Law of Passivity.

Now no one can accuse me of being sour. We put lard-coated bread out for the local wild life, otherwise known a bird bait by our four cats. (It may seem strange mice owning cats, but lets face it Jerry always had the upper hand) I even deleted my last blog entry on the grounds of being overly nasty towards a perfectly nice man who just happens to like the sound of his own voice. Well actually on the grounds of the pot calling the kettle black, but none the less. But from time to time something crops up that dents even my boundless optimism. Fifteen minutes ago in the car returning from Sainburys I heard a new phrase on the news. ‘Passive drinking.’ Yes we are now a nation of passive drinkers as well as passive smokers. I tried to conjure in my mind what this might mean. Should one not go slack jawed into pubs in case one’s open mouth catches inadvertent spillages? Can one absorb vodka through the skin or get drunk on the fumes from Newcastle Brown? No. Remember that or countries laws are designed to stop us doing unsavoury things unto others. We cannot condemn smokers for smoking, that’s far too illiberal, but if a passing other should catch his breath on our exhaust cloud we can be enthusiastically reviled; just as the Gegemoths of Jamouselem were smote unto their deaths by the Samarites of Ratstepol. So now binge drinkers, though they cannot be condemned for drinking, and thus ruining their lives, liver, driving licence and job prospects, can be condemned for offending the ears of others with foul language, puking on cats and fighting in taxi queues. This, it turns out, is the meaning of passive drinking. And now we have passive drinking we can have a law against drinking, the clear and indisputable cause of passive drinking. If we ever do have a flue epidemic there will no doubt be a law against passive breathing that stipulates no two people are permitted to breath when less than five feet from each other; a law that, if nothing else, will mitigate the effects of over population.