If you tell me I'm killing myself one more time...

The other day, I was having a conversation with my Dad and his mate about the smoking ban. Now, being that we were and still are all smokers, you can probably guess the lines of the conversation.

We concluded, in our infinite wisdom and through a cloud of smoke, that the smoking ban, was in fact, a load of rubbish. People will argue with this because, as we all know, smoking kills, and passive smoking can also be a killer. But, there are many reasons why it's still a load of old shit.

Take, for example, a public house. By definition, this is a house - to which the owner has invited the public to enter. If I were to have a day where, in my house in Gillingham, I opened up the door and had a sign which said; "please come in, and help yourself to a drink", I would then become a public house. Does this then mean that I cannot smoke in my own home?

This is what the smoking ban essentially does...It denies the landlord the right to smoke in his own home. Why? Because the government has made it illegal to smoke in the work place. OK, but if you worked in a pub before the smoking ban, and you didn't like the smoke, you didn't have to work there. Simples.

The point I am trying to make here is that, as a landlord has a right to refuse anyone entry to his house, the public have just as much right to refuse to enter in the first place. On the same level, the landlord should be able to decide whether people are allowed to smoke in his house.

Maybe I'm being a bit technical because pub's have licences to sell alcohol and they are somewhat different to your every day home. Instead I will mention that, up and down the country, landlords have been fined for smoking in their pub - after the doors have been locked. Effectively - once the doors are locked - it no longer becomes a pub and reverts back to being a home. So, I ask you, why are home owners being fined for smoking in their own homes?

Of course, the rules only apply to those who do not make them. In the House of Commons bar - to this day selling tax and duty free cigarettes and alcohol - you are allowed to smoke as much as you like. One rule for one etc. etc.

The ban has closed many of Britain's longest running pub's and in my opinion didn't help with the near crash of the British economy. Clubs and pub's now smell of piss, sweat and accumulated farts and I blame the government for kissing the EU's arse. They wanted us to ban smoking in public places so of course we bent over and obliged, unlike the rest of Europe who said "yeah, alright" and carried on as usual while laughing at the British idiots who actually did as they were told. Pathetic.