Questions to which the answer is "Yes"

"Meanwhile, are they going to ban barbecues and bonfires?" , asks Simon Clark of Forest in response to this deluge of propaganda.

Yes of course! They already more-or-less banned gas fuelled patio heaters, what makes you think they're going to stop any time soon?

Whether they were ever actually officially made illegal is doubtful, but you can't buy the things at your normal garden superstore any more.

"Paris has declared war on smokers"

Indeed. The Metro summarises:

Bureaucrats in the French capital want to ban gas-powered heaters within two years. Electric patio heaters would be permitted but taxed. Green party campaigner Michel Lebrun described gas burners as ‘the 4x4s of patio heaters’ (1).

He added: ‘People who want to sit on terraces when it’s cold should simply put a jumper or coat on.’ (2)

Lyne Cohen-Solal, head of trade regulation at the city council, said the measures were about saving the environment. ‘The most powerful gas heaters are also a fire hazard because café terraces are invariably surrounded by flammable plastic sheeting,’ (3) she said, ‘We are proposing to remove the plastic sheeting.’ (4)

Café owners say the crackdown could spell disaster. Colette Aswad, owner of the Bar le Carrefour in central Paris said: ‘I have invested heavily in gas heaters and terracing to create a place for smokers to sit.’

1) Not true. A patio heater uses less than a tenth as much fuel per hour as an average car travelling at average speed.

2) Or go inside to smoke, of course.

3) Yes, we hear all the time about these terrible fires outside cafés and pubs.

4) Woah! In her addled mind, the equation is:

Patio heater + plastic sheeting = fire

Even if that were true (which it isn't), it would be quite sufficient to either

a) Remove 'patio heater' from the equation and leave the plastic sheeting; or

b) Remove 'plastic sheeting from the equation and to leave the patio heaters; or indeed

c) Replace the plastic sheeting with glass windows and to leave the patio heaters.

Smoking ban, fox hunting ban etc.

The Great Simpleton said:

Just for the record, foxes are a pest and I have seen the damage they do and they need to be controlled. However I don’t like fox hunting and I don’t see what pleasure people get in chasing the damned things round on horses and then watching them get ripped to pieces by a pack of dogs. I wouldn’t spend any time getting it banned and if repealing it takes more than 30secs of Parliamentary time then the police should just be told to ignore it, there is far too much work to be done.

To expand on the comment I left, I'd concur on fox-hunting - if there were a local referendum on repealing the ban, I'm not sure I'd bother voting, because it's not that important to me either way. But what if there were a separate referendum a month later on repealing the smoking ban - most smokers would vote to repeal but probably the rabidly anti-smoking faction (a third of non-smokers) would vote to retain it. And if there were then a referendum on legalising & taxing cannabis (putting it on par with alcohol or tobacco), the ten per cent of adults who enjoy cannabis would vote to repeal, but it would only require more then ten per cent of adults who don't smoke cannabis to keep it illegal, and so on and so forth.

Single issue referenda would amost certainly not achieve anything - I reckon that the only way to make this stick is to have an all-or-nothing yes-or-no referendum, i.e. to repeal the fox hunting ban, turn off the traffic lights, legalise cannabis and brothels, allow smoking in pubs again, allow shops to use pounds and ounces, allow people to drink alcohol on public transport, bring back patio heaters [plus add your own particular gripes to the list] etc.

That way there'd be something in it for everybody - including the misery guts who don't like other people enjoying themselves, who might be tempted by the idea of turning off the traffic lights and being allowed to use patio heaters again. The cannabis smokers (traditionally left wing) would align themselves with the pro-fox hunters (traditionall right-wing). Motorists and bus-users would form an alliance against the Greenies. Proper feminists and misogynists alike would support the legalisation of brothels, with faux-feminists and religious types in opposition.

Hopefully.

Ban it! Ban it!

In case you haven't read it already, Dick Puddlecote provides us with a list of a few things that the Lib Dems would like to ban.

In this weather?

Let's hope Richard doesn't forget to turn on the patio heater!

Coalition of the willing (2)

UPDATE 24/05/08 - the online poll over here is currently standing at 24 'ayes' and 23 'noes', most heartening indeed! Why not drop in and have your say?

Coalition of the willing

Let's look at a list* of some of the main things have been made illegal (or might be made illegal) for no good reason (whether such a ban is actually enforced or not in practice is by-the-by) and the two most stupid traffic regulations:

Smoking in pubs and clubs
Drinking alcohol on public transport
Smoking cannabis
Fox-hunting
Patio heaters
Plastic carrier bags
Taking ecstasy tablets
Brothels
Traffic lights
National speed limit on the motorways and major roads
-----------------
Update:
Allow handguns for sporting purposes
Scrap ID card scheme, national ID database and interviews for passports
Allow local councils to subsidise post offices via a precept on Council Tax, subject to local referenda
Allow trading and collecting ceremonial swords
Allow shops to use pounds and ounces
-----------------
The reason why 'they' get away with it is because the majority of people don't smoke (either tobacco or cannabis); the majority of people don't work in or admit to visiting brothels; didn't used to go fox hunting and so on. But surely, a majority of people would like to at least some of these bans lifted (those particular bans that affect them personally) or to see more humane traffic regulations? OK, there may well be a minority who don't do any of these things, who don't mind being stuck at traffic lights and who are basically total kill-joys, but let's ignore them for now.

To sum up, would there not be any mileage in a political party saying that they'd lift all these stupid bans and regulations, in one fell swoop - lock, stock and barrel?

For sure, there may be hippy dope smokers who support the fox-hunting ban; there may be women who hate traffic lights and quite like plastic carrier bags but have a moralistic aversion to brothels; there may be those who used to enjoy lighting up in the pub who believe (erroneously) that ecstasy is a dangerous drug - but have we not reached the tipping point where all these narrow groups could declare an armistice and all do their own thing and let others get on with doing their own thing?

* Please leave a comment if I've missed anything important off the list!

UPDATE 24/05/08 - the online poll over here is currently standing at 24 'ayes' and 23 'noes', most heartening indeed! Why not drop in and have your say?

Watching the EU unravel (3)

The electorate appear to be a pretty gullible lot, but seeing as;

1. The EU and their acolytes have hitched themselves to the 'climate-change' bandwagon, which is rapidly being exposed as a Big Fat Lie*, and

2. The EU Parliament seriously want to engage in really unpopular bansturbation, such as banning patio heaters**, which might seem trivial, but in the popular imagination, what began as a protest against a tax on tea ended up with the American Declaration of Independence; who's to say the same might not happen again?

* In any event, are we supposed to believe that 'climate change', were it to exist, would affect Switzerland (being geograhically in the heart of Europe while remaining outside the EU) more than neighbouring countries? It's patent bollocks, surely?

** I could say the same for smoking in pubs, plastic bags or bottled water, but I'm not sure if this is NuLabour nonsense or EU nonsense, it's difficult to tell the difference any more.

"The world goes cold on patio heaters after ban"

Apparently, B&Q and Wyevale are going to stop selling them, wimps that they are. I'd rush out and buy one, but no doubt they'll stop selling the gas bottles as well.

F*** me!

As I have mentioned before, the Energy Saving Trust say that a patio heater generates 50 kilogram of CO2 per year. Divide that by ten evenings per year = five kilos per evening. Given that you use about three kilos of charcoal for a small-ish barbecue and one kilo of charcoal creates three kilos of CO2, actually patio heaters are twice as CO2-efficient as a good old fashioned barbecue. So clearly, they'll be banning barbecues next!!!

Bansturbation

“First they came for the fox hunters, then they came for the smokers, then they came for the [insert long list] but by the time they came for the patio heaters and the bottled water drinkers, the people rose up and said a joke’s a joke, but this has gone too far, now just f*** off and leave us in peace”*

* Originally posted in comments at Longrider.

Shabbat shalom!

Hey, if they ban patio heaters, we'll just have to use these ...

Now this is one classy patio heater!

It's the C3PO of patio heaters, the sort that coughs politely and says "Excuse me sir, we don't normally touch our cup of tea until the vicar has finished his first cucumber sandwich".

Patio heaters (again)

According to interfering busybodies at the super-quango, the Energy Saving Trust:

"FACT: the CO₂ emitted by 2.3million patio heaters is as much as would be emitted by driving from Lands End to John O'Groats 200,000 times"

Hmm ... let's look at the numbers ...

1. From Lands End to John O'Groats is 875 miles.

2. 200,000 times 875 miles = 175 million miles

3. Let's say that those 2.3 million patio heaters are used for ten nights per year on average = 23 million heater-nights

4. If 23 million heater-nights is equivalent to 175 million car-miles, then having a heater on for a couple of hours uses as much energy as driving a car for, er, 7.6 miles.

5. Furthermore, at an average speed of 30 mph, a car uses that much energy in 15 minutes, as against a patio heater that might be on for a couple of hours.

Oooh! I'm scared! Not.

This calculation inspired by Jock Coats' post entitled 'Liberal bansturbators'.

Endangered species ...

Take a good look at this prime example of patios heaterus before they disappear for good...

EU parliament votes to ban patio heaters*

Nigel Farage comes out fighting on this one (as a smoker who hates shivering in the rain, he knows what he is talking about), culminating in:

"What are the EU going to ban next? Central Heating? ... Surely people should be able to sit outside their houses in the evening without the EU granting them permission.”

Personally, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did suggest banning central heating, that involves burning gas**, doesn't it? If that's an argument against patio heaters, then the same argument must apply to central heating. And cooking. And about one-third of our electricity generation.

* And yes, this doesn't just mean outside pubs and cafés, this includes patio heaters in your own back garden.

** Sure, patio heaters use butane gas, derived from oil, rather than natural gas, but it's the same general principle.