A big fine on the way?

Following the news that a farmer who lit up a cigarette in his tractor could face a fine of up to £1,000 after he was deemed to be smoking in his workplace in a commercial vehicle capable of “carrying more than one person”, a 66-year old farmer from the Battery Road in Ardboe has been fined £300 on the spot for smoking a cigarette (Marlboro) whilst manoeuvring a barrow full of compost from his garden to the rampart.

Patsy Quinn, who will contest the fine, maintains it’s one rule for government ministers and another for the average Joe:

“I remember seeing McGuinness holding a barrow up with yer woman O’Neill in her and him with a Benson and Hedges drooping from his lip. There was no word of fines or the like then. Ghost oh, it’s a joke.”

Quinn will also contest the fine on the grounds that his barrow couldn’t hold any of the women in his family as they were ‘all big eaters’, negating the suggestion that it’s a two-person contraption.

Jackie Conlon also appeared before a magistrate at Cookstown Court this morning on a charge of smoking whilst in control of a donkey and cart he uses to sell eels around Moortown and Ballinderry.

Conlon (71) admitted to freely smoking a Cuban cigar on a vehicle capable of carrying ‘about 15 people’ in the back of it. On accepting the charge, an emotional Conlon added:

“Have yiz nothing better til be at like. The country’s couped.”