Bags, Women, and Baggy Women

Right then ladies!

Your bags are not the Tardis and nor does having 3 bags give you more space to carry things when you put them inside each other!
I think it's happened to everyone, including women. You know, you've been in the queue at a checkout in Tescos and some little old lady in front of you begins to pay for something. Read the below paragraph only if you don't suffer from regular migraines.

First she opens her shoulder bag, then her carry bag in her shoulder bag, then her purse in her carry bag in her shoulder bag, then opens the coin pouch in her purse from her carry bag from her shoulder bag, counts her money out in front of the cashier, cashier counts it again as customer is likely to be senile, cashier gives change, change is counted by lady at checkout, change is put in coin pouch in her purse, purse is put in carry bag, purse inside carry bag is put in shoulder bag....... and she only wanted a fucking Kit-Kat.

GIVE ME A BREAK!

Is it really necessary to carry that many bags? Do you really need all that space? What do you keep in there? Honestly, this is a mystery to me as I've seen less crap come out the back of a removal van than what you can pull out of there.
Fuck me, I wouldn't be surprised if one day I'm in Tescos behind the aforementioned old lady and she proceedes to pull a fucking white rabbit out of it while wearing top hat and tails.

........................

And another thing. Old people. Or more specifically, old people who believe that due to their age they are to be held in high regard and have no need to exchange pleasantries with us common folk.
FUCK. OFF.
Don't get me wrong I was raised to respect my elders and I hope that I have always fulfilled that onus, but I was also brought up to believe that in order to gain respect, you must give it also.
I've lost count how many times I've held the door for them, let them pass, allowed them to go in front of me in a queue somewhere and yet, I can say no more than 10% of them have ever said thank you or done the same in return.

If this kind of behaviour continues your likely to find old women up and down the country holding up checkout queues with their nest of bags, trying desperately to pay for a Tesco Value replacement hip as I've kicked them in the arse!

God? Pfft, I'm all for the Feta

I haven’t written a rant in quite a while which I suppose is a good thing; it shows the percentage of irritating general public in my life has taken a sharp decline in the past few months. This may be down the fact I have a secret hobby of peeling warning labels off things and leave God sort them out.

Speaking of which I demand you all stop preaching to me about God/Gods/Allah/Deities/Omn

ipresent Beings/Flying Spaghetti Monsters/Invisible Pink Unicorns/Vishnu/Jeremy Clarkson and any other ‘supreme being’ you wish to add to that list.

I cannot walk through Swansea without somebody trying to sell me a book detailing how to find my inner peace written by some priest that lives in the middle of a forest and lives off sacrificial lambs. Although my personal favourite does have to be (cue dramatic voice over...) “CAAAAPTAAAAAIN BILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLBOOOOOOOOOOOARD”. Bloody hell! This guy must have the hardest sell in the world. “YOU’RE ALL DAAAMNED!”, “YOU’RE ALL GOIN TO HELLLLLLL!”, “JESUS IS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN SAVE YOU!”.
Rightyho... I gotcha... My life is so evil that I’m going to hell and by you using the word ‘damned’ you intimate that I’m condemned to this fate already. Oh but forgetting that last bit about fate, Jesus COULD save me should he feel inclined, ignoring one important fact my dear fellow; he’s dead, kaput, worm food. If Jesus was that powerful, compassionate and forgiving, what was to stop him living forever and keeping all us little beings in check, be the saviour and rule us all with an even hand?
Well the reason, according the Bible is that God gave us minds in which to be a free and self ruling race, independent from His will and to give us the chance to prove ourselves worthy of His graces. Well sorry if I sound a little ungrateful for this amazing gift oh Lord but whose fault is it then when we decide to be a bit of a cunt and shoot some kittens or trip up old ladies? Hmm? Perhaps if you’d made us all vegetables we’d be much happier and you wouldn’t have to Damn those of us who saw Hitler as a mighty fine chap.
Oh and while I’m on this topic, why as a result of your son and your actions did 2,038,344 people die in the Bible, when Satan killed a pitiful 10? I’m not shitting you by the way reader, read it for yourself.

It sounds like I got a real beef with Christianity sure, but picking holes in any religion is like shooting fish in a barrel. What bugs me the most is not that people believe in religion but that they do so in blind faith. Blind faith is not a proof of existence and does not make your belief true!
To me having blind faith in something is akin to hypnotherapy. Both make you believe something, both would have you defending said belief and both, if told to do so, would make you preach your belief to others... So like I said earlier about belief making things fact, what would stop me getting hypnotised to have blind faith in my next lottery ticket purchase being a jackpot winner? And what about the Pied Piper? He was a hypnotist, made children follow him in blind faith, look what happened to them?

Look all I ask is keep your beliefs to yourself and leave me with mine, which are that Feta Cheese is fantastic and that Opitimus Prime should be president of the world.

FACT! Smokers save lifes!

Before you read any part of this I wish to make a few things clear...
I do not endorse people taking up smoking
I understand the possible risks to others through passive smoking
I understand the possible risks to my own health
I understand that smokers are more likely to use the NHS
I understand smokers are more likely to die younger

Now that's out the way let me tell you what's really pissed me off lately.
I read yesterday, about a student union pub in Bangor that is charging everybody 50p to come back in every time they go for a cigarette. The grounds for this being to cover the costs of the outdoor heaters as well as maintaining the whole outdoor area in general due to what they call "excessive use". Before I really... and I mean REALLY get on a rant about this I'll also paste 2 comments from students interviewed.
-"Making them pay to go outside gives them another reason to think about giving up. The less people who actually smoke the better, because it helps the health service etc."
David Farnsworth, psychology student
-"I think it is actually good, it makes people stop smoking in there - they've got to come out."
Niyi Adebowale, business student

Right... Here it goes...
THIS IS FUCKING RIDICULOUS AND GOES TO SHOW WHAT AN IGNORANT FUCKING COUNTRY WE LIVE IN. IT PROVES YOU DON'T NEED TO BE INTELLIGENT AT ALL TO GO TO UNIVERSITY AND THAT PEOPLE ARE HAPPY TO SPOUT COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT WHEN IT SUITS THEM OR THEIR IMAGE.

Let's set a few things straight here...
First of all I can't really comment on the pub charging aspect. It's private property and they are entitled to do as they wish within reason. That's not to say I think it's right from a moral point of view or business point of view for that matter. Smokers already have to go outside to smoke, which I completely agree with, but this is demonising them, making them more of the outcasts and I'm sorry but without them everyone else would suffer greatly, but I'll come back to that later. With regards to it as a business, if just under a 3rd of the UK legal drinking age population smoke (31.6% for those interested Source: World Health Organisation Website) then you run the risk of putting them off going to your pub entirely, and possibly slashing your profit by the same percentage. In the current climate there's no business that could weather that much of a cut.

Right, back to what's pissed me off.
OK, Mr Farnsworth let me ask you a question if I may, where did you hear that nugget of wisdom and fact that the NHS is suffering due to smokers? Mmm? Ohh I agree it gives us a another reason to quit, but let's be honest, when we know all of the other negatives to smoking that I've detailed above, charging us 50p is kind of like pissing on a forest fire to put it out. But back to your comment about us costing the NHS, in the words of the Virgin Mary, "You are talking out of your fucking Arse".
What I'm about to do may scare a lot of you, a lot people tend to be frightened by what follows, but I'm about to give you some.... FACTS!
Yes ladies and gentleman, actual fucking facts. Not the 'red top newspaper' facts that people have been so keen to absorb into their tiny minds alongside character names from Hollyoaks and who's shagging who from OK Magazine.
In 2008 a survey of income was done on the NHS. Yes pretty much all the money given to the NHS is from the government but they get it from somewhere and that somewhere is what this survey was conceived and executed to discover. What follows is the contribution to the NHS from sources relevant to this argument.

Smoking Tax (England only)-
9.2 Billion Pounds per year
(Additional 3.4 Billion pounds lost due to cigarette imports)
Source - FOREST (Smoking Alliance) & Confirmed as accurate by the W.H.O.

..... That's a lot of money isn't it? £9,200,000,000 given to the NHS from smokers. What a considerate lot we are ey? And if we stopped buying cigarettes from the frogs during Calais to Dover trips then we'd be contributing a further 3.4 billion.

OK now for the important part. My whole argument hinges on this..... Ready?

"Treating smokers costs the NHS in England £2.7bn a year, compared with £1.7bn a decade ago, a report claims. Anti-smoking group Ash says the cost would have raised to over £3bn had action to curb smoking not seen numbers fall from 12 million to nine million."
Source - BBC Website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7654153.stm

Hang on a second; let me get this right...
We give you 9.2 billion pounds and you use 2.7 to treat us? I'm sorry but if any non-smokers think they aren't getting the treatment they should due to cost cuts treating smokers, they are fucking delusional. If it wasn't for us you'd have 6.5 billion pounds LESS treatment. And if we're covering the costs of our own treatment plus about 3 others why are we being made out to be the bad guy. We're the good guys, contributing to the NHS like money was water, the rest of you are tight ass bastards.
The next time a loved one is having a life saving operation; it could well have been paid for by me.

Ohh and another thing, did you know treating alcohol related illness, dealing with crime caused by alcohol and it's repurcussions and the loss of productivity in the workplace costs 20 billion a year?! (When did you ever hear of someone going on a fag fuelled rampage? Actually, don't answer that)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3121440.stm
That's nearly 10 times MORE than smokers. Stick that on your fucking high and mighty soap box next time you look down on smokers while you’re in the pub!

What annoys me the most is that people generally listen to whoever shouts the loudest and for the longest, ignoring the quiet guy at the back who knows what he's talking about. And unfortunately for anybody with an ounce of common sense the loudest people around are the media. Even the most dense around should know, good news doesn't sell newspapers. It's an example in bad taste but it best proves my point, Jade Goody. The girl gets cancer, and you can't walk 5 feet in Swansea without seeing or hearing one thing or another about it. If she did charity work, you'd be lucky to hear about it at all.

In summary smokers save lives and 90% of the general public are ignorant.