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JANE ATKINSON
Smoking kills but so does booze.. if we keep banning vices will life really be worth living?
Fast food, fizzy drinks, doughnuts and, God forbid, pizza, crisps and Sauvignon blanc could all be snatched away
FOR years it would be unusual to catch me without an Embassy Number 1 cigarette perched between my lips, or a packet of them in my bag.
It started as a teenager when I smoked out of my bedroom window, then progressed to lighting up at my desk and puffing on planes.
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I loved nothing more than being in a pub with a glass of wine in one hand and a fag in the other.
But then I got to an age where I realised it wasn’t just bad for my health but was becoming so unpopular that I had very few fellow smokers left to hang around with outside.
So I went through the gruelling process of stopping.
That involved an annoying Allen Carr book, a couple of overpriced hypnotists and a lot of nicotine gum.
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Now I am firmly addicted to normal gum and probably do more chewing than your average cow.
I wish I’d never started on that utterly addictive tobacco path.
So you would imagine that I would be totally behind PM Rishi Sunak’s new anti-smoking law, which will see the legal age for cigarette sales increasing year by year from 2027 until the point where anybody born in or after 2009 will never be able to legally buy them. But, I’m not.
Sauvignon blanc
On Tuesday in the House of Commons, 383 MPs voted in favour of the new law. But 67 voted against, and I understand why they did.
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It is not just because this is about freedom of choice.
'How dare you try to ban smoking when you drink in front of your kids!' Smoking ban debate KICKS OFF
It’s because the logic behind this new ban could lead to even more of our pleasures being taken away.
Fast-forward ten years and we could end up with more nannying health laws to prevent obesity or stop us from drinking alcohol.
Fast food, fizzy drinks, doughnuts and, God forbid, pizza, crisps and Sauvignon blanc could all be snatched away.
Because they can be almost as bad for our health as smoking.
You could argue, in some ways, they are in fact worse.
This new smoking law makes it more likely there will be pressure in the future to simply ban other vices, too
Jane Atkinson
Since 2014, obesity has contributed to more deaths here than smoking, and it costs the NHS around £6.5billion a year.
It is the second biggest preventable cause of cancer.
And once smoking is out of the way, obesity will surely take that top spot.
NHS fit to burst
Who’s to say it wouldn’t be a total ban too, rather than the staggered smoking legislation?
Stuffing our faces may not be frowned upon in the same way as smoking a dirty cigarette.
But once you accept that we should ban anything that is bad for children and costs the NHS billions, those law-makers will argue that the UK’s weight problem actually affects more of us than passive smoking.
Obesity-related illnesses are making the overstretched NHS fit to burst and lead-ing to cancelled operations, patients on trolleys in corridors and grieving families.
Let’s not forget alcohol is a killer too.
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There are now ten million people in England who regularly exceed the recommended limit of 14 units a week, putting themselves at risk of a stroke or cancer.
The answers are education and moderation.
We all have a responsibility to be sensible with our health.
But this new smoking law makes it more likely there will be pressure in the future to simply ban other vices, too.
Maybe when those excesses are banned, we will all be able to live to 110.
But will life really be worth living?
Tammy's wrong on hols
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WE are a nation of dog lovers. And I adore my pooch.
But there comes a point when we all must realise that they are animals, not humans.
Lucky charity boss Tammy Fox, who runs Pumpkin and Friends to raise awareness of disabled animals, was nominated to appear on Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway along with 410 other volunteers.
And every single special guest on the show was gifted a dream holiday courtesy of Tui.
But ungrateful Tammy has kicked off because she can’t take her paralysed dog Pumpkin, who uses a special buggy with wheels and has no bladder control, with her on the holiday because she is not an assistance dog.
Tammy whinged: “I’m angry. This is effectively discrimination against my disabled dog.
“We wouldn’t have the holiday if it wasn’t for Pumpkin so it’s only right that she comes.”
No it isn’t. Imagine being the person sitting next to the tinkling terrier for nearly five hours all the way to Tenerife. No thanks.
Old tech is crazy
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I HAVE previously admitted that my five-year old watches kids’ shows and plays games on an iPad.
But new data from regulator Ofcom shows that a quarter of five to seven-year-olds actually own their own phone.
And a shocking 30 per cent use TikTok, while 22 per cent use Instagram.
Tech firms have rightly been accused of failing to enforce age limits, but you’ve got to ask; what kind of parent actually buys their five-year-old a phone of their own and lets them use social media.
Utter madness.
Forget Beyonce and let the Good Times roll
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IF you book tickets to see a pop group like S Club who were big in the Nineties, you surely expect them to do the hits and moves they were famous for.
But “fans” who attended their Good Times reunion tour took to social media to moan that the show was like an “over-55s exercise class”, claiming the group looked “old” and whingeing about their outfits.
What do you expect? A bit of Taylor Swift music with Beyonce’s dance moves and Dua Lipa’s costumes?
This is S Club, who have always been cheesy fun.
Embrace it, enjoy it and stop moaning about it.
And, accept the fact that the band – consisting of fortysomethings Rachel Stevens, Tina Barrett, Jon Lee, Bradley McIntosh, and Jo O’Meara – are going to have the last laugh because your money is now in their bank account, not yours.
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A COFFEE shop called Shot, in London’s upmarket Mayfair, is flogging Britain’s most expensive brew at £265 a cup.
The typica beans come from the Japanese island of Okinawa, famed for the long lifespan of its inhabitants.
And I thought Starbucks was pricey. What an absolute rip-off.
Has she got no shame?
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KAREN MATTHEWS is probably one of the most evil mothers this country has ever known.
She, together with Michael Donovan, got eight years in jail for staging the 24-day disappearance of her poor daughter Shannon, who was drugged and hidden in a bed drawer at his home when she was just nine years old so they could try to pick up a £50,000 reward.
It was an utterly hideous crime, but what makes this woman truly vile is that for the past 16 years she has continued to claim she is innocent.
When it was announced on Tuesday that Donovan had died Karen’s current boyfriend – a convicted paedophile – said she was so happy that she punched the “air with glee” adding: “She’s innocent.
“It was Donovan who did the crime and kidnapped Shannon.
“She had nothing to do with it. People have got this all wrong.”
They obviously haven’t. And Karen hasn’t twigged that if she actually had a decent bone in her body she would admit her guilt so her poor daughter, who is now 25, can get some peace and move on with her new life.
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THE thought of Queen Elizabeth II chortling to herself when something in her public life went wrong is just brilliant.
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Samantha Cohen, the late Queen’s press secretary for 17 years, says Her Majesty, above, “loved it” when things went wrong and it “spiced up” her life when “a cake was not cutting” or “a plaque didn’t unveil”.
As everyone was always on their best behaviour around the Queen and everything was supposed to go without a hitch, you can imagine just how much she would have loved that bit of entertainment.