Cigarettes & Alcohol

By: Gaby

So, what in the words of that “Oasis” classic could be more Rock n Roll than cigarettes & alcohol?

Not much really, but I’m afraid to say that this last “great” vestige of our infamous musical heritage is under threat thanks in part to the so called “do-gooders” of our society and the nanny state who have set out on a mission to curtail our civil liberties to the nth degree!

Smoking in all public places has now been banned and it has become a criminal offence to smoke in just about; well, everywhere!

No this is not just some sort of hellish vision of the future, this is real!

So here I sit at my desk in my home writing this article in what “at the moment” is one of the very few places where I can still (for the time being) light up and enjoy a fag, relax and extend my point of view.

No one is in much doubt that smoking is perhaps not the most healthy of habits, nor is it particurly socially acceptable, but when do I ask has Rock every really been about social respectability and political correctness?

Rock is about rebellion and freedom to be who and what you want to be  and it’s about having a good time, letting your hair down (providing  you still have hair to let down) and sticking a grand ole 2 fingers up to society at large.

Gone are the days when our rock heroes could bound about the stage in a plume of cigarette smoke or play a serious guitar riff whilst a cigarette is perilously poised upon their lips.

No longer will we be able to enter a smoky den of iniquity to see our favourite bands.

No longer will it be socially acceptable to have a beer in one hand and a fag in the other and no longer will it be polite to pass the cigarettes and lighter along to friends.

No my friends, these days are now at an end and with it so too is the freedom, civil liberty and non conformity that our rock culture aspires to.

Now for non smokers this must be an absolute joy not to go home after a night out without the smelly clothes, sore eyes and intake of second hand smoke. But is it?

I think the most serious thing about this whole thing is “freedom of choice”, something we have fought for for many a year and something our governments pay endless lip service to enshrining in numerous documents and declarations but alas proof of the pudding is somewhat in the eating!

These days before entering into any public space you are confronted with a bewildering array of non smoking signs ranging from the well over used non smoking symbol signs to the ever draconian “It is a criminal offence to smoke” signs and as such, like second class citizens (lepers of an earlier century) smokers are consigned to the outside of establishments in the cold and wet to huddle in small groups to partake in their noxious habit to the scorn and ridicule of the often smug faced non-smokers.

Even if I was a non-smoker there is something about this which I would find wrong and distasteful.

We are all different and the live and let live rock culture we speak of is not something that reflects our true attitudes and beliefs much anymore.

We are slowly growing into a segregated and polarised society of smokers and non smokers and the society in which we live by nature of their endless propaganda, bans and rules are depriving all of us smokers and non smokers alike to fit into their identikit visions of how we should all behave and like the good little lemmings we are we follow along and do what we are told. Does this sound like rock & roll to you?

So how much longer and to what degree will this all take us? How much longer will it be until drinking alcohol will no longer be tolerated in public spaces and even worse for how much longer will listening to loud music in public be put up with?

As a non drinker I could easily argue the point that smokers rarely get into a car after a few fags and cause an accident unlike alcohol induced drink drivers. Nor has the consumption of too many fags caused a fight unlike beer fuled fights in our high streets after closing time every weekend. Nor do the unpleasant effects of fags result in some drunken lout trying to cop off with your girlfriend. But unlike the non smoking lobby I do not advocate the elimination of alcohol from all public spaces.

But mark my words, we are only on the tip of the iceberg. Much more is yet to come.

I somehow see a nightmare future vision of signs showing a guitar with a big red line through it and which says “It is a criminal offence to play loud rock music in any public space” being plastered all across our pubs and clubs!

Long live the Rock & Roll ideal! For many of us that must surly be all it is starting to become, nothing more than an old fashioned nostalgic ideal!

For me, I think it’s time to put on my standard issue while boiler suit take my prescribed 6 blue pills and put on the volume limited sound system my government approved copy of a “Girls Aloud” CD before I head off to my mandatory weekly propaganda (oops sorry meant to say “personal development”) evening class.

On a side note, has anyone read George Orwell’s “1984”?