peteashtondotcom

One of the more bizarre aspects of the grand smoking ban is the bus shelters. I assume this is the same where you live but all of then in Birmingham now sport a sticker saying “smoking in this bus shelter is illegal”.

Which is actually incorrect. Allowing smoking in the bus shelter is illegal. If you are caught then, presumably, the transport company responsible for the shelter will be fined for not stopping you. This is how I believe it works in pubs. Smokers won’t get in trouble - landlords will for not ensuring a healthy environment for their staff and customers.

Also, the stickers have been places on all the shelters, even those which can barely be classed as “shelter” being just a wall and a roof. These, I believe, you can smoke under without getting the transport company in trouble since they are more outside than in. This is how pubs are allowed to have covered smoking areas outside by ensuring they don’t have too many walls.

I can understand why this has happened. It’s easier to just tell the teams to sticker every bus shelter than get them to judge how indoors-ey it is. But it is kinda bizarre to see.

Then there’s the advertising. “Britain goes smoke free” it claims. Except Britain won’t be going smoke free. It will still be legal to smoke, just not in enclosed public places. Private places are fine as is the outdoors (and semi-outdoors) as long as the owners allow it.

For example, I’ve noticed places like the Bull Ring banning smoking within a hundred yards or so of their doors. This they can do for the same reason they can ban dancing, begging, photography or looking like you’re going to cause trouble. They own the land. So their banning of smoking outdoors has nothing to do with the legislation at all, even though it looks like it is.

Despite being apoplectic when I first heard about the plans I’m okay with the smoke free pubs and cafes thing now. Even if I was still smoking (and, I hasten to add, I may well again) hardly any of my friends do and they don’t tend to like the smokey atmosphere. But this zealous stickering of the whole country is really odd and somewhat oppressive. Especially as the kids still smoke on the top deck of the bus despite than being “illegal” for years now.

I’ve been trying… actually that’s a lie. It hasn’t even got as far as trying.

If there’s one thing Tony Blair achieved over his 10 years it was to turn British Politics into one giant “Meh”. Which, after the fractious 80s under Le Thatch was no mean feat. (Although the transition under Major probably helped a bit).

When Thatcher left power it was an event. I was at sixth form at the time and there was literally dancing going on. Seriously. And Tory Boys in tears. No shit. When Blair stood down and Brown took over the BBC News front page did that “major news” thing where the headline takes up three columns rather than two, but it didn’t quite have the umph that a shift in the balance of power should have. I mean, the leader of one of the major economies in the world (for the time being) has changed. That should produce some kind of reaction in me, right?

It’s not helped by Gordon Brown being conspicuous in his ability to not actually say anything that might be construed as a commitment or opinion on anything vaguely controversial. He’s just this guy who counts stuff. Blair was the one with the vision thing. I’m hoping Brown will continue to just count stuff and not suddenly start going on missions to save the world, but the truth is we don’t know.

And, on the whole, don’t care.

One possible indicator of why this is comes from perusing the deeply dull news of the cabinet reshuffle. Here are a carefully selected few of the positions currently being filled in our government:

• Innovation, universities and skills
• Schools and children
• Business and enterprise
• Communities

What do these phrases mean? Okay, I know what they mean but they don’t exactly ring out with a sense of authority and purpose. They’re Quango-terms. “Innovation, universities and skills” I ask you…

So on this momentous occasion, marking ten years of Blair, which also pretty much covers a significant decade in my own life, I’m struggling to actually give a toss, caught as I am between a giant apathetic “Meh” and the inability to keep a straight face on hearing Blair is the new Middle East Peace Envoy.

[pregnant pause...]

And you expect me to take this world seriously?

Anyway, momentous historical occasion noted. Moving on…

This can’t be an coincidence. Surely not.

I’ve been not smoking for about four months now, give or take. When people talk about quitting the evil weed they always mention smell and taste. I must say I haven’t noticed taste too much but a certain smell is definitely hitting my senses. My own.

I am suddenly aware that I have a smell. And it’s very disconcerting.

It normally comes about after some kind of mild exercise, such as a bike ride or a walk to the shops. As I settle down with a cuppa I’m aware of this manly smell coming from my shoulders and it’s not a desperately nice smell. I assume I always smelt like this. I hope I always smelt like this. Do men suddenly start smelling in their mid 30s? Does everyone smell like this? I haven’t noticed it on anyone else but then I’ve only just started noticing it on myself.

And it’s not a deodorant issue - the underarms are fragrant and fine. It’s more a general… smell.

You know, this senses thing is enough to make one take up smoking again. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.

Went to see a house today. A one bedroom place. I’m thinking of trying living on my own for the first time in, well, ever I think. Always been a sharer me and it’s time to go it alone. For a bit anyway.

It’s funny, but having lived in a flat that, while it has it’s plus and minus points, is not particularly normal my expectations have shifted and I’m realizing how excruciatingly dull most of the housing is in this country. Lots of silly little boxes with silly little rooms that really don’t leave much to the imagination. So on the off chance I suddenly find myself living in country with a rather more enlightened history of house building (or a shit load of money) here’s my wants list.

• One big room. I’m not particularly good at visualising measurements but I’d guess at least 50ft in one direction should be right.
• Plumbing
• Electricty

That’ll do for the basics. I’ll then build some walls and fill it with stuff.

Other factors to be taken into consideration:

• 2nd story or about. I’d like to be able to walk around naked with the curtains open. Call me unreasonably liberated.
• Walkable distance into town. Not stuck in the middle of bloody nowhere.

Actually, I know exactly what I want, though you’ll need to be of a certain age to remember this. Back in the 1980s there was an advert that’s stuck with me ever since. It was from Halifax and was pushing the then revolutionary concept of the ATM machine, whereby you could get money at any time of the day or night. This was graphically explained by having a chap wake up on a Sunday morning (as indicated by the song Easy Like Sunday Morning) in his loft apartment, opening the shutters and being greeted by his cat. He goes to the fridge and discovers he has no milk. What to do? Poor kitty have no milk! But wait! He has a piece of plastic! All is saved. Kitty has milk and he can sit contentedly in the window of his open plan warehouse conversion and drink his presumably poncy coffee and watch the sun rise.

That’s where I want to live. Always have. Despite all my latterly acquired media literacy and cynicism I’ve always had that piece of aspirational nonsense in my head.

The Bournville Flat got close to that, not physically but in the sense that it isn’t laid out in a normal way so it doesn’t feel like another bloody box. It felt / feels (tenses are so tricky when you’re in the process of moving) like a special place. So as I’m checking out these houses and flats I really have to hide my disappointment that, like 99% of the post-war buildings in this country and a significant number from before, they’re really not what I’m looking for.

Ever onwards.

Without going into tedious details, the house I was planning to move into in Harborne is no longer being rented so I’m back to looking for somewhere to live again. As soon as possible really.

As before, somewhere in the south Birmingham stretch from Moseley to Bearwood would be nice. Ideally around £200-250 pcm before bills and preferably not through a rip-off agency.

If you hear of anything good do let me know.

[Update: Solved using this bunch of info. Suffice to say it's not as complicated as it's made out to be.]

So I’ve been using Wordpress for the last few months and I have to say I’m impressed, mainly because it makes writing and managing the weblog much easier. And, of course, having said I was moving to Wordpress to stop me tinkering with web design I’m finding myself in a position where I need to build a site, and I’m probably going to build it with Wordpress.

One of the big differences between free open source software like Wordpress and commercial software like Movable Type is documentation. When you’re selling something then you really have to explain how it works. When you’re not then you can just plough on with improving the thing (although that’s sometimes debatable - what’s the advantage of merging blog and link categories? And where has my preview box gone?) without worrying about teaching people how to fiddle with the innards.

Case in point. The new blog will have two columns on the main page. There’ll be a standard blog with longer entries and a linklog thing with shorter ones. I want to run this off the same blog with two categories, lets call them “long” and “short”.

In Movable Type I’d do something like this:

It really couldn’t be much simpler.

Now I’ve been searching through the Wordpress Codex and I can’t for the life of me find anything that might lead me to this result. I’m guessing what I need are two Loops, but maybe I can do it with one? And how do a limit it to one category?

I’m not bitching here. I appreciate that the reason Movable Type’s tags are so simple is because you can only do specific things with them whereas with the right PHP knowledge you can probably do pretty much anything with Wordpress. It would just be nice if there was a consistency and logic to the way it’s documented.

So, can anyone help me out here?

See you there?