The mother of all controversies...

I'm ashamed to admit that I smoke, though I object to the way in which smokers have become social pariahs since the ban on lighting up in public was introduced last year.
By this time next year I hope to have given up, if only to save myself a few bob. In the mean time, I reserve the right to have a fag or two if it helps me get through the stresses and strains of the day.
However, I can't for the life of me understand why anybody who is pregnant would continue to smoke. I remember the hoo-hah when that Kate Garraway off GMTV was spotted smoking while she was expecting. Forgive me for coming over all Mary Whitehouse, but she should have known better.
Now I've been reading about a pregnant woman from Newcastle-under-Lyme who is complaining that she was fined by the council for dropping a fag end in the street.
As a smoker I'd like to sympathise, but I can't. Though I dread the thought of unintentionally torching litter bins and being had up for arson, I always stub my fag ends out and dispose of them like I would any other rubbish.
And there's just something unforgivable about a woman who is heavily pregnant continuing to smoke. We live in englightened times and everybody knows the risks, don't they?
It seems I'm not the only one who is appalled by this situation. Limara Muncey, the woman in question, presumably thought she'd win sympathy by telling her story to The Sentinel newspaper.
But it appears she didn't reckon on the outpouring of scorn that would follow on the paper's website. I'm not sure that some of the criticism is fair, but she'll no doubt be held up as a national example of all that's wrong with Britain today. There have been 37 posts from angry people so far. Take a look at Limara Muncey and her story and see what you reckon...

Walk this way...

I feel like the invisible man. First a dog walks into me. Then a man almost runs me down in his Fiat Panda.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. When I ditched my car three weeks ago, it was supposed to be the start of something special; an end to the daily stresses of commuting; a chance to swap the open road for a power walk to work.
But it's not been the life-changing, joyous experience I'd hoped for. Drivers are, by and large, an unpleasant bunch. They've got to go where they've got to go, and if you don't move, they'll take you with them (probably attached to their bumper).
Some of the roads in Stoke-on-Trent are far from a pedestrian paradise. Try crossing the A500 at 7.30am on a Monday and see who stops for you. I feel a strongly-worded letter of complaint to the council coming on... Maybe a petition... "We, the undersigned, call for a reduction in the 70mph speed limit on the A500 to allow for the installation of a Pelican crossing."
It could be much more effective than congestion charging. Bang in a Pelican every few hundreds metres and 1. drivers will get so fed up of stop-starting that they'll leave their cars at home; 2. Everybody will walk to work because they won't have to risk life and limb trying to cross the road just to get there.
No a walker's lot is not such a happy one. There's also the dog poo. And the lack of street lighting. And the bloody cyclists.
Jesus, I was a chain-smoking roadhog who needed surgically removing from my Fiat a month ago. Now I'm national spokesman of the Society For Pissed Off Pedestrians Who Have To Walk To Work Because They Can't Afford To Run A Car anymore.
Anyway, at least I can revel in somebody else's misery tonight. At the risk of burning in hell, I've just had a right laugh at a story about a Stoke City player who reckons he'll miss some big game at the weekend because he's tried to avoid tripping over his dog at home and hurt his ankle! Liam Lawrence is his name and it's all highly amusing. I wonder if it was the same bloody mutt that walked into me as I made my way home this evening...