I'm afraid pages here have been barren for a while recently. Puddlecote Inc has grown considerably in the past two years so pressure of work is limiting my time, especially since - like most companies - we've had a spike in staff turnover in the new year. This means as well as the regular tasks involved in running a business of this size, there has been staff recruitment to deal with in order to keep our vehicles rolling. Added to this, I have two interesting foreign trips coming up which have required some planning, I'll be sure to let you know about those in due course.
I also have some other things in mind to write about, it's just finding the time to write them. However, I noticed something in the Irish Sunday Times today that might amuse/infuriate you. It seems some purse-lipped misery guts is getting arsey about smoking on TV.
An anti-tobacco lobby group has criticised RTE’s drama series Striking Out for its portrayal of smoking.
Ash Ireland has written to RTE director general Dee Forbes to complain about the “normalising” of cigarettes through showing smoking on screen. It has also contacted the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, the industry regulator.
I struggle to see how TV can "normalise smoking", for the simple reason that smoking is normal. TV reflects real life and so it - naturally - will sometimes feature characters who smoke. In fact, I'd say that daft prudish morality has meant that TV shows recently under-represent smoking.
Striking Out producer Yvonne Donohoe said smoking was a daily reality and the device was used to make the drama as credible as possible.
Well, exactly. Considering around 20% of Irish adults smoke - and the percentage of TV characters who are smokers is now pretty meagre due to politically-correct programme makers - I'd say there should be far more smoking on screen to reflect real life, not less.
Ash chairman Patrick Doorley said: “We would be concerned that kids can see programmes now at any time of the day, and they are influenced by what they see on screens. They get the subconscious impression that this is normal behaviour and maybe associate it with growing up and being an adult."
I've got news for you sunshine, smoking is "normal behaviour" and has been for a very long time. You can try to pretend it's not if it suits your wanky little anti-smoking fetish, but let me educate you. Kids see people smoking every single day, often because tedious prohibitionist societal drains like you stopped them smoking in places where kids usually aren't.
"That is the difficulty. The less children are exposed to seeing smoking, be it in the home or on the street or on the screen, the less likely they are to smoke.”
Relax the smoking ban then, get smokers back indoors in an adult environment. There you go, job done, thank me later.
On another note, it's vitally important that hideous prodnoses like Doorley are resisted when they build mountains out of molehills like this, because give them any credence and before you know it the alcohol wowsers will be wanting the same, as will the anti-sugar cranks. It'll be nothing but tea (not coffee, too much caffeine) in The Rovers Return and Mars Bars being hidden from cameras in Rita's Kabin.
Appeasement will never work with the likes of Doorley, because interfering in other people's lives is their drug of choice; they are addicted to it. The only way to encourage them to break their addiction - seeing as we can't bag them up with concrete blocks and fire them into the sea from a massive cannon - is to stop paying them to do it. Defund the lot, give taxpayers a fucking break, and let us all watch TV without the pathetic whining.
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