It wasn't exactly the dramatic finale one cricket fan was expecting. Having installed himself in his local pub to watch England play India, John Vaughan was enraged when the channel was switched over to football just as the cricket was reaching its thrilling conclusion.
The only way a cricket match could have a thrilling conclusion would be if a Harrier picked that moment to make an emergency landing on the pitch.
So Mr Vaughan lit up a cigarette in protest. When he refused to extinguish it, staff pressed a panic button behind the bar. And a few minutes later six riot police officers wearing protective gear stormed the pub.
The control freak/busybody lobby is obviously trying to follow up the great success they have had in stamping out marijuana and alcohol over the last 150 years.
Mr Vaughan had been watching the one-day international at the Copper Pot pub in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, last month. The game was about to finish when the channel was switched to the England versus Israel Euro 2008 football qualifier.
Mr Vaughan said yesterday: "The cricket only had ten minutes left, but the football wasn't even going to start for another 45 minutes. "We complained but nothing happened. So I decided to light up out of protest. "Staff told me I couldn't smoke, but I said I'd had enough of being pushed around by the Government. "They pressed a panic button and the next thing I knew, there were six policemen in the pub and two outside."
| He's lucky. American bars generally have either a) bouncers or b) owners with baseball bats. |
Warwickshire Police confirmed officers had been sent to the pub on September 8 following reports of a man "smoking and being aggressive". A spokesman said: "They explained why he should not be smoking, asked him to leave and he did so happily
It is remarkable and ominous how a gang of neurotic control-freaks, the health activist industry, have turned a clinically diagnosed mental illness, the compulsion to control others, into a mass movement that they have then used to put themselves into power. I have an idea: get little American and Israeli flags printed in food color on your cigarette papers. That way, you can burn them anywhere and claim protected free speech. Yell "Allahu Akbar!" a few times and the bobbies won't dare mess with you.