Independence Day

The Hunter
The hunter crouches in his blind
'Neath camouflage of every kind,
And conjures up a quacking noise
To lend allure to his decoys.
This grown-up man, with pluck and luck,
Is hoping to outwit a duck.

- Ogden Nash, from Versus (1949), 5.

This is not a comment on the war on terror.

Cigarettes will kill you

To mark the introduction of new anti-smoking laws in NSW, I thought I would offer this reflection from Ogden Nash:

Thoughts Thought after a Bridge Party
All women are pets,
But most women shouldn't be allowed to open a package of cigarettes.

I call down blessings on their bonny heads,
But they can't open a package of cigarettes without tearing it to shreds.

Of the two sexes, women are much the subtler,
But the way they open a package of cigarettes is comparable to opening
     a bottle of wine by cracking it on the butler.

Women are my inspiration and my queen,
But as long as they can rip the first cigarette from the package they don't
     care what happens to the other nineteen.

Women are my severest friend
But the last nineteen cigarettes in packages opened by them are not only bent
     but sere and withered and the tobacco is dribbling out at either end.

Women are creatures of ingenuity and gumption,
Which is why when they finish one cigarette they leave the mutilated nineteen
     cigarettes for some man and go to work on a fresh package, thus
     leaving thirty-eight mutilated cigarettes for masculine consumption.

Women are ethereal beings, subsisting entirely on chocolate marshmallow
     nut sundaes and cantaloupe,
But they open up a package of cigarettes like a lioness opening up an
     antelope.

- Ogden Nash, from Versus (1949), 6-7.

Speaking of cigarettess, Boxologies in Scotland, a libertarian turned smoking-ban enthusiast, has offered these extra suggestions in a flush of interventionism.

And since I've been offering so many points recently, I thought I'd just keep going. For eight points, what rank did chronic smoker Sir Winston Churchhill achieve in a recent BBC poll of the Greatest Britons? And for another five (with apologies to MK), which activity did he ban from his office during WWII?