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Small, concise and to the point! Definitly worth a read! Great stuff! :)

http://www.metronews.co.uk/columnist/

Cant believe Beswick is a Warrington fan! Ive met him 3 times by the way! ;)

Why! That's where he's from.

Nothing wrong with being a Warrington fan :)

Another blast from Beswick and Frank Manc! :)

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Frank Manc: Let's have real freedom in pubs

I SPEND most of my lunchtimes in American-style coffee bars or the excellent Katsouris Greek deli on the corner of Deansgate and Jon Dalton Street.

When I meet friends now, especially in the daytime, I meet them in similar places.

There was a time when I went to a pub at dinnertime without question.

These days, I've pretty much stopped going to the pub, except on an occasional night out.

The main reason is not age - it's because I don't want to breathe in lots of other people's smoke.

I cannot be alone. It must be one reason why smoke-free places like Starbucks have done so well while pubs are shutting left, right and centre (as they were in Ireland before and after the ban there). Pub companies are daft if they believe the "smoking equals profit" formula is foolproof.

Now the government is half-heart- edly cutting down on smoking.

Its "compromise" is ludicrous. It reckons stopping smoking in pubs where they sell food is enough. However, the main reason for stopping it in the first place is to protect the pubs' staff. Staff who work in pubs that don't serve food are not immune to lung cancer. They are as likely to smoke passively as people whose working life is dominated by the question, "Is that chips or jacket?"

As Metro News reports today, a lot of the city's pubs say they'll just stop serving food to get around the ban.

If all pubs had a level playing field - and the ban was universal - they could all serve food.

Smokers would adapt - like they did when smoking was banned on buses, at the pictures, on aeroplanes and in offices.

Weed-fiends moan about loss of freedom.

Their argument is that they should be allowed to smoke and that anyone who doesn't want to breathe in their smoke should stay at home.

My argument is the reverse. I say if people want to smoke, they're the ones who should stay at home - although I'd quite like to take their children into care.

Anyway, I'd like some of this freedom myself. I'd like freedom to drink socially (I know there are health risks too, but they're all self-inflicted and I don't impose them on innocent bystanders) without worrying about what I'm breathing.

I'd like freedom from the stink of smoke.

I'd like freedom from having to wash my clothes after one night out.

I'd like freedom to breathe clean air.

I'd also like freedom from embarrassment.

Smokers are selfish. Look how they dispose of their butts. They rely on British people being too worried about making a scene to say "yes" when they ask if you mind them smoking. I've said "no" myself to avoid embarrassment, even though I minded a lot.

If all pubs were non-smoking, we'd not have to face that, either.

GREATER Manchester Police have been in touch.

They say: "Two dedicated police officers are taking to the beat in Collyhurst South, as part of a major new initiative to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour, as well as increasing public confidence."

Blah, blah, blah.

Welcome though it is, has it really got to the stage that bobbies actually walking the beat is deemed worthy of a press release?Frank Manc

Its that time of the week again!

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Beswick: Declare November 11 a Bank Holiday

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TODAY, November 11, is the day when the Commonwealth remembers those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their country. Most had little or no choice and without the manipulation of the government and press of the day few of them would have had any dispute with the so-called enemy.

Wars are, and always have been, the result of bad leadership. Remembrance Day began at the end of the "war to end all wars" in 1918 when at eleven o'clock in the morning towns and cities stood, heads bowed, for one minute contemplating that which had been endured and realising that a generation of young men would not be coming home. Services were held in religious buildings up and down the country and the various gods invited to look after the deceased and protect the remainder from such folly in the future.

Either the gods were not listening or the peace was insufficiently attractive to warrant its continuation so, in 1939, it all began again and hundreds of thousands more were needlessly killed. In 1945 the war was over once again and joy spread throughout the land but when the dancing in the streets was over, reality arrived.

New cenotaphs were built and the Old Contemptibles moved over to make way for new names and November 11 took on an even greater significance. But memories do not last for ever and, as the generations move further and further from the sacrificed, its effect is somewhat diluted. I concede that there has been a push in the last year or two to revive the day itself, guilt is a strong motivator but we cannot escape the fact that remembrance has been tidied up.

Some years ago it was pushed to the nearest Sunday so as not to disrupt the economy - they may have given their lives for their country but their country is damned if it is going to waste one precious industrial day for them, let's save our weeping for a day off. And weep they did. I recall, at a very early age, returning from Sunday Mass to find my mother cleaning the grate of ashes with tears streaming down her dusty face. "For the thousands of dead souls" was the explanation followed later by a longer chat.

It mattered to her, it matters to my Dad, it matters to all who were there but should it matter to today's children? I went to the Imperial War Museum North recently. It too seems to wrestle with this question.

THE exhibits treat war as a visual spectacle with no noticeable attempt made to give a feel of war. There are ration books and that ludicrous government information film from the 70s telling us to hide under the table in the event of a nuclear attack, but no sensation of what it was like to live through war.

There is a field gun all nice and clean, a naval mine posing no more threat that a big black egg and, of course, a solitary and lonely tank.

I know what a tank looks like, most of the kids of today know what a tank looks like, the men who were there know what a tank looks like, the museum does nothing I could see that told what it was like to live day-in, day-out in the metal innards of a mobile gun.

Major war has gone, if ever there is another there will be few survivors and only a handful of the '14 to '18 veterans remain. Even the '39 to '45 mob are in their eighties and thinning out all too rapidly. Perhaps at some time - definitely not now, but some time soon - we will have to stop pussy footing around and consider where we stand with war. Soon we will have to consider whether this annual parade of solemn looking politicians who never fired a shot in anger, royals who command ceremonial soldiers, men of the cloth who will pray for anything and white kneed military personnel should continue to nod respectfully to generations long forgotten.

"Never!" cries the British Legion but are not their number dwindling? They are known more for their car parks than the tremendous and essential work they do.

"Men are still dying" cry the armed forces and though that is true, we now talk in dozens not thousands.

Yes every life is sacred but must the world grind to an annual halt for so few? Perhaps the time has come where we celebrate neither victory nor the exorbitant price of that victory but, instead, remember with pride that which those men and women had their lives wrenched from them for - Britain and its values.

Not the closed bordered little Englander of the anti immigration lobby, nor yet the multi-cultured mumbo jumbo ever-open door of my particular persuasion but that of this green and pleasant land.

Instead of remembering the deaths we should celebrate that for which the lives were sacrificed. Britain a free nation, a people of warmth and generosity, strong in heart and prepared to offer safe haven to those in need, shelter to the homeless, food and succour to the destitute and, most of all, respect for his fellow being.

We often hear the cry for more bank holidays - we have the fewest amongst our fellow Europeans - might I respectfully suggest that a decade or two from now,

November 11 should be declared "Nation Day"

Everything except the barest essentials should close from 0001 hours until midnight and the streets be given over to a celebration of our people.

Not a royal day, definitely not a politician day, not even a broadcaster day, just all people, ordinary people, celebrating their equality before the law. Whatever their colour or creed, wherever their antecedents lie let all those who choose to be British and who have Britishness thrust upon them acknowledge that it is our world and that we all need each other for it to work.

I would happily parade once a year for that.

I spoke a few weeks ago of having two young persons in the house for a fortnight. I can report that they have been gone for a week now and I am already forgetting the minutiae of Doctor Who, learning to live without the constant beep of Playstation 2, consuming brightly coloured food again and, best of all, I think some of my hair is growing back!

He talks shite half of the time, he rants!