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It's just not the done thing......


Quillan
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Chewing gum is certain places. I couldn't help notice because it sort of leapt out at you but when Ed Balls was having a go after Osborne's 'autumn statement' that Grommit was chewing vigerously and not discreetly on gum in full view. I am perhaps old fashioned but thought it just about summed him up nicely, total contempt for just about everything other than himself, how ill mannered. [:@]
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I really am non plussed if anyone is chewing gum, as long as they put it in a bin when they have finished it.

What I used to hate and still hate are people smoking cigarettes. Betchya they did in the houses of Parliament not that long ago. Was it sophisticated, never, stinking and horrible it was, now that I can still get riled about, not chewing gum.

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Yes well I bought up that chewing gum is just so 'common' and to see the bloke that hopes to one day run the country chewing on tele is just not on in my book. What he does in his own time or away from the tele is down to him. But then for all I know perhaps his 'spin doctor' told him to do it so the working classes will think he is just like them. Labours biggest mistake was not voting for his brother to be leader.
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I think you'll find he s the man who hopes his wife will someday run the country.......which may be the day I think seriously of emigrating.

The trouble with Ed Balls iIMHO is that he seems to think we forget he was on the old team, who didn't exactly shine

As for the gum, my sister commented that she wondered if was a little tipsy, he seemed to be floundering about.....
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Haven't a number of MPs got total contempt for the general public - look at how some still seem to be fiddling expenses and trying to either get rid of or remove the teeth of IPSA.

But I do agree with you Q about the gum. Perhaps he should next wear a hoodie and let Dave hug him.

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[quote user="PaulT"]

Haven't a number of MPs got total contempt for the general public - look at how some still seem to be fiddling expenses and trying to either get rid of or remove the teeth of IPSA.

But I do agree with you Q about the gum. Perhaps he should next wear a hoodie and let Dave hug him.

[/quote]

I was thinking 'high fives' every time Ed Balls returns from the despatch box.

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''What I used to hate and still hate are people smoking cigarettes.''

As smoking is banned in public places why do you 'still hate' people smoking in the privacy of their own space?

The anti-smoking lobby have achieved what they set out to do, or, perhaps you believe that ALL sales of tobacco products should be banned, irrespective of the seriously adverse effect that would have on tax revenue ( which would have to be made up from other sources).
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Bit confused about gum chewing and Grommit, was it Ed Balls or Ed Miliband chewing, Miliband or Balls chewing .....which is which? No matter, as a lot of things have me confused nowadays....I am over 70, did I tell you? Whenever I see Ed Balls in an interview he appears to me to be a very angry man, made worse by a hair style that resembles a highwayman's cocked hat. God help meeting the man in a road rage situation.

But back to the cynic part of me (which is just about all of me). I don't think I could ever see my way to thinking good things about any politician who has never held a proper job in his pocket filling life. I thought it a bit ironic that Ed Miliband spent some time as a researcher to a TV programme called "A week in politics".

 

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But smoking isn't banned in public places, because just outside the door in a restaurant or pub....... even hospital [:-))] is still a very public place, and I have to breathe in that space when passing through it. One rarely finds just one lone smoker, there is usually a group.

And yes Q, that is what is smokers look like, common, what a good word. One I would not have thought of, but it does very nicely.[:D]

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As far as I know, smoking is banned even in Hospital grounds, it certainly is banned in the car park of the JR in Oxford.

Regarding the groups of smokers outside the doors of restaurants and pubs, surely this is a case for dedicated rooms / areas for smoking, particularly in pubs. This is the case that was put forward by the trade when the original smoking ban was discussed.

I seem to remember, in the past, there were such rooms / bars in a lot of pubs. This seemed to change when pubs went 'open plan'. With modern air extraction facilities it is not rocket engineering to make such areas. Of course personal freedom to indulge in a (presently) legal activity does come into it.

Regarding ''common'', I suggest that the pasty eating, obese, track suit wearing people you see in the streets actually look more ''common''.
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You beat me to replying to Powderesal Idun, I absolutely hate having to pass through the gauntlet of smokers to enter most public premises, worse still I used to do the access control for lareg office blocks, a major part being the entrance doors, now the staff were banned from smoking in the foyer or outside the doors and for good reason, they had a smokers shelter discreely hidden not 10 meters away but did the b*******s use it? Did they ever, I got so bad that I took to wearing a breathing apparatus and even then some of them didnt get it despite being told I was wearing it on doctors orders.

I have to confess here and now to being somewhat biased as an ex smoker, we are of course the worst opponents of smoking, worse than that I am now an ex drinker, ex fat person and ex unfit person AKA permanently grumpy git [:D]

And yes I do think it looks common too, all smokers hanging around outside premises look like they are bored, listless, unanimated and worse still anti-social litter louts when they casually toss their megots, I would never stop to eat or drink at a bar/resto that paints that sort of a picture of itself but around here most are like that, you have to wade through dog ends and a cloud of smoke to enter.

Worse still the best restaurants with outside seating areas have now become a no go area for non smokers, you have to wait to be greeted and taken to your table whilst surrounded by smokers, by that time tha attraction of the outside seating has lost its allure.

On the positive side it seems to be in the guinguettes araound here that going outside for a fag is the only social interaction between the groups of youngsters, they all go out together, share a large table and then ignore each other all night whilst twatting on their smartphones!!

Editted, I should add that my comments are largely based on France as I spend little time in the UK and rarely go out to pubs or restaurants, I do notice that the town centres are really spoiled by chewing gum though. Certainly in France, for me at least the change to the law has rendered premises far less attractive.

Glad to hear about the changes at the JRH, it certainly wasnt like that when I worked there, the entrance was shrouded by patients in pyjamas and bed gowns smoking, some of them really sick people, some with IV stands beside them, I did the access control for the micro_biology department who had offices and labs on most floors of the JRH, certainly every outside entrance that I worked on was clogged with staff smoking and of course not working [;-)] although most of these were not in public view.

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I have to wonder, even as a smoker myself, why patients congregate outside hospitals to smoke. I they are well enough to smoke then why are they in hospital? Even worse in my mind is deepest winter at Carcassonne, out there in their 'jim jams', minus 5 deg, having a fag. In some ways you have to admire their courage (or stupidity) because you wouldn't get me doing it.

The whole question of smoking really needs to be sorted out once and for all, either keep it and have separate areas or ban it completely. I guess the problem is that governments just can't afford to loose the tax revenue.

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[quote user="woolybanana"]How many heart attacks have you had, Q? And you smoke?  [Www][/quote]

Well according to the cardiologist I was under in the UK, if he is to be believed, my heart attacks were cause by a genetic problem inherited from my mother who also had a few yet never smoked in her life and it was a heart attack that killed her. On the other had my fathers mother who smoked from the age of 13 or 14 (Capstan full strength un-tipped) died in her 99th year. My wife's mother who stopped smoking in her 30's died some 35 years later of lung cancer and her consultant said it was nothing to do with her smoking all those years before. I am of the belief that some people have the cancer gene and all it needs is something to switch it on. For some it is smoking, for others it is something else. Personally I am of the opinion that excess alcohol is far more dangerous than smoking and has a much bigger effect on those around them.

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[quote user="Russethouse"] The trouble with Ed Balls iIMHO is that he seems to think we forget he was on the old team, who didn't exactly shine As for the gum, my sister commented that she wondered if was a little tipsy, he seemed to be floundering about.....[/quote]

Absolutely, and floundering he certainly was http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2243711/Mr-Balls-took-floor-His-31-seconds-good-Then-disaster.html

 

 

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[quote user="just john "]

[quote user="Russethouse"] The trouble with Ed Balls iIMHO is that he seems to think we forget he was on the old team, who didn't exactly shine As for the gum, my sister commented that she wondered if was a little tipsy, he seemed to be floundering about.....[/quote]

Absolutely, and floundering he certainly was http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2243711/Mr-Balls-took-floor-His-31-seconds-good-Then-disaster.html

[/quote]I have just been listening to th "World at One" and there his performance was attributed to his stammer. Well if you can't match your opponent's arguments mock his physical defects.

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After close to 8 years in France I know how he feels, I can rarely get a word in and when I do I am lucky if one person will actually listen and if they do they invariably interrupt me.

However!!! last night I enjoyed my best ever soirĂ©e in France by a very long chalk, I invited 3 young teaching assistants to eat chez moi, France being the second language of all of us and we are more or less the same level, one is Spanish, one German and the 3rd English. (we both find it weird that we have never spoken a word of English between us)

Apart from being great company, not being fermée and having an esprit which just does not exist in these parts the real pleasure was conversation with one person speaking and the others all actively listening.

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