The Idler, Thursday, February 7, 2019

Getting

tough on

ciggies

HAWAII refuses to budge in the face of agitation that cigarettes should be banned outright – but is considering legislation that would prohibit their sale to people not yet 100 years old.

The American island state already has tough laws against cigarettes but, according to Sky News, Democrat politician Richard Creagan -  a doctor - believes more needs to be done.

"We essentially have a group who are heavily addicted - in my view, enslaved by a ridiculously bad industry - which has enslaved them by designing a cigarette that is highly addictive, knowing that it is highly lethal."

Creagan – himself a former smoker – proposes, in a bill for the state legislature, a staggered introduction of the restriction of cigarette sales.

Under current laws, people in Hawaii must be 21 to buy cigarettes. Creagan proposes raising the age to 30 by next year, 40 in 2021, 50 in 2022, 60 in 2023 and 100 in 2024.

This sure draws out the agony for the 30-year-old currently puffing away, happily enslaved. Would a swift and complete ban not be kinder than having a fellow wait three years for his next fag then another 64 for another?

Cigars, pipes and chewin' tobacco are not mentioned.

 

IN DURBAN we've had our hiccups with street name changes. Maybe we should take a look at what happens in the north-west German town of Hilgermissen.

There they have no street names at all, only numbers. Okay, Hilgermissen is a small place – only 2 200 homes – but for some it's been getting a little complicated. They've been campaigning for the streets to be named.

They held a referendum – and 60% voted for the status quo. They don't want names for their streets.

There's a great logic to this. Who wants to make things easy for the servers of parking ticket summonses, the junk mail purveyors and other undesirables? Yet, on the other hand, who wants on the doorstep unordered pizzas, crates of beer and exotic dancers? (It's the confusion that is undesirable).

Local public broadcaster NDR speaks of an "irritable atmosphere" between the two sides. Yes, we in Durban can attest to that. As an irritated taxi driver said only the other night as he puzzled his way through a maze of unfamiliar street names: "We might as well be living in Hilgermissen."

 

THE polar vortex has allowed people in Minnesota, in the US, to indulge in a pastime known as "frozen pants".

Denim jeans are dipped in water then left outside to freeze solid. Then they are set up at the roadside outside the pants owner's home or in some other public place, the legs dug into the snow. The effect is somewhat eerie.

Tom Grotting, of Minneapolis, began the frozen pants movement in 2013, according to Huffington Post. It caught on and since then he and his neighbours have taken advantage of any plunge in temperature. Now it has spread all over Minneapolis.

"People are freezing them all over town," Grotting says. "Not only taking pictures, but taking them for walks, throwing them in the air and recording the perfect landing."

Nobody is expected to actually get inside the frozen pants. That would be truly heroic.

Tailpiece

I SAID: "Care for a game of darts? Closest to the bull starts?"

He said: " Ba-a-a-a!

I said: "Mo-o-o-o!"

He said: "You're closest. You start."

 

Last word

The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums. - GK Chesterton