Quote of the day...on the sugar tax

From the lovely People Against the Sugar Tax:

According to data published last week by Nielsen, the number of people saying they will give up sugary drinks has fallen from 11% before the tax started to just 1% now.

And the number of people saying they will continue to buy sugary drinks has actually gone up, from 31% before the tax started to 44% now.

It's not working. This is because people hate the idea (as I witnessed in the Co-op when someone said "how much?" when buying some Coca-Cola Classic - the woman on the check out responded, "it's that stupid tax they've brought in").

And this is before it dawns on the fussbuckets that the tax won't do what they say it'll do - make kids thinner. It is a stupid, illiberal, tax that will fall heaviest on the poorest while not resulting in a single lost pound.

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East Riding CCG: Nasty judgemental fussbucketing nannies.

You're in pain. You've already waited an age for the operation. And then you get a letter from some nameless, faceless official of the NHS telling you that because you're a smoker or a bit chubby you have to wait an extra six months. Just because the bosses of that nameless, faceless NHS bureaucrat disapprove of your lifestyle.

The measures have been introduced by East Riding CCG, which has denied that it is about saving money, saying it is to "encourage and empower patients to take greater responsibility for their lifestyle choices."

This won't save the NHS a farthing. It's just being used as a painful and unpleasant stick to beat up people whose choices the scummy fussbuckets in the East Riding NHS don't like. I've no issue if a surgeon or doctor says "look mate, there's no point in me doing this knee operation until you lose some weight" or "you should quit smoking if you want this treatment to work" where the evidence is based on the actual case, the real information about a real patient. But to impose an arbitrary delay - a nasty, uncaring delay that might kill people - just to make a point about their lifestyle is worse than unforgivable, the people saying it should be escorted out of their well-paid NHS jobs because they clearly aren't suited for a caring service.

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The measures have been introduced by East Riding CCG, which has denied that it is about saving money, saying it is to "encourage and empower patients to take greater responsibility for their lifestyle choices."

Read more at: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/health/overweight-people-and-smokers-to-be-denied-surgery-for-six-months-in-four-yorkshire-hospitals-1-8763080

The measures have been introduced by East Riding CCG, which has denied that it is about saving money, saying it is to "encourage and empower patients to take greater responsibility for their lifestyle choices."

Read more at: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/health/overweight-people-and-smokers-to-be-denied-surgery-for-six-months-in-four-yorkshire-hospitals-1-8763080

Scribblings III: Star Wars, flags, skateboarding, free speech and not blaming smoking

Worse than smoking!

We begin with the weird as Grandad encounters reports of the Star Wars obsessive - this my friends is in a space beyond geekdom or nerdism:

daoku began watching star wars at different playback rates in order to do this but again it only lasted a while.
He then purchased the exact cinema seats that were there in 1977 and placed them in his living room.He purchased 40 shop floor dummies, dressed them in 1970's clothes, placed them on the seats and watched star wars until the small hours.

That is just the tiniest of flavours...

It is good to know that, when you need one, you can find someone who has fine details of flag history and etiquette at his fingertip. James Higham is one such:

The ship is right, the three masts are right and the artist may well have been right in 1776 on the flags, though it seems not.

And, as anyone who has been to Parkhead will tell you, getting the flags (and songs right) is important!

Meanwhile Raedwald, from his eyrie in the Alps, comments on risk (and skateboarding):

Some years ago, skateboarders old enough to buy cheap airfares would gather informally in small groups, take postbuses to the high places and board down the mostly empty mountain roads. Much fun. In the UK, the official reaction would be one of horror; the bansturbationists would emerge in force, the Chief Constable would appear on TV, MPs would demand new laws to ban boarders and local councils would deploy wardens to patrol all the steep roads with powers to seize boards. After all, the UK is a nation where it is now forbidden to roll a round cheese down a grass hill because of 'elf-n-safety.

Here's a couple of those skateboarders.

Among all this frivolity there is seriousness. And nothing is more serious that protecting free speech. The Churchmouse reminds us that there appears to be something of an inconsistency in attacks on speech:

Despite recently supporting a European Commission code promising to take down online hate speech within 24-hours of posting, Facebook has failed remove a group titled “I Want to F**king Kill Donald Trump” to the ire of his supporters.

The group was created on May 14 with a post reading “Donald Trumps Hair Looks Like A Bleached Mop – Gordon Ramsey 2016.” The most recent post is, “What Is Your Weapon Of Choice?” Asking what weapon people would use to kill Trump if given the chance.

Me, I liked Facebook and Twitter better when they defended free speech rather than allowing government and the progressive mob to beat them into submission.

Finally - for this week - Leg iron asked where it all went wrong:

As a smoker, I’m feeling neglected. All the things we used to cause have moved on. We were the Grim Reapers who brought death and decay everywhere we went. Every disease, every illness was our doing. I was having fun with that.

As our intrepid freethinker observes - the fussbuckets are now obsessed with food.

There's still hope - as this outcry reminds us.

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Come on you New Puritans, lighten up and let people live a little?

The world now knows just how annoyingly officious British authorities have become:

E-Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt also took to Twitter to express his outrage. He said the stars had planned a final encore number before the sound was cut off.

The 61-year-old said: 'One of the great gigs ever in my opinion. But seriously, when did England become a police state? Is there just too much fun in the world? We would have been off by 11 if we'd done one more. On a Saturday night! Who were we disturbing?

This was a big deal but we’re pointing the finger at the wrong target. The truth is that, had Westminster Council allowed the event to run even a minute past the allotted finish time – the licence – that killjoy with a stopwatch somewhere within earshot of Hyde Park would have been on to them threatening action.

We have become the antithesis of ‘live and let live’, a nation of nosey parkers, busybodies and fussbuckets. Too many people are ready to point out every last minute infringement – just so long as it’s done safely by ringing up (or these days e-mailing) the authorities.

We seem unable to allow other people to have a modicum of pleasure. Youngsters making some noise in the town square after a good night? Binge drinking – get it stopped! Introduce curfews, ban outside drinking – whatever it takes get them away from where they might (just might) offend our ears or eyes.

A karaoke night at the local round the corner on a warm summer night (oh, for one of those) – a few folk stray outside for a smoke or perhaps a snog. And we’re on to the authorities about the pub’s license the next day. How dare these people enjoy themselves in my presence?

Or the wedding party at the club – good times, dads dancing, uncles getting a little drunk and cousins simpering over the best man. And children running around getting under everyone’s feet, wallowing in the excitement of staying up late. Nine o’clock arrives and our busybody is complaining - the licence says no children after 9pm.

Everywhere I look, I see fun being spoiled by our inability to let others live a little. We seem unable to tolerate a few minutes inconvenience so as to allow others to celebrate. We’ve forgotten that urban places – and we most of us live in urban places – are sometimes noisy. And we seem to believe that licensing – the exercise of mostly pointless control – is the way to proceed.

I recall, on one of those warm summer evenings, sitting outside a nice bar on Street Lane in Leeds only to be ushered inside at eleven “because of the licence”. So fifteen or so (anything but young) people dutifully traipsed inside, finished our drinks and then went home. Our pleasure was curtailed because some official in that big wedding cake building in the middle of Leeds, backed up by councillors and urged on by fussbuckets had decreed that drinking outside a quiet bar in the posh northern suburbs of the city represents the precursor to drunken violence, mayhem and chaos (and might be a little noisy).

Can’t we arrive at a place where we no longer have the officious enforcement of arbitrary time restrictions and move instead to a place where we agree reasonable behaviour? A world where every now and then it’s OK for a few (hopefully well-behaved) children to remain after nine? Where a group of no longer young folk can sit outside a bar after eleven on a warm evening (when they’re doing no-one any harm)?

And where thousands of people who’ve paid a lot of money to watch a concert (and aren’t about to riot) get to see the full set because someone’s seen sense and allowed the band a little bit of leeway on finishing time.

But I guess this won’t happen. It seems the new Puritans have won. And we are a worse nation for it.

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Another Cock and Bull story...sadly this one's true

It's said that the term "Cock and Bull" derives from the town of Stony Stratford - a place now swallowed by the ghastly wen that is Milton Keynes:

One of Stony Stratford’s many claims to fame is as the place of origin of the term 'Cock & Bull Story', recognised throughout the English-speaking world.

This dates back to the late 18th/early 19th centuries, at the height of the great coaching era, when Stony Stratford (which is located on the old Roman Road of Watling Street, latterly the A5) was an important stopping-off point for mail and passenger coaches travelling between London and the North.

Travellers on these coaches were regarded as a great source of current news from remote parts of the country - news which would be imparted in the town's two main inns, The Cock and The Bull.

Stony Stratford established its place by being a place of welcome, a little town where travellers could kick off the dust of the road, lean back, have a beer or two, something to eat and, yes, a smoke. Now one jumped up little Town Council burgermeister, puffed up with righteousness, wishes to put an end to that idea of of being a place of welcome:

A Buckinghamshire town is considering banning smoking from its streets.

Councillor Paul Bartlett has proposed a new bylaw to outlaw smoking in any public place in Stony Stratford. If the plan is approved by the town council, smokers who light up in public in the town could face on-the-spot fines.

"Stony Stratford is a historic town which is blighted by cigarette butts," said Mr Bartlett.

"The plan that I am trying to put forward is for smoking to be banned in public in the High Street, surrounding streets, and preferably elsewhere as well."

"Why should people be able to smoke in my face and spoil the environment?," he added.

I could observe that making smokers stand outside in the street rather than comfortably ensconced in the bar wasn't a great help. But it seems that Mr Bartlett wants it stopped because, you know, he doesn't like it. Forget about the damage it might do to the businesses in Stony Stratford - we can't let people smoke in Mr Bartlett's face now can we!

I despair, I really do. Sometimes I want to cry. However, there are Town Council elections next year - Mr Bartlett represents Stony Stratford South East. Given a candidate and a concerted effort we can be rid of this nannying fussbucket.

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Differential pricing keeps overall prices lower - so smile as you stand in the theme park queue!

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The use of differential pricing by businesses is not a new practice – from the inception of travel there were different classes with the greatest luxury rationed through pricing and we experience the same with concerts, sports events and even the purchase of utilities. Today, ticketing systems for air travel, railways and much else allow from greater flexibility – it is far easier to capture the efficiencies of advanced sales, for example, or to charge for additional or extra services.

With pricing differential comes, as sure as night follows day, the outcry. Complaints about the terrible injustice of it all. And nothing is more terrible, of course, than me paying extra so as to jump the queue. Especially among the professionally indignant like Netmums fussbucket, Siobhan Freeguard:

“I find it amazing that parents put up with it. It won’t be long before there’s a backlash.”

Siobhan is talking about Alton Towers and the terrible fact that if I fork out loads of cash, I can jump the queues on the rides. Welcome to differential pricing and note, Siobhan, that these are businesses and if the pricing system doesn’t work (i.e. have a positive contribution to overall revenues) then the business will change it or close.

But I suspect there’s still a bunch of folk out there who think the price should be the same for everyone regardless of their degree of organisation (e.g. buying tickets in advance and seeking deals linked to less busy days) or willingness to buy privileges. These are the same people who want a single rail ticket price for everyone despite the fact that this would increase the cost of travel for most intercity travellers.

What these silly netmums and other complainers don’t realise is that differential pricing provides a benefit to all users – those buying privilege are, in effect, subsidising those who are not buying such privileges. Because some people are willing to fork out extra money to jump the queue, your ticket price for the same experience (slightly delayed) is lower.

As consumers we benefit from differential pricing – from greater choice, from more sustainable businesses and from the greater yield management that flexible pricing systems provide. The impact of imposed ‘fairness’ – whether on travel, theme parks or utilities – will be either longer queues or higher prices (and maybe both).

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