Great bore of the week
Saturday, April 20, 2019 at 8:46 Great Bores of Today was a long-running cartoon in Private Eye.
It was created by Michael Heath who provided the illustration while other contributors supplied the text.
Great Bores were highly opinionated and delivered their thoughts in the form of a rambling, rather breathless, commentary. (There was never any punctuation.)
I was reminded of Heath’s invention when I received this unsolicited email the other day. I reproduce it below, unedited:
Hi, just heard simon clark earlier this week talking to graham liver on bbc radio morning programme....what a load of clap trap he went on about...I lost my dad a few years ago, he was in the royal blackburn hospital, I got a call at 3 am to ask me to go up with my mum..out side it was freeing and there was a guy in a pyjama top only, with his arm connected to a drip on a trolley, drinking from a can of lager and smoking away freely in a non smoking part of the hospital..he was there for app. 1 hour whilst we were with my dad on the ward...when we left he was just going back to his ward, nor right hygenic taking a drip back to a ward from outside, stinking of smoke and drink...there are staff doing this dirty habit even on hospital grounds, I WOULD NOT EVEN TREAT ANY 1 WHO SMOKES for any health condition connected to smoking, ide ust leave em and let them cough there guts up in agony...it would save the health service billions of pounds every year....I got told that you didn't smoke ure self, I don't know how true this is ..non of my family have this dirty disgusting habit that you defend as ok...you sound a sad little old man to me...I bet even staff at ure place smoke in places at work they aren't ment to do ? look forward to ure reply, graham.non smoker...
Nurse!
Reader Comments (5)
Reply to Graham.
" I WOULD NOT EVEN TREAT ANY 1 WHO SMOKES...it would save the health service billions of pounds every year".
Do you kmow how much in tabacco tax goes to the NHS?..Thought not. I'll give you a clue, more than costs to treat so called smoking related conditions!
If you have your way on this can I have all the tabacco tax I've paid down the years back please?
"You sound a sad little old man to me"
There's only sad little old man here and it's not Simon!
And of course this obsessive who thinks he is the only person entitled to grieve the loss of a loved one, could be making the whole thing up. Strange though isn't it? The most rabid smokerphobic comes across as thick as shit. To be fair though, to believe all the antismoker bullshit, one has to be incapable of critical thinking and lack an ounce of simple common sense.
"he was there for app. 1 hour "
An hour? Wow! That's what I call a long smoke. Especially when it was "freeing" outside and the poor bloke was only "in a pyjama top!" Wot!? No pyjama bottoms? Now, that would frighten the children! I suspect that in an hour outside in just a pyjama top he’d have more bits of his anatomy to worry about in all the “freeing” cold than what a cigarette might or might not be doing to his insides. Goodness me – hospitals will be banning people from walking outside in just their pyjama tops next. I can just see the signs now: “Patients sneaking outside for a swift smoke must ensure that they are properly attired – by order of the Management.”
This sad representation of hate and bigotry is all too common. This antismoker hate speech ignores the actual multifaceted causes of so-called 'smoking-related' diseases (and ignores that all of these diseases affect non-smoker as well). In addition, it is devoid of compassion (as one would expect from a bigot expounding hate).
What a vile, over-opinionated but under-educated excuse for a human being!
Due to their advanced Alzheimers and a range of physical illnesses, my parents and I are frequent flyers at the island's major hospital. It's become something of a joke that as you pass in or out of the main entrance, you'll find patients, nurses, ambulance crew and even security guards congregating for a calming fag just outside, by the No Smoking sign.
While patients and relatives have quite rightly complained about various inadequacies in hospital services, not one has ever, ever complained about the practice. As far as I or my parents (like me, lifetime non-smokers) are concerned, if the over-worked, under-paid, ever-patient, supportive staff who have just saved them - yet again - from pain and possible death wish to chill out with a soothing cigarette they are welcome to it.
Whatever it takes to keep them going - because they sure as hell aren't getting practical help from policies resulting from the numerous and costly public health surveys and reports.