Do You Mind If I Smoke?
Dec 11th, 2008 | By Bock | Category: Bock rant, healthIsn’t that a very strange question?
Do you mind if I smoke?
As if there’s some reason why anyone wouldn’t mind inhaling the compounds in cigarette smoke.
Do you mind if I fill your living room with cadmium, nickel, benzene, formaldehyde, ammonia, carbon monoxide, cyanide, DDT, lead, methyl isocyanate and radioactive polonium-210?
Oh, not at all. Go right ahead.
Now look. I’ll be straight with you. It doesn’t bother me much when people want to smoke in my home, but that’s because I used to smoke myself, and I feel a bit guilty about saying no. A bit of a hypocrite. There was a time not so long ago when I was the one asking people if they minded me filling their home with carcinogens, radioactive isotopes and assorted deadly poisons.
And yet, I can’t help thinking about that question. We were in Poland last week, where people can smoke in bars, unlike here, and after a while I have to admit I was feeling the effects. My eyes hurt. My chest felt tight. I was coughing and sneezing, and I still have a bit of a cold or a chest infection or something. I’m not sure what exactly it is, but I’m still not all right, and I’d attribute at least some of it to the tobacco smoke in the bars.
Do you mind if I smoke?
The more I think about it, the stranger that question sounds. I mean, has anybody ever tapped you politely on the shoulder and said Do you mind if I piss in your dinner?
What would you say? No problem! Fire away!
Ah …. let me see now. That would be a No.
Do you mind if I paint this bottle of unidentified liquid with a skull-and-crossbones on it all over your face?
Certainly! Feel free. No bother!
That won’t happen, and yet we all feel we have to say yes to the DYMIIS question. Odd.
Now, of course, it’s a different matter if you happen to be visiting the home of a smoker, because that’s your decision. You know the risks. You don’t have to go there if you don’t want to and you have absolutely no right to tell a man what to do in his own home. I hate those people who walk into another person’s home and try to lay down their own law about things like smoking.
I once knew a couple who used to walk into other folks’ houses and try to impose their views on diet, child-rearing and even the wearing of shoes indoors. What’s worse, they were the kind of people who used to say things like
We saw that movie, didn’t we?
We did.
And we really enjoyed it, didn’t we?
Yes, Darling, we did.
But we didn’t really think the narrative fulfilled its early promise, did we, my love?
No, Darling, we didn’t, but we loved the book.
Strangely enough, they’re still alive, but after many, many years of life, I have discovered that there’s only one answer appropriate to such people: You fuck off.
Now look. Don’t get me wrong. I happen to think it was a disgrace to ban smoking in all bars everywhere. It’s the nanny-State again. I don’t see what would be wrong with consenting adults enjoying a smoke in a smoking bar where everyone knows the deal, including the staff. What would be wrong with that?
Typical Irish over-reaction shit, like withdrawing all the Irish pork products in the world because some fool fed pigs with contaminated oil and we ended up with meat containing traces of a substance that could conceivably harm you if you ate half a pig every day for thirty years.
It reminds me of the time, a couple of years ago, when I was in Donegal drinking all night and all day with visiting old friends I hadn’t seen in years. When we went to a Chinese restaurant, I ordered a sizzling platter, one of those cast-iron plate-things they bring out with the food spitting on it. Lovely, I said. I’ll have that.
No, said my friend. You can’t.
Why not?
Because the North-Western environmental health officers have decided that some child, somewhere, some time, might somehow conceivably touch the hot plate and get a burn, so they banned it. You can’t get a sizzling platter anywhere in Donegal.
Now, if anything exemplifies official Ireland, that’s it. What a load of brainless fools.
Jesus, I said, that really pisses me off. Now I’m stressed. Do you mind if I smoke?
I’m a smoker. I never ask people if they mind if I smoke. I go always go outside. Sometimes they produce an ashtray and insist I smoke indoors. I still go outside. Smokers, aren’t we all like that nowadays?
Nothing as chaste as a reformed hooker.
Well, Sniffle, like I said, it doesn’t bother me too much, so I’m not that chaste. I’m just thinking of the way we smokers inflict our appalling habit on the innocent. I say “we smokers” because I’m guilty of doing it too.
-Boggle
Yes we have assumed our roles as social lepers but i suppose ’tis no harm. The no smoking law applies in France now so they’re all sucking on their gitanes and gauloise on the terraces that, luckily enough, have existed for a fair auld time now.
Better then lighting one up beside the kegs anyway.
One interesting, subtle and completely unrelated side effect of the smoking ban is the almost child-like psychology of learning our place in the world. When you’e told to do something, you do it. You do it, you accept it and when asked to do something a little more difficult you agree.
Luckily we live in a world where governments would never dream about telling their citizens what to do, how to live and how to think, otherwise we’d be in deep shit.
I thought the French would bring the country to a halt if you tried to introduce parking meters, never mind a smoking ban.
Is this the end of enigmatic muttering in a sleeveless vest while drawing on a Gitane? C’est fini?
ye think that questions bad…. a so called friend of mine had the cheek to ask me if he could make a rasher sandwich in my kitchen yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!
I don’t mind Bock, er, just stay down wind…
you know, this could apply to all those persons who douse themselves in inexpensive perfume/cologne….
Boggle – unfortunately not all smokers are like that. I lived with 2 or 3 for a small while who used to say ‘do you mind?!’ while giving a look that suggested i’d be ignored for a few days if I said anything other than no.
Great post, Bock.
-Bock
So did they. Lots of talk of their democratic right to smoke. But nobody thinks it strange or undemocratic that the police can stop you any time, any where, for any reason and ask you to produce a piece of identity. If you don’t happen to have one handy you can then be brought to the police station until your identity can be proved.
Mind you I hear the cops will still let you smoke in the interroga ..sorry, interviewrooms. Bleess their cotton socks
Agreed Bock. I wouldnt ask to light up in someones house, unless I knew they smoked in the house themselves.
The pub ban is wrong though. It breaches a fundamental right – that of the owner of the premises to have the say in what happens on his premises. Just like you have the say here. The rot started with the equality legislation, telling publicans they didnt have the right of refusal, and golf club members that they didnt have the right to free association. Nobody kicked up much, because that would mean they were sexists (golf) and bigotted against travellers (pubs). And of course the publicans and golfers in question are (fairly)wealthy white males, so for the bien pensants it was a no-brainer. But they’ve undermined a very basic freedom, the muppets. And they havent done much for the pubs either.
Bock, you need to attach the religious orders to any ‘the nanny-State again’ issue.
The state was very late to discover the duty of care it owes its citizens. The delegate-it-to-others approach did not work. It was very expensive and we’re still paying for it. Army deafness is another example.
In order to forestall future claims it has recognised in law that smoking is a dangerous habit, and because it is costly to the State in health care it is heavily taxed. It is potentially harmful to health and therefore no citizen should be obliged to breathe burning cigarette fumes. Not to have brought in this legislation would have resulted in the State being sued by people forced to breathe cigarette smoke against their volition.
Conan, nobody is forced to go to the pub. Public buildings, sure, ban smoking, the state owns those buildings, and should act in the interests of citizens. And let the owners of pubs set the rules for their premises, as they see fit.
Essodee, what about employees’ health & safety rights?
-Esso
You wouldn’t smoke in someones house but I imagine you wouldn’t sit on their desk in work and light one up either. Staff health is also a concern.
-Conan
All good points, but why does nobody mind the government dumping flouride, a toxic waste that is classed as a neurotoxin, into drinking water.
Nowhere else in western europe does it anymore due to concerns raised about the accumulative effects of flouride and in germany it’s illegal, but in Ireland over 80% of tap water is flouridated.
Conan & C’est la craic, some context: employee’s health and safety was a trump card to play for Micheal Martin when he was forcing this through (which distracted everyone nicely from his non-performance in sorting out our health system). I do think its rough on bar staff to have to breathe cigarette fumes, but then again it was never an issue I heard anyone complain about until Micheal came up with it. Fundamentally though, if this is considered an unimpeachable right, where do you stop? What about road workers breathing in petrol and diesel fumes, should we close the roads to traffic when there are roadworks? People have to work in sewers too, and all sorts of nasty places. I’m not being facetious here. this is basically about competing rights, and these days H & S is the biggie, and can be used to stop an awful lot of things. One right that I think does stand up pretty well to scrutiny, and should trump many other rights, is the right of property owners to bar entry to their properties as they see fit, and also to set the rules of behaviour, such as smoking. When you undermine this, its a slippery slope to all sorts of police state stuff I think.
Esso – there’s a fair bit of truth in what you say. I don’t believe the government really gave a shit about bar workers heath. I said it in the second part of comment 4 above (sarcasticly, in case it doesn’t show) but the fact remains that an employee shouldn’t have breath in other peoples smoke to work in an establishment thats business is selling alchohol. If it were a cigar emporium then it might be different.
Do you mind if I fart?
Well actually I’m trying to quit.
Some years ago I was on a train in the days when you could smoke on them. I was trying to break the ice (among other things) so I asked her “DYMIIS”. She looked me in the eye and said “I don’t care if you burst into flames”. That shut me up.
Ah Bock. A cigarette is only a fag, but a dacent cigar is a smoke. Cigar smoke is the smell of prosperity. Mingled with the smell of brandy its the essence of conviviality. Mingled with turf smoke and guiness it’s the smell of Ireland. Add a fiddled reel and it’s the smell of Heaven. Romeo y Juliettas, Partagas, Black Bolivars, Guantanameras, Monte Cristos, the list is long and distinguished. As Irish as de Valera and as good a fit in the psyche.
Pure bastard to smoke a good cigar outside a pub on a cold windy night, may the hands fall off the fucker who introduced that law.
CoS
A house guest (a winemaker) once smacked my toddler son for reaching for something he was using.
We buried him under the house.
As for smoking?
Thanks to the smoking ban, you now have to run the gauntlet of smokers whenever you enter or leave a public building. I like it better in Singapore where they round up all the smokers and put them into smelly, ashy compounds.
And when they took smoking out of the pubs, all you could smell was the farts.
xx
Good post Bock,I am a smoker and I work in Bars occasionally and I was delighted with the smoking ban in that,i would chain smoke while playing also because i stand up while working the smoke would be just at eye level for the whole evening.
If am at a friends house i will go outside if i want a cigarette just because it is basic fucking manners..
Anyone that comes to our house knows the score,we smoke so accept that and we can have a pleasant evening.
And yes i am going to give up in the New Year (again) Lets see how long i can go this time eh?
Ah a Bhock, a chara – I’ve just smoked a Notturno Serie Quartetto, hand made in the Dominican Republic. I preceded it with three creamy pints and chased it with a good jigger of Black Bush – honest Protestant whiskey from the green glens of Antrim. I puffed in the clear cold air, because tonight there’s no wind. It gets no better. I have one left, which I’ll keep for the roof of the Empire State building next week. I directed several fragrant clouds in the general direction of Thomond Park in your honour, and in the hope that you’ll come to appreciate the finer things..
do chara
Coilin
I didn’t realise, until I quit smoking, just how much it fucking stinks!
Also, in one of our locals, you can now smell nothing but vomit – it’s actually the floor rotting because of the beer that’s been through the boards over the years. I’d say takings are down in there, somewhat.