BEYOND A SMOKE!

THERE are growing signs that Spain’s long-overdue legislation to curb the fag brigade is going up in smoke. 

 I suspected at the time the anti-smoking laws were tightened in January 2011 that tobacco-obsessed Spaniards would not observe it.

And I’ve also been horrified recently that some Brits seem happy to risk a fine of up to €600,000 (as well as a horrendous death) by either smoking illegally themselves – or, in the case of some bar and business owners,  allowing people to light up in enclosed bars, restaurants and even offices.

Clearly these people are playing with fire - both literally and metaphorically. They don’t seem to realise it only takes one puffed-off colleague or customer to turn them in...and they could be relieved of every cent they own. At least, that’s what the law says.

Realistically, we all know that the Spanish police and bureaucrats are about as straight as Julian Clary and Alan Carr pairing up with the Kray twins on Strictly Kill Dancing. And since the protectors of the state smoke just as heavily as its citizens, the words ‘nudge nudge, wink wink, puff puff’ come to mind.

Last weekend, a friend and I sat in the glass-fronted dining area of an upmarket, sea-front restaurant (I’m not saying where) and ordered a late lunch.  Since the pullback roof was closed, we naturally we assumed the area was non-smoking. Until, that is, we noticed ashtrays on the tables.

To add fire to the fuel, three members of a loud, ignorant  group of Spaniards proceeded to manipulate a suspicious-looking substance into a trio of pathetically thin roll-ups and to set them alight.

Within seconds, my pal and I were being passively poisoned via noise and nostrils combined.

“How come you allow smoking?’’ I asked a waiter. ‘’The room is closed in.’’

‘‘It is permitted for people to smoke,’’ he countered, pointing to a tiny gap between the slats of the removable roof. (Well, he indicated a gap – though I couldn’t actually see it). “We have ventilation and air conditioning, so it is not a problem.’’

Now, either I have got it all wrong, or the law brought in on January 2, 2011, banned smoking in enclosed public  places. In bars and restaurants the exception was to be establishments with a maximum of two walls or without a roof.

Since diners in this particular restaurant are visible to every passer-by, I can only assume that the police choose to ignore a seemingly blatant flouting of the law. Or maybe there’s some obscure small print which frees the restaurant management of compliance?

There is, of course, another possibility…but I wouldn’t dream of suggesting anyone in Spain is corrupt.

Non-observance of the law is even worse in some places. A few days ago, for instance, a non-smoking friend went into a  local Spanish bar for an early-morning coffee and was greeted by the sight of two Guardia Civil officers smoking away next to people eating breakfast.

“It goes on all the time,’’ my pal assured me, adding: “Personally, I wish smoking was allowed in set smoking areas in bars but not in restaurants or eating areas.’’

Sounds to me like they don’t need a law for that...they’ve designated the smoking bit already.

So much for the Spanish - what about the Brits who tell the legislators to go to blazes? The people who would not dare to defy the law in the UK, but seem to think it’s OK to bend the rules in Spain?

One publican admitted to me that when it’s cold, he takes a chance in the evenings by allowing smoking in the closed-in extension to his bar near Torrevieja.

“I know I’m taking a risk,’’ he said. “But my customers want to smoke and I don’t want to send them out into the road.’’

On the contrary, I could give him 600,000 reasons why he SHOULD send them out into the road.

I’m even more amazed by the smoker who lights up regularly in the open-plan office in which he works, just yards from his non-smoking boss and the entrance door.

Since smoke rises, the fumes drift to the office upstairs, not that the fumador is bothered. His defiance, despite the fact that the office’s few other addicts go outside to indulge their habit, astounds me as much as the fact that no one has made an issue of it. At least, not yet.

I just hope the person concerned sees the light before the law moves in. Or, worst-case scenario, a misplaced dog-end sets fire to the building and his boss suffers a fate worse than debt.

WHY DO ENGLISH ROADS

ALL  LEAD TO GROAN...?

IT can only happen in England – and predictably, it did.

A rare venture onto a motorway  during my three-week stay with my family in Manchester...and I spend seven hours crawling less than 200 miles down the M6 and M5.

Yes, the MDM struck again, just as it does every time I visit the UK. I’m talking about what is clearly a government order to the Maximum Disruption of Motorists department to cause drivers as much stress as possible through traffic delays.

I do as little driving as possible when I’m in England. It’s a pleasure to tootle around the Costa Blanca in my little Kia  Picanto because traffic jams, diversions and road closures are as rare as a Manchester football team losing a Premier League match.

But while it takes me ten minutes to travel 10km from my home to the Courier office at any time of day, driving the same distance across Manchester is a good hour’s toil, thanks to heavy traffic, copious sets of traffic lights and random holes dug in the tarmac and dubiously titled  ‘road works’.

I arrived in Manchester way behind schedule  on the evening of December 16 - thanks to a morning snowstorm in Lancashire which delayed the departure of my flight from Murcia by five hours. After a quick visit to see my newly-born grandson at Stockport’s Stepping Hill Hospital, my son-in-law attempted to drive me back to North Manchester  via the M60 motorway, which encircles the city.

We were trying to travel anticlockwise from five o’clock up to to midnight but  when we got to roughly 4 o’clock, damn it, the motorway suddenly came to an end. Flashing lights and diversion signs told us the M60 was closed anticlockwise. No reason...just  a loopy re-route that took us back onto the clockwise carriageway.

So 20 minutes of the orbital clock became 40 minutes in reverse. Thanks guys, maybe in 100 years’ time you’ll reveal the reason why it’s necessary to shut down major motorways, just like that, with no explanatory notice, and force thousands of motorists to make 30-mile detours.

A five-minute lesson from the Spanish roads authority might be a good idea. They have this outrageous idea that you should keep major roads open at all times. Yes, even after a major incident involving the loss of life, they actually try to AVOID shutting down the road for a week? Or even a couple of hours!

Then, two days after Christmas, I set off in my daughter’s Rav 4 to visit my stepmother in Cardiff, accompanied by my two young granddaughters Talia and Daisy. ‘’There won’t be a lot of traffic,’’ insisted my son-in-law. ‘’Everyone is still on holiday.’’

So off we headed at 11am for what in the past has normally been a three-and-a-half hour drive - though admittedly I had tended to travel after the evening rush hour.

Four hours after leaving Manchester, we pulled out of  tha near-stationary 60-mile queue on the M6 and into Stafford services, hoping to find some sort of guide to the traffic ahead. A TV screen with a bold caption reading ‘Live Traffic Information’  told us precisely nothing about the gridlocked traffic ahead or behind – because the monitor was unplugged. The Highways Agency weren’t any help, either   – because we couldn’t find anyone working for them. 

Presumably because, like much of Britain’s 21st-century workforce, they were on their 14-day Christmas break.

As it happens, the queues did ease soon after we left Stafford services and crawled past  junction 14.  For the previous 30 miles overhead signs had been flashing regularly warning of ‘Long Delays, Junctions 14-12’. It was inevitable there would be no delays whatsoever between those two junctions...and of course, there weren’t any.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO

THE GUY ON THE BONFIRE?

 I BLAME it on the Americans. In fact, I blame everything on the Americans - they are big enough to take it. Even the ones who weigh less than 20 stone.

I’m talking about the over-the-top Halloween hoo-ha that has whooped its way into Britain...and all but killed off one of the nation’s most treasured occasions.

When I was a child, Guy Fawkes Night was one of the biggest days of the year. A tradition marking the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, it commemorated a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics. The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament - something I doubt many British 10-year-olds these days know anything about.

They are more concerned with Halloween, where they are free to frighten the lives out of  old ladies by donning ­horrific masks and demanding sweets with menaces.

I wonder what you get if you ask for a ‘trick’ rather than a ‘treat’? Does one of the little demons remove his mask and turn out to be Paul Daniels?

To me, the Guy Fawkes culture of my youth was so much more embracing.

For days, even weeks before the event, we’d go from door to door with makeshift effigies of Fawkes and implore householders to give us ‘a penny for the Guy’.

Then, as darkness fell on November 5, the neighbourhood would gather for a fireworks spectacular in which Guys galore would go up in smoke on top of a massive communal bonfire.

How that delightful tradition came to be usurped by the hideous ‘trick or treat’ culture, I do not know.

I believe Halloween has Celtic origins and was originally a pagan holiday in honour of the dead. But I honestly cannot remember anyone celebrating it when I was young.

We may have started it - but as with everything else, the world has pinged it back in our faces with interest.

But I yearn for my grandchildren to enjoy the atmosphere of Guy Fawkes Night as I did half a century ago.

November 5 has a special place in my heart.

And nobody will convince me that the Halloween takeover was not a devious plot by those over-the-top, razzamatazz Americans.

HOLLYWOOD HAS GOTTEN

TO BURGLARIZE ENGLISH!

THERE used to be a language called English – until it was murdered by our so-called friends across the Pond.

And the thing that saddens me most is that we’ve wilted like wimps under a growing bombardment of ridiculous Americanisms.

‘’Can I GET a burger and chips,’’ has become the staple way of ordering food for just about every young Brit under the age of 25. I’m still waiting to see someone actually do what they say…and march into the restaurant kitchen to collect their grub.

Then there’s the curse of having to watch TV show hosts inanely urging British audiences, not to applaud, but to ‘’give it up’’ for some Z-list guest who’s incapable of  generating spontaneous appreciation.

Give up what? Pandering to Hollywood 'movie' culture by using American-speak at every opportunity? Far better they give up the ridiculous posturing rap culture that’s become the ‘in’ thing among certain segments of British society. Sometimes with extremely negative consequences - innit?

I honestly believe that English as we know will disappear within a couple of generations, submerged under the tsunami of American influence on our young people. Television, computer games, electronic gadgets, all sorts of technology – everything seems to emanate from the other side of the Atlantic these days. And as for American films (the real word for ‘movies’, remember?), I doubt I understand even half of the obscenity-filled soundtracks these days.

The English language is certainly not what it was 50 years ago.

Back in the 1960s, Britain was king. The Beatles ruled the music world, England were world football champions – and the Commonwealth still encompassed half the planet.

Then, slowly but surely, the meticulous grammar that people like myself were taught in school began to be Yanked away. It has since been regurgitated in American-speak with Britain’s younger generation happily swallowing the new version as if it was a ‘cookie’. And that takes the biscuit.

It seems that English kids today are so weak-willed that they can’t fight off their absorption into 21st century America. Because, believe me, they are being sucked in relentlessly to the point that they actually seem to think McDonalds is proper food and that Starbucks make decent coffee.

We’ve already seen it with Halloween, which was not even celebrated in the UK in my childhood. Guy Fawkes Night was the big one – everything went into making the best ‘Guy’ for November 5, because it guaranteed richer pickings from our door-to-door ‘Penny For the Guy’ collections.

These days, householders are pestered by a horde of masked midgets demanding sweets (or should that be ‘candy’?). With menaces, too. Presumably the sweets are the treat –but what happens if you opt for ‘trick’? Does one of the midgets’ masks comes off and reveal Paul Daniels? Horror of horrors!

But back to the English language. As a professional wordsmith, I have to deal every day with the trimmings of the American Revolution. I am increasingly seeing words like ‘organisation’ and ‘realise’ spelt with a Z; rather than an S. Indeed, the spellcheck on my computer, which is set to ‘ENGLISH English’, perpetually tries to ‘correct’ the spelling to the American style.

We can do nothing about the Yanks nicking our language and changing the rules (just as they did when they pinched the game of rugby, turned the participants into bouncy castles, and called it American Football).

But for heaven’s sake, let’s vow NEVER to allow words like ‘burglarize’, ‘gotten’ and ‘’winningest’ to creep into our everyday speech.

Even if that means stepping up to the plate and doing math in the parking lot.

GIVE US OUR HUMAN RIGHTS -

AND BRING BACK THE CANE

WHEN I was in junior school, I was petrified of the cane in Mr Coleman’s study. He was the headmaster - and the only teacher allowed to dish out corporal punishment.  And I worked hard to make sure I never crossed him, or any other teacher for that matter.

Only once was I marched to Mr Coleman’s study...for stupidly lobbing a lump of coal onto the playground. Don’t ask me where the coal came from because I haven’t a clue. Mind you, this was in South Wales and at the time I was a minor!
 

 YOU'RE TAKING THE MICKEY, MICKY!

MY opinion of Ryanair has always been consistent. I wouldn’t touch them with an air bridge.

Michael O’Leary’s methods of making money do work – but at the expense of rubbing an awful lot of people up the wrong way. Including me.

What some people don’t realise is that Ripoff-air’s seemingly low prices are heavily subsidised by those poor people who HAVE to make emergency late bookings for unforeseen emergencies like family bereavements.

And by the millions of families who cannot take vacations off-peak and are forced to pay silly prices to travel during school holiday periods.

My daughter Lisa has just been lumbered with just such a situation – and ended up paying a fortune for a ONE-WAY Ryanair ticket from Alicante to Liverpool for her 15-year-old daughter Talia. Plus heaven knows how much more in £1-per-minute Premium Rate phone calls to verify details with arguably the most elusive customer call centre on the planet.

Talia was away with her school in Holland when Lisa and the rest of the family flew out to my place in Spain last week. So she travelled with me on my return from the UK on Monday – on a single Monarch ticket which cost a total of £54.48, including all taxes plus a suitcase. That reservation was made on July 29 – just three weeks before the date of travel.

A very fair price in the peak season, by anyone’s standards.

However, since Talia is 15, she is not allowed to travel alone, so the only way of getting her back to the UK in time for the new school term was to add her to her mother’s party. And they are booked on Ryanair’s Alicante to Liverpool run next Monday.

I had tried to make Talia’s reservation while I was in England, but Ryanair’s online booking service, unaware that she would be on the same flight as her mother, predictably rejected the booking with a message that under-16s cannot travel alone.

The only option remaining was for Lisa to add Talia to her travelling party herself, which she eventually managed to do – but by now it was only10 days before the date of travel.

Enter Michael Skybandit O’Leary and his rip-off boys, rubbing their hands with glee.

What would be a fair price to pay for a one-way ticket from Alicante to Liverpool in late August? The £54.48 charged by Monarch? No, that would be incredibly cheap. Say100 euros, then – 120 top whack?

No chance. For the pleasure of travelling one way from Alicante to Liverpool, with absolutely no frills, Lisa was fleeced for 228.99 euros – or £212.84 sterling at Ryanair’s. A predictably miserable exchange rate.

And still the expense was not over, because Talia had to be booked as an Adult to circumvent the system – and Lisa then had to call the Rip-offair office to switch the documentation to Child.

That in itself took three days, which won’t surprise most of you.

Ripoff-air even managed to include a €6 administration fee – presumably for the extra work involved in counting the money. Plus another €6 for web check-in. Does that mean Talia can check in for free at the airport…before Ripoff-airs jobsworths tell her she can’t take her hand luggage on board because the bag is 4mm too wide?

Ryanair’s sharp practices are not even clever. ‘‘Passengers who do not present a boarding pass at the airport will be charged a reissue fee of £40’’, they warn. Forty pounds! How much does it cost Ryanair to print a piece of paper, for heaven’s sake.

Oh, and each boarding pass ‘‘’must be printed and presented on an individual A4 page’’. Get it wrong and it’s gonna cost you again but then, when do O’Leary’s boys NOT take the Micky?

A Cork-based friend of mine travels to Alicante with Ryanair because has no other option. And he reckons their attitude is not one of gratitude for his business but that THEY are doing HIM a favour in providing a service.

Another friend’s experience last year suggests that Ryanair should consider adopting the expression ‘The Customer is Always Wrong’ as their official slogan.

My pal Andres Ballesteros, whose English is adequate but not perfect, paid on line for a return ticket from Liverpool to Alicante for his UK-based son – only to realise almost immediately that he had booked the flights back to front.

It was clearly a genuine mistake but Andres, who lives in El Altet, accepted he’d have to fork out another 20 euros or so to have the dates reversed. But when he phoned Ryanair’s call centre, a dismissive female operator told him haughtily: ‘‘It’s your mistake. You’ll just have to pay again’’.

Consequently, poor Andres had to rebook both flights, more than doubling the cost and adding a tasty bonus to O’Leary’s greed machine. World’s Most Popular Airline? World’s Least Caring Airline more likely.

Lisa reckons Ryanair have made a total of around £250 out of Talia’s single fare. No frills? At that price, my granddaughter should be getting all the frills of every inflated fare O’Leary has pocketed all summer.

PS: I just took a look at Monarch’s website in order to make a direct comparison with Ryanair – and guess what? A one-way ticket from Alicante to Manchester on Monday (August 29) would cost me €420.50! I stand corrected – it seems that when it comes to holiday time, the fly-boys are all as bad as each other.

Published in The Courier (www.thecourier.es) August 26, 2011

THE TWO FACES OF

DOORSTEP CHARITY 

I’VE never been sure what the Spanish law is regarding door-to-door charity collections.

On one hand I’m told it’s illegal, and that the people who ring my bell trying to raise money for a new school/hospice/orphanage/public toilet are in fact bogus.

On the other hand, you have those charity callers whose impressive documentation .and smooth tongue convinces you they are for real.

‘’Don’t give money to anyone collecting at the door,’’ is the clear message from both my community president and the local Neighbourhood Watch. ‘‘The odds are that they are not genuine.’’

Well, for the last two or three years, this cheerful-looking Spanish guy in his 40s, lways armed with identity card, badge, documents and flyers galore, has been doing his best to squeeze euros out of the expat community around my home.

Some people give, some don’t. And I admit he’s sweet-talked me into parting with a few euros in the past.

Weapon

But that was before I became Editor of The Courier – and in fact, before this newspaper even came into existence.

This time I was armed with a powerful new weapon and II plotted a scheme that would make or break him next time he came calling..

I would to tell him I was writing an article on residents being pestered by bogus charity collectors. I wanted take his photograph and put it in The Courier, at the same time confirming to readers that he was no Luis the Ladrón and represented a genuine cause.

I figured that an honest collector would agree instantly to being photographed since it would surely improve hisreturns…while an imposter would run a mile.

I was in the garden when he turned up in mid-afternoon a couple of weeks ago.

‘Hola senora, you Engleesh?’’

He clearly didn’t remember me – not that I wanted him to.

‘’Yes, I want to speak to you,’’ I replied in Spanish, going straight on the attack as he pulled his documents out of his briefcase.

I reeled off my proposal (well, hardly reeled it off – my Spanish isn’t particularly good) and then mentioned taking his photo.

He did not like the idea. In fact, it horrified him. ‘No photograph!’’ he snapped, quickly putting his papers back in his briefcase. ‘‘Definitely not. It is illegal to take photos in Spain.’’

‘‘It’s illegal to collect money door to door in Spain, more likely,’’ I retorted, uncertain whether this was in fact true.

With that, he thrust the leaflet alongside into my hand and stalked off to accost another potential victim.

The following day a respectable looking woman aged about 30 appeared at the front gate and began the charity sales talk. Or so I thought.

‘‘I’m sorry but there’s a great suspicion of charity collectors around here,’’ I said, lining up another photographic session. ‘‘People think you are not genuine.’’

‘‘Charity? I’m not collecting for charity, cariño,’’ she retorted indignantly. ‘‘I’m collecting for ME. For me and my family.’’

There followed a party political broadcast on behalf of Spain’s unemployed masses. She told me she had lost her job, her husband was out of work and his dole had been stopped, and they had three kids to feed.

How else could she support them than by calling on the generosity of more affluent people?

I know she could have been conning. But if she was, she deserved the €10 I gave her just for her acting skills.

Genuine or not, her face lit up at the sight of the money and she couldn’t thank me or hug me enough. ‘‘This will pay the lighting bill tomorrow, carino. I’m so happy.’’

And off she went with a parting shot. ‘‘Watch out for those charity collectors. You never know if their genuine.’’

WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE

TALKING of uninvited callers, I got into conversation the other day with two very nice ladies about…the end of the world.

Yes, they were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Now although I am not a Chrstian, I have never been one of those ‘we’re not interested – clear off’ types.

Indeed, apart from the fact that they are invariably humble, gentle people, I have the greatest admiration for the courage of Witnesses in the face of adversity.

Namely the antagonism of so many people who resent their intrusion. It’s all very well to turn them away politely but firmly, but verbal aggression and rudeness is not necessary.

I'd also like to clear up one or two misconceptions about Jehovah’s Witnesses. First of all, they are neither crazy nor any more deluded than followers of any other religious order. Indeed, to me their message rings truer than most.

The mess that mankind has got the world into needs sorting urgently – and who better to handle it than Big G himself? And soon!

I would never have the courage or dedication to become a Witness. But I do wish I could truly BELIEVE because it immediately takes all the fear out of dying

‘‘I bet you get a lot more abuse than friendliness when you knock on doors,’’ I said to my visitors. ‘‘You are so brave to carry on despite all the resentment.’’

‘‘The strength to go on doesn’t come from us – but from Jehovah,’’ they replied.

I come from Jewish roots, but as a lifelong agnostic, I have spent my entire life wondering what existence is all about.

But there has to be more to it than eating, drinking and making a nuisance of ourselves.

Jehovah’s Witness literature often portrays their idea of the Paradise awaiting believers.

We see images of Mum, Dad and smiling kids strolling and playing in a sunny Garden of Eden, their pets – including lions and tigers – sitting obediently at their feet.

Beat you to it, guys. I’m in Paradise every time I sit in my sunny garden, full of glorious summer colour, with one purring moggy on my lap and another at my side.

In this life, that’s as good as it gets for me. It almost makes my chronic backache worthwhile…

Published in The Courier (www.thecourier.es) July 22, 2011

THERE'S NOWT SO
QUEER AS SMOKE

I HAVE two pet hates in life, as everyone who knows me is aware. I hate onions - and I can’t stand inconsiderate smokers.

In fact, my worst nightmare is the thought of being accosted by someone smoking an onion.

I wish the obnoxious things had never been put on this earth – or left under it to be more accurate.

Apart from the runny-eye aspect, raw onions are obscenely pungent. And as for the taste…better move on before I’m sick. Literally.

The thing is, it’s relatively easy to avoid the smell of onions – unless someone rams one in your face, of course. No such luck with the cancer-stick brigade, though.

Maybe it’s their way of fighting back at those who cast them out into the winter cold. But I’m getting the distinct aroma of déjà vu this summer.
Back in England a few years ago, I used to rail about inconsiderate smokers (which was just about all of them) lighting up on the next table as I was about to tuck into my juicy  steak.

I dared not complain because they were perfectly entitled to pollute my clothes and lungs and ruin my evening. So I stopped going to restaurants.
Come July 1, 2007, I was in heaven. Smoking was banned in public places - and I could at last dine out in the knowledge that any sick saddie who couldn’t do without a roll-up for the time it takes to eat three courses had no option but to leave the room. And the building.

However, when I moved to Spain, it was back to square one. Square zero, even -because smoking is to the Spanish what beer, tattoos and pot bellies are to British holidaymakers.

Which is one of the reasons I wrote a piece just before the January smoking ban predicting that while expats would abide by the rules, the natives would find a way round it because it was part of their culture.

I had the impression that smoking 50 Señor Service Extra Pungent a day was compulsory for every Spaniard over the age of 16 – particularly the girls.
I also thought it was a miracle the country isn’t permanently shrouded in smog.

My belief the ban would not work was based on the fact that whilst British smokers are used to being persecuted, the idea of not lighting up, particularly in their favourite bar, is to the average Spaniard unthinkable.

Which is why I’m astounded the Madrid government’s legislation seems to be working in these parts.

Of course, the January embargo came as a godsend to anti-smoking fanatics like myself.

At last we were in a little England where smokers would shiver outside while the clean-living dined unmolested in our favourite restaurant.

No more scouring tables before sitting down for giveaway ciggy packets  – always a sure sign that you’d  be choking within a few minutes.

But of course, we knew that come summer, it would be déjà vu and back to the days when I stopped eating out in the UK.

Now, once again, smokers are free to put al fresco diners in a Catch 22 situation (i.e. ‘be a passive pal and help me smoke my cigarette - or take your clear air somewhere else’).

Unless I choose to bake inside a sweltering restaurant and miss out on the joys of outdoor dining, the Choker Jokers are going to get me.
OK, I know most eateries have air conditioning, but who wants to sit indoors on a glorious summer’s evening?

Last week, I dined with friends in the pretty setting of La Herradura restaurant in Los Montesinos.
Inside, no smoking of course - and no diners either. It was far too hot.

Outside, it was choc-a-bloc with dozens of tables, covered with pristine white tablecloths, arranged close together to accommodate as many diners as possible.

The whole scenario was a non-smoker’s nightmare with the message to the nicotine brigade, ‘light up when you like’, regardless of that woman about to consume her carpaccio of prawns starter two feet away.

Now I know that smoking in the open air is perfectly legal. But do restaurateurs not realise that  most of their customers DO NOT enjoy their steaks drizzled with tobacco-smoke sauce?

Surely it’s the simplest thing to set up separate smoking and non-smoking areas, just as I remember in the days before the legislators first moved in. The only difference is that they need to do it OUT-DOORS.

It really is déjà vu. And it’s happening all over again.

LIFE FOR BELLFIELD

IS ROTTEN JUSTICE

WHEN it comes to the legal system in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, there’s not much I agree with. Come to think of it, I’m not overkeen on anything else about the two regimes, either.

Not that the citizens of those esteemed democracies (I’m joking) have much say in what’s going on.

But just how democratic are countries like the UK and Spain? Do Brits really have a say in everything that matters – particularly when it involves contentious issues where government and public opinion are at odds?

Like bringing back the death penalty.

Successive governments have known from their research that a national referendum on the return of capital punishment for predatorial killers like Levi Bellfield would produce a massive ‘hang the scum’ vote.

And that’s where the British system ceases to be democratic. Because David Cameron’s government, like the Brown, Blair, Major and Thatcher regimes before them, think they know better than the voters.

So Bellfield will merely spend his life in jail at our expense. My heart bled for his victim Millie Dowler’s family in their understandable rage following Bellfield’s conviction.

‘‘In my eyes, justice is an eye for an eye,’’ said Millie’s sister Gemma. ‘‘You brutally murder someone then you pay the ultimate price ...a life for a life. So in my eyes no real justice has been done’’.

And so say the vast majority of those who think political correctness sucks. Which is just about everyone I know!

Gemma made it abundantly clear that she wanted Bellfield six feet under.

But however desirable that may be, it would not politically correct. Because it would impinge on Bellfield’s human rights.

Human rights? Since when are vermin like Bellfield (pictured right) human? And let’s not call him an animal because, unlike him, no animal is innately evil. Ask the average Brit and at least 75 per cent will say this particular piece of filth has lost its right to live.

Likewise, the likes of Ian Brady, Myra Hindley, Ian Huntley and Harold Shipman should have been executed as soon as they were convicted. It’s all very well for the Lord Longfords of this world to cry out at the lynch-mob mentality of the masses, but public opinion still seems to favour the Old Testament philosophy of an eye for an eye.

It may be PC to take the New Testament route and turn the other cheek - but if it leads to being whacked twice as hard, what’s the point?

I took a straw poll among friends the other day and whilst a majority favoured bringing back the death penalty, the one proviso everyone demanded was that guilt must be established, not beyond reasonable doubt as in the past, but beyond ALL doubt.

I would also confine the ultimate penalty to murders involving premeditated evil – which would exclude crimes of passion.

Isn’t it ironic that bringing back capital punishment is so popular with those who remember, not only the heinous crimes of the Crippins and Christies, but also the horrendous mistakes when convicted ‘murderers’ were hanged and then found to be totally innocent?

Discussing this topic is, of course, largely pointless, because Britain will never restore the death penalty. Neither will Spain, which in 2009 became one of the last nations in Europe to dismantle its gallows completely.

Indeed, the death penalty remains in only two of Europe’s 50 nations, Latvia and Belarus. And the Latvians retain it only for crimes during wartime.
I’m no fan of the gung-ho Americans, but at least they listen to the people (even to the point of electing an idiot like George W Bush and half-destroying the world as a consequence).

The Yanks executed 47 murderers last year with Texas the most prolific and enthusiastic state. The problem is that our friends across the Pond often fail to understand the difference between a life sentence and a death sentence.

I mean, serving 20 years on death row and THEN being hanged is a bit steep.

But even 20 eyes for an eye would be too lenient a punishment for the likes of Levi Bellfield.

 Published in The Courier (www.thecourier.es), July 1, 2011