So we’ve just had the Greens’ carbon tax rammed through with the support of the minority Labor government, and now it’s the plain tobacco packaging, which I read… …will pass the Senate with the support of the Greens. Is it…
Tag: Nanny State
There oughtta be a law against it
Oh yes, a law. God forbid that we should sit down and think an important decision through rationally. That would never do, so having done something remarkably silly that we now regret we should demand that the state protect us…
Your five a day is going to kill you
This was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? AN APPLE a day is supposed to keep the doctor away, but a small but passionate group of Melbourne medics believes apples and other fresh fruit are in part to blame…
Reefer Madness!!
A Llanelli drugs worker has launched a campaign to rid the town centre of legally sold bongs and other drugs paraphernalia. Yeah, you didn’t miss the ‘legally’ bit; there’s nothing wrong with selling these items at all. So why has…
That’s Why Waterstones Are Failing…
…they aren’t ‘aggressively commercial’ enough: James Daunt, managing director of Waterstone’s, told The Bookseller: “It’s disappointing, to say the least, that a very British institution is driving readers away from local libraries and high- street bookshops. In an environment where…
And then they came for the drinkers…
Yes, drinkers, they’re coming for you now. You really should be aware of this by now, but then you really should have been aware of it long ago when the intolerance was directed at tobacco and the sound of marching…
To Sum Up The Argument: “YOU CAN’T HANDLE CHOICE!”
Felicity Lawrence rants at the failure of the coalition to just listen to her and ban all fast food now, god damn it!: The announcement by McDonald’s this week that it will put calorie labels on its products in all…
Raising Better Sheep…
A tenant has been evicted from her home after repeatedly refused to clear up her eyesore garden. Hurrah! It’s not, after all, as if she wasn’t given every opportunity to not be evicted… Last year, she was warnedthat if she…
Whatever Happened To ‘Moderation In All Things’?
Sarah Ditum (freelance writer) on the recent study of ‘toddler tantrums’: A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg school of public health has recently turned its attention to the phenomenon of the supermarket tantrum – a phenomenon so soul-piercing…
The latest pit stop on the neo-puritan road
When I was a kid, and I’m not getting all Monty Python Yorkshireman here, we used to go to pubs as a family now and then. There was one about a ten minute walk up the road which had a…
Welcome to The Asylum
In So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, the late Douglas Adams introduced us to a minor character by the name of John Watson or, as he preferred to be called, Wonko the Sane. Those who’ve read it will…
Nostalgia For The Eighties; It’s In Fashion…
Oliver Wright in the ‘Indy’ on the riots, desperately trying to proclaim them as the ‘inevitable result’ of lessons left unlearned after the last Broadwater Farm-related shindig: When the ashes had been cleared, the events at Broadwater Farm lead to…
Solving the childhood obesity epidemic
Persuade them all to starve themselves to death. Almost 600 children below the age of 13 have been treated in hospital for eating disorders in the past three years, new figures have revealed. The statistics include 197 children between the…
Aaaaah, lookit da Aussies, getting all gwown up now
For a blogger who’d always intended to rant mainly at the goings on in the land of his birth I feel I’ve been a bit overly focused on Aussie affairs lately, and was determined to give it a rest for…
Yes, It Always Starts Out ‘For The Children!’…
A New York-style smoking ban will be brought in at children’s play areas in one of London’s biggest parks. Today, the playground, tomorrow the whole park? And then, Stony Stratford, here we come? The borough of Hackney, which suffers some…