Make the obese pay for two plane seats
Widdecombe
IF PEOPLE are so fat that they cannot fit into one seat on an aircraft, then they should be obliged to buy two seats so they can spill over in comfort and the rest of us can be spared being squashed by them. I write with feeling having spent four hours between Samoa and New Zealand with my arms stuck out in front of me, unable to use the armrests of my seat or to move freely because of the vastness of the people either side of me. I feel sorry for the very tall who cannot help being very tall and for whom economy section leg- room is just not designed but I am starting to lose it with the very obese.
The seats are perfectly adequate for a very fat person and I know somebody who takes a dress size 24 and who fits compactly into the seat and does not need a seatbelt extension ( just). It is only the utterly gigantic who have a problem and they can help themselves in a way the unusually tall cannot.
I can just hear now the cries of “discrimination” but they are not justified. I do not care how fat any adult is and I do not want to stop anybody travelling but at the point where it seriously affects other people’s wellbeing, then it is not asking too much to expect these two- ton Tessies to pay for two seats.
Thank heaven my agent was canny enough to negotiate a business class deal for the flight home from Auckland. Otherwise I might have spent 23 hours too squashed to move – and nobody should be expected to endure that in the name of tolerance for those who abuse their own bodies.
Britain is pretty good at helping fatties. Derbyshire Fire Service has just spent £ 300,000 on a special crane to rescue fat people who get stuck.
Those who become too vast to leave their own houses get angled out of windows into ambulances with special beds. People who wreck their joints, hearts and livers with overeating get treated by the NHS without demur. Stoutist we are not.
But I draw the line at allowing them to cause others to suffer needlessly.
GET THE FACTS STRAIGHT BEFORE ATTACKING CHRISTIANITY
I AM beginning to wonder if there is anybody left in this country, other than a practising Christian, who actually understands what Christianity is about.
When the Church of England tweeted it was praying for Richard Dawkins, the renowned atheist, after he had a stroke, it was accused of “gloating”, “sarcasm” and “trolling”. Ironically former MEP and Twitter user Nikki Sinclaire accuses the Church of ignorance when she is merely revealing herself to be profoundly ignorant. None of the protesters seems to understand that what the Church does is pray and Christ specifically commanded his followers to pray for their enemies and for those who persecute them.
Of course Christians are praying for Dawkins and no Christian would use prayer as a means of gloating, sarcasm or trolling because that would be to mock God.
I suspect Dawkins himself knows that rather better than do his supporters but they should still repent. Then we had all the fuss about Dan Walker, a practising Christian, who is the new face of BBC Breakfast and who refuses to work on the Sabbath.
How, screamed his critics, could he handle an interview on abortion when he is opposed to the practice? The answer is in precisely the same way that a pro- choice interviewer would handle a pro- life issue: professionally.
Then the poor chap is pilloried for believing in the literal version of Genesis’ account of creation. How, demand the nay- sayers, will he present a fossil find? Answer? As before. In practice his position is no different from that of a civil servant implementing a policy with which he does not privately agree.
Would a Muslim presenter get this sort of pasting? I doubt it.
I believe in the right of unbelievers to say that Christianity is a load of hogwash but at least they should get their facts straight before weighing in.