a cigarette causes).
Hmm. I'd assume the latter but can't rule out the former.
You know what I don't quite understand is the need for the salami slicing. Smokers are in the minority now, so why pussyfoot around with all these not-actually-a-ban bans that are really just about making life difficult for smokers? If they seriously gave a flying fuck about your health it'd have been properly banned, as in not legal to do it or even possess the stuff at all, by now. That they don't do this suggests that despite what the useful idiots think health has nothing to do with it. Despite the appeal of the idea that it's part of conditioning an entire population to accept diktats I'm putting my tinfoil hat away for this one - I think it's simply that tobacco revenue is more addictive to governments than tobacco itself is to smokers. Eventually they'll shut their own balls in the drawer and people will simply queue up with the pot heads and crack addicts to get their baccy from the friendly neighbourhood drug dealer, not because it's become illegal but because he's easier to find than the few remaining tobacconists and sells fags much cheaper to boot.
Why do I feel that there's likely more "purely fictional conversations" coming down the road...... drifting mildly OT
Coffee
Tea
Sugar (a cert)
Smoked Foods (on it's way)
Dairy Products (they wish)
Meat (Little Viscount Stansgate's on the case)
It's curious that the aggressively litigious food adulterators have driven the food fad-ists to the fore by default by silencing criticism of any of the muck they push out and these useful idiots are trying to finish off real food.
Here's your daily 2000cc of wallpaper paste in a garishly branded bucket.
Smoking and smokers are only the thin end of the wedge.
Adjusts tinfoil hat in mirror, yep that'll do
You just wonder how many hours these bastards at ASH spend dreaming up yet more ways of exterminating smokers from the planet. They have successfully driven us out of pubs, bars, clubs, restaurants and any other public building were we could once smoke….so the only bastion left for them to storm is of course the smokers home.
This crap naturally isn’t about air quality, it’s about driving in the last couple of nails into the smokers’ coffin with the tacit support of those they seek to destroy, and of course you don’t need that many results to persuade gullible politicians that some sort of legislation should be considered.
So then, what kind of scientific process would they seek to deploy, and would this scientific evidence be peer reviewed before being published thus allowing further scrutiny?
Would whatever private information they garner from private individuals be protected under the data protection act, and that those consenting smokers have their human rights protected should this information be used by government to frame new anti-smoking legislation that affects citizens in their own private homes?
I think we should be told…don’t you?
I’m assuming of course that ASH employees that smoke will be the first to volunteer.
about the gas cooker thing, i am assuming they are measuring C02 (so they can also blame us filthy smokers of causing the death of the polar bears). Obviously if we were burning coal/gas they wouldn't be able to filter out the minute amount cigarettes produce in comparison
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