Roll it up and smoke it

A Brit policy wonk (Julian Le Grand) is suggesting a smoking license. For the nominal cost of £10 - that's about $20, but really not much considering that's less than the cost of two packs of twenty cigarettes.

Professor Julian Le Grand, chairman of Health England, said more people might stop smoking if they had to "opt in" by applying for an annual permit and paying a £10 fee. "Some 70% of smokers actually want to stop smoking. So if you just make it that little bit more difficult for them to actually re-start or even to start in the first place, yes I think it will make a big difference," he told BBC Radio 5 Live. He said some people would be deterred from smoking if they had to make the effort to fill in a complicated form, get a photograph taken and pay a charge.

While I can see that would piss a lot of people off, I actually think this idea has some merit. More important than making people choose to continue to smoke, it might actually have a greater deterrent effect for the recovering smoker. It would make that first pack on the way to permanent backsliding all the more difficult.

I only question whether the £10 would actually cover administration costs.

Lawrenceburg Vice

I've had several hits on the site this morning looking for information about the availability of liquor and the freedom to smoke in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee.

Like I'm some sort of authority on low-level vice in Lawrenceburg.

Really Mom, I'm not. I haven't had that depth of knowledge for years.

A good day

Hurray - the Vols win!



Not that we weren't expecting it - what with Cletus wearing his lucky Tennessee hat and all. I hope the winning doesn't run out any time soon, 'cause the lucky hat is getting smaller and smaller.



-0-

We listened to the football game this morning. It was a good solid win by the end, of course, but there were some worrying moments early on. Still...onwards and upwards - right?

I got the Vol-in-Law to load the game up for me so I wouldn't be in any danger of seeing the score. I kinda knew the Vols won just by his demeanor. There was no evil glint in his eye. I hate to say it, but I think my husband enjoys a bad Tennessee season.

-0-

To celebrate, and just cause we felt like it we went to Bodeans BBQ in Clapham. The meal was pretty good, re-runs of yesterday's college football games were on the TV where Steve Spurrier was looking gloomy and Cletus slept on a blanket on the booth seat through the whole meal. Wooohooo! And on the way home I realised that today marks my first anniversary of quitting smoking.

the lights are going out all over Europe

When I quit smoking last autumn, I promised myself a last smoke in June. See at the end of this month, it's the end of indoor smoking in England. I thought I'd have about a six week old baby and that I would be pretty much fighting fit again after my lovely tranquil home birth. Not so much. I thought I could sneak off to the pub - swish down a cheeky half and smoke one lovely, last Marlboro Red in salute to the end of public smoking, as we knew it, in England.

I want that last smoke.

But I'm still feeling under the weather. I'm nearly as bad as I was in the days after my release from the hospital. Though better than I was at the weekend. I managed to walk to the drugstore today - accompanied by the Vol-in-Law. And you know, the drugstore is just about the same distance as to my local pub.