No Smoking Day

If The Simpsons teaches us anything, it's that the way to get ahead is not to squirt people's lit cigarettes with water. This is why Artie Ziff got (in the cutaway) gang raped and murdered horrifically in prison. So why is there a day - March 9th - just a week away, where people are being encouraged to participate in such behaviour? It's really, really fucking bad for the health.

For those of you reading overseas (and my stats tell me there are a lot of you, so thank you very much America, Canada, Denmark, and, for whatever reason, Vietnam), No Smoking Day is this really obnoxious thing that has been happening in the UK since 1984. I was only born in 1983, so for me this essentially equates to "forever".

It was started by Duncan Bannatyne, who as we established in my article about Queen's honours (he has one) is my second least favourite twatty millionaire off of Dragon's Den. In truth I only really like Theo, er, christ, no idea how you spell that, er, Paphetis? Pethetis? Lord, who knows, something Greek anyway. I can't be bothered to look it up. But anyway, Duncan Bannatyne started it, and now it has an ambassador in the from of Lemar, who came second or third or something in this BBC show called Fame Academy that used to be on. This isn't my usual thing of saying that Olly Murs from the X Factor in 2009 is responsible for something when he isn't really, Lemar really is doing this, and like everyone off of Lame Academy (not original, but in my head that was what it was called. Some people went with Shame Academy. Both are good.) he's far less famous than Olly Murs.

Apparently, the "theme" of 2011's No Smoking Day, which is "giving up smoking on No Smoking Day" and is therefore probably the same theme there has been every year, was developed with "smokers themselves". Nobody asked me. I would have said the theme should be "everyone act like Charlie Sheen for a day" or "rollerdisco" or "talk like Rasta Mouse". Something good. Something better than giving up smoking, which is a thankless thing - first of all it's apparently hard (I've never tried so I have no idea if it really is or not), and you should never do anything hard because Duncan Bannatyne tells you to unless he's offering cash, and secondly, it seems to turn you into a douchebag who feels the need to interfere with everyone else's relationship with their fags. Give up, and soon you will be Artie Ziff with his water spray, or this guy I used to know who would blow out your lighter when you tried to light your cigarette and then look smug. I would like to tell you he is dead now. He isn't, but he has no friends.

I understand that a lot of smokers would like to give up, and I think it's great that there is help available for them on the NHS, but those people already know about this and where to find it, unless they have been living in a cave, which they haven't, because where would a cave dweller be getting their fags from? There is no need to have a day devoted to guilting out all of the smokers who still enjoy what is one of the remaining accessible pleasures in life.

Apparently, in Essex, there are council officials and uniformed policemen having roadblocks all this month to check company cars for the smell of smoke, and if they find it, fining the smoker and their employer. Jesus wept. It's not like Essex is known for being that crime free that using its police force for this is going to be considered a good use of public money. In fact, it is up there with "the worst possible uses of public money" with "betting it all on a horse called 'Lasty'"...

I urge you all, even those who don't smoke, to light up on 9th of March. In fact, START smoking on the 9th of March. Yeah, for your health you should probably quit, as should I, but if you do it, don't do it because these dickheads tell you to, do it for you. And do it on a random, arbitrary date that isn't the 9th of March. And when you have quit, never, ever speak of it to anyone.

By the way, you can now follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Pony_and_Trap should you so wish. It's been there for a while, but I have only just started to be arsed to actually use it...