Monday 23 May 2011

A Message To The Australian People

With all due respect, cobbers, it's not just your government and health lobby who are insane. If comments at this article are representative, the overwhelming majority of you are too.

We knew back in the long distant past that we weren't exactly sending the brightest of our society down there, but even those ancestors of yours would surely be mortally embarrassed at the almost backward intellect of people who are unable to understand an undeniable truth borne out by centuries of history. That prohibition quite simply doesn't - and can never because of basic human nature - work.

An upside-down jewel robber - who is obviously hellishly living amongst the terminally vacant - often sends links to antipodean articles with comments which she feels well suited to our database of knuckleheaded crazies, but you're taking the piss now Australia. There's no prize, you know. No incentive for cornering the market in neanderthal-esque anti-smoking nutjobbery. It's just a bit of fun to point out how jaw-droppingly myopic you are.

You see - and this may be news to people who have quite obviously no concept of life outside riding sea-resistant ironing boards and complaining about Vietnamese taxi drivers - the US found out to their self-inflicted cost that prohibition hands immense succour to new, err, businesses which tend to become eternally powerful.

Now, while you're all safely far enough away that drive-by shootings and bloody gang warfare on the streets of Sydney don't worry me too much, I do feel for the small contingent of your fellow citizens who do possess some understanding of life. And while there is always the future possibility of a lucrative Aussie film industry producing reality-based gangster gore-fests, it's not the best way of selfishly ensuring that your limp-wristed sensibilities aren't encumbered by a minor irritant.

To think you used to market yourselves as rugged, eh?

On the plus side, it's good to know that the country which used to boast monster-like Lillee, Hughes and Warne is now so effete that The Ashes is sorted in our favour, possibly for good. Future Aussie teams will doubtless brick themselves having to leave teddy behind and face opponents who aren't just there to tickle their delicate tums, watched uncomfortably by fortunates in Earls Court who have managed to escape your country's moisturised and bubble-wrapped madness.

This blatant sweeping ad hom comes to you via VGIF


15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ace!

Gordon the Fence Post Tortoise said...

I suppose if you crossed Deborah Arnott with Edna Everage , add a bit of Priscilla and a dash of one of the ugly screws from Prisoner Cell Block H...

In my meager experience of the island, they have more than their fair share of clueless suburban PC berks, loathsome officious jobsworths and utterly nutjob ghastly politicians.

Mind you, they've a few good guys that we don't get to hear enough of too.

I haven't tired of this, not even a little. I do wonder if he's done anything on the plain bonkers carry on that is Aussie public health policy.

Anonymous said...

I recently read about student jobs offered on campus where the sponsors pay $1 per comment posting online of a certain message type on selected blogs and MSM articles the sponsor sends those students to post.

If that is going on, and I believe it might be, then anti-smoking opinions, along with other subject areas, might be nothing but contrivances to earn penniless students some extra income while in school.

If that is the case on this little propaganda piece designed to make it look like "everyone agrees", then pre-planning the date of publication would lead to alerting the agency in charge of soliciting the paid commentators and there would quickly fill up the newspaper to make it appear just how it was planned to appear.

Anonymous said...

I only posted 'ace' as 'anon', as I thought the relevant post was fucking funny as fuck ;-]
vividartmurals.com

Anonymous said...

Furthermore, did you think a revolution could not happen in England?

Found A Voice said...

Dick,

You'd better sit down and pour yourself a hard drink before reading this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13467728

[lights blue touch paper and walks away...]

Cheers
FAV

Angry Exile said...

An upside-down jewel robber - ... hellishly living amongst the terminally vacant - often sends links to antipodean articles with comments which she feels well suited to our database of knuckleheaded crazies

Is that me? Have I been caught in my Angry Exile, Queen of the Desert get up? Fuck, they promised that the pictures would never get out. That's the last time I ever go to Ryan Giggs for advice.

I have to defend Oz a little here firstly because the article about an outright ban of tobacco quotes a known window-licking, swivel-eyed, foam-mouthed, weapons grade, class A, baccyphobe and even the fucking health minister, who's not at all shy about making life unpleasant for smokers, thinks he's off the meter on this one. And even then it sounds from his own comment (2:22pm) like the journo who wrote it - her profile's here, draw your own conclusions about her - may have stitched him up a wee bit.

Second, and moving on to the comments, this is The Age we're talking about, which is generally read by trendy, middle class, Fitzroy lefties. If you printed it the other way up it'd slot in among the Indie/Graun/Obs papers. And even with that in mind there are always a decent number of people in the comments sticking up for the smokers - my own is in there this time (as Angus 1:24PM), though not all my comments are published so there could well be even more sympathy for the smokers.

Thirdly, the idea of making tobacco actually illegal is something I've been advocating in a dare-you-bastards-to-actually-do-it sense for years, knowing full well they can't afford for everyone to stop. As I said in the comments, smokers are taxed more than they cost and so they're keeping taxes down for those of us who don't smoke. I for one am happy to thank them for it and to let 'em smoke in peace. I doubt any government here will be able to sell a real ban to the public if they're even vaguely honest about the tax rises they'd need to make elsewhere both to maintain the income and also to cover the cost of fighting the black market that's already waiting and hoping they'll be that stupid.

As for the insane commenters Dick mentions that I keep sending him examples of, I'd bet that most work in the public sector. I can't actually bet on it of course - the betting nanny won't let me ;-)

James Higham said...

Having spent a lot of time downunder, this is galling.

Anonymous said...

''The way smoking trends are going, it's not unrealistic to think that we should see an end to [the] commercial sale of cigarettes within 10 to 15 years.''

.....and the beginning of smoking classified as an addiction to be managed by the prescription of nicotine by a safer delivery method ie NRT.

Struth

Jay

Chuckles said...

Good Post DP, sadly it exactly mirrors my impressions of the place over the last 20 years or so.
Wonderful country, some wonderful people, but absolutely obsessed with bureaucracy, PC, elf n saferty and similar in all the big cities.
Just as the UK delights in 'gold-plating' EU directives, OZ seems to do the same with almost any new 'initiative' dreamt up by the right people.
The airport arrivals ahem 'experience' is a good microcosm of the whole thing.

Dick Puddlecote said...

AE: No, I was referring to an e-mail contributor from Western Aus.

"If you printed it the other way up ..." had me in stitches, mate. :)

Apols, your comment got entangled in the spam filter for some ungodly reason.

Shinar's Basket Case said...

While not wanting to endorse cricket in any way (sorry but you have to be retarded), could not the brit bowler have a crafty B&H before stepping up to the crease? Maybe stamp the ball-thingy with 'Handled By A Smoker'?

Surely the Ashes would be safe from antipodean hands for decades to come?

Dick Puddlecote said...

SBC: A perfectly valid tactic IMO. I'll write to the ECB immediately. ;)

Angry Exile said...

SBC, er, just add a little something to make them the Fag Ashes, surely? Or you could use the recent successful strategy of relying on the Aussie selectors to pick a shit team.

Incidentally, looks like the plain packets nonsense is going ahead. This is excellent news for one section of the tobacco trade - I'm sure the smugglers and chop-chop suppliers can't wait for the legal product to be made more like theirs. If sensible people were running Britain they'd stop and watch now to see how things turn out and, if it turns out that the big winners are criminals and that it does bugger all for health, announce that they're not going to be so bloody stupid as to follow suit. As it is I expect the Cobbleition to be falling over itself to be hot on the heels of the Oz nannies. With Europe so close I'm sure the smugglers are looking forward to that even more than they are here.

Hal said...

You might have observed that the newspaper in which the demented comments appeared is the Melbourne Age, usually known as the "Spencer Street Soviet".

The Oz general populace are sane. It is just the Age readers who are renowned for a tenuous grasp on reality.